Jeezzz....how many times must we hear the self-serving myth about the economic crisis that Obama accepted (created?) was as terrible as the Great Depression???
OK....let's say it was.
Just add the fact that from FDR, to Jimmy Carter, through the Clinton administration and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.....all of the culprits responsible were Democrats.
The Über -Liberal Village Voice had a dynamite expose laying huge slices of blame where it belongs.
1. "There are as many starting points for the mortgage meltdown as there are fears about how far it has yet to go, but one decisive point of departure is the final years of the Clinton administration, when a kid from Queens without any real banking or real-estate experience was the only man in Washington with the power to regulate the giants of home finance, theFederal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), better known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
a. [Democrat] Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis.
2. [Democrat Cuomo] helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded "kickbacks" to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans.
3. ... few have noticed that the only federal agency with the power to regulate what Cuomo has called "the gods of Washington" was HUD. Congress granted that power in 1992,.... most analysts have portrayed Fannie and Freddie as if they were unregulated renegades, and rarely mentioned HUD in the ongoing finger-pointing exercise that has ranged, appropriately enough, from Wall Street toAlan Greenspan.
a. .... [Democrat] Cuomo, who did more to set these forces of unregulated expansion in motion than any other secretary and then boasted about it, presenting his initiatives as crusades for racial and social justice.
4. In 2000, Cuomo required a quantum leap in the number of affordable, low-to-moderate-income loans that the two mortgage banks—known collectively as Government Sponsored Enterprises—would have to buy. ... The 1992 law required HUD's secretary to make sure housing goals were being met and, every four years, set new goals for Fannie and Freddie. Cuomo's predecessor, [Democrat] Henry Cisneros, did that for the first time in December 1995, taking a cautious approach and moving the GSEs toward a requirement that 42 percent of their mortgages serve low- and moderate-income families. Cuomo raised that number to 50 percent and dramatically hiked GSE mandates to buy mortgages in underserved neighborhoods and for the "very-low-income." Part of the pitch was racial, with Cuomo contending that Fannie and Freddie weren't granting mortgages to minorities at the same rate as the private market.
5. While many saw this demand for increasingly "flexible" loan terms and standards as a positive step for low-income and minority families, others warned that they could have potentially dangerous consequences... that Cuomo's rules were moving Fannie into risky territory... Fannie's chief financial officer, Timothy Howard, said that "making loans to people with less-than-perfect credit" is "something we should do."
a. Moody's didn't sound an immediate alarm, but its senior analyst, Stanislas Rouyer, said the expansion into subprime loans and the lower level of documentation that came with them could mean that Fannie 's loss levels would increase in the future.
b. Steven Holmes, a reporter from the Times's Washington bureau, wrote at the time: "In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But," he added, "the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, ....
6. .... after Cuomo's previous edict, there had been a sudden spurt of GSE subprime investment, "partly in response to higher affordable-housing goals set by HUD in 2000." Fannie had gone from $1.2 billion in subprime-mortgage and securities purchases in 2000 to $9.2 billion in 2001 and $15 billion in 2002. Freddie's numbers were murkier, but clearly also on the rise. In 2003 alone, the two bought $81 billion in subprime securities—which also count against the goals.
a. .... Fannie also developed a "flexible" product line, providing up to 100 percent financing and requiring borrowers to make as little as a $500 contribution,...
7. The HUD secretary is also required to produce voluminous rules that govern how the GSEs meet those goals, and the 187-page rules Cuomo issued opened the door to abuse. The rules explicitly rejected the idea of imposing any new reporting requirements on the GSEs. In other words, HUD wanted Fannie and Freddie to buy risky loans, but the department didn't want to hear just how risky they were..... caution had been abandoned: "HUD is not establishing any requirements for additional data to carry out this rule." The report explained that the GSEs "objected" to information mandates "related to their purchases of high-cost mortgages," so HUD decided against imposing "an undue additional burden." HUD would have no way of telling how abusive the low-income mortgages it was mandating might be.
8. ..... Cuomo [did I mention he is a Democrat?]... was also being pushed to commit the GSEs to more affordable and, in some cases, riskier loans by consumer organizations—groups like ACORN, which has considerable clout in New York elections. The housing advocates were happy with Cuomo's goal-setting at HUD, but the lax reporting requirements and predatory-lending loopholes suggest who was actually driving his agenda."
Andrew Cuomo and Fannie and Freddie - Page 1 - News - New York - Village Voice
So.....lots of folks made beaucoup bucks in the run-up to the Mortgage Meltdown....but at the heart of it....
...Democrat policies.
Don't forget it.
Substituting "social justice" for the restrictions of the free market is what Democrat policies are founded on.
The result is clear.
OK....let's say it was.
Just add the fact that from FDR, to Jimmy Carter, through the Clinton administration and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.....all of the culprits responsible were Democrats.
The Über -Liberal Village Voice had a dynamite expose laying huge slices of blame where it belongs.
1. "There are as many starting points for the mortgage meltdown as there are fears about how far it has yet to go, but one decisive point of departure is the final years of the Clinton administration, when a kid from Queens without any real banking or real-estate experience was the only man in Washington with the power to regulate the giants of home finance, theFederal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), better known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
a. [Democrat] Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis.
2. [Democrat Cuomo] helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded "kickbacks" to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans.
3. ... few have noticed that the only federal agency with the power to regulate what Cuomo has called "the gods of Washington" was HUD. Congress granted that power in 1992,.... most analysts have portrayed Fannie and Freddie as if they were unregulated renegades, and rarely mentioned HUD in the ongoing finger-pointing exercise that has ranged, appropriately enough, from Wall Street toAlan Greenspan.
a. .... [Democrat] Cuomo, who did more to set these forces of unregulated expansion in motion than any other secretary and then boasted about it, presenting his initiatives as crusades for racial and social justice.
4. In 2000, Cuomo required a quantum leap in the number of affordable, low-to-moderate-income loans that the two mortgage banks—known collectively as Government Sponsored Enterprises—would have to buy. ... The 1992 law required HUD's secretary to make sure housing goals were being met and, every four years, set new goals for Fannie and Freddie. Cuomo's predecessor, [Democrat] Henry Cisneros, did that for the first time in December 1995, taking a cautious approach and moving the GSEs toward a requirement that 42 percent of their mortgages serve low- and moderate-income families. Cuomo raised that number to 50 percent and dramatically hiked GSE mandates to buy mortgages in underserved neighborhoods and for the "very-low-income." Part of the pitch was racial, with Cuomo contending that Fannie and Freddie weren't granting mortgages to minorities at the same rate as the private market.
5. While many saw this demand for increasingly "flexible" loan terms and standards as a positive step for low-income and minority families, others warned that they could have potentially dangerous consequences... that Cuomo's rules were moving Fannie into risky territory... Fannie's chief financial officer, Timothy Howard, said that "making loans to people with less-than-perfect credit" is "something we should do."
a. Moody's didn't sound an immediate alarm, but its senior analyst, Stanislas Rouyer, said the expansion into subprime loans and the lower level of documentation that came with them could mean that Fannie 's loss levels would increase in the future.
b. Steven Holmes, a reporter from the Times's Washington bureau, wrote at the time: "In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But," he added, "the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, ....
6. .... after Cuomo's previous edict, there had been a sudden spurt of GSE subprime investment, "partly in response to higher affordable-housing goals set by HUD in 2000." Fannie had gone from $1.2 billion in subprime-mortgage and securities purchases in 2000 to $9.2 billion in 2001 and $15 billion in 2002. Freddie's numbers were murkier, but clearly also on the rise. In 2003 alone, the two bought $81 billion in subprime securities—which also count against the goals.
a. .... Fannie also developed a "flexible" product line, providing up to 100 percent financing and requiring borrowers to make as little as a $500 contribution,...
7. The HUD secretary is also required to produce voluminous rules that govern how the GSEs meet those goals, and the 187-page rules Cuomo issued opened the door to abuse. The rules explicitly rejected the idea of imposing any new reporting requirements on the GSEs. In other words, HUD wanted Fannie and Freddie to buy risky loans, but the department didn't want to hear just how risky they were..... caution had been abandoned: "HUD is not establishing any requirements for additional data to carry out this rule." The report explained that the GSEs "objected" to information mandates "related to their purchases of high-cost mortgages," so HUD decided against imposing "an undue additional burden." HUD would have no way of telling how abusive the low-income mortgages it was mandating might be.
8. ..... Cuomo [did I mention he is a Democrat?]... was also being pushed to commit the GSEs to more affordable and, in some cases, riskier loans by consumer organizations—groups like ACORN, which has considerable clout in New York elections. The housing advocates were happy with Cuomo's goal-setting at HUD, but the lax reporting requirements and predatory-lending loopholes suggest who was actually driving his agenda."
Andrew Cuomo and Fannie and Freddie - Page 1 - News - New York - Village Voice
So.....lots of folks made beaucoup bucks in the run-up to the Mortgage Meltdown....but at the heart of it....
...Democrat policies.
Don't forget it.
Substituting "social justice" for the restrictions of the free market is what Democrat policies are founded on.
The result is clear.
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