How Democrats Destroyed The Economy

[Wry Catcher]

Another 100% biased thread by PC.
Yep, I didn't read it. I've read enough opinions from people much more qualified than any political hack. A huge majority of economist blame; The Fed, the Dems, the GOP, the banks, unqualified home buyers and Wall Street.
But with PC, noooooo, it's all the Dems fault! When a person is as loyal to an ideology as PC, you're never going to get an objective view on anything that's political.

Spot on!

 

[thanatos144]

Amazing.... The progressives just ignore the truth and proudly proclaim they are doing it like that will obfuscate it LOL

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

How Democrats Destroyed The Economy

I'm pretty sure Democrats and Republicans together did a bang up job butt fucking us all.

 

[thanatos144]

How Democrats Destroyed The Economy

I'm pretty sure Democrats and Republicans together did a bang up job butt fucking us all.

I know people Like Ron Paul truly fucked us.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Another 100% biased thread by PC.
Yep, I didn't read it. I've read enough opinions from people much more qualified than any political hack. A huge majority of economist blame; The Fed, the Dems, the GOP, the banks, unqualified home buyers and Wall Street.
But with PC, noooooo, it's all the Dems fault! When a person is as loyal to an ideology as PC, you're never going to get an objective view on anything that's political.

Spot on!

And another brilliant "Yep, I didn't read it." gomeril!



I found a pic of you and kiwiboy actually opening a book:


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3ythpzsu18]The Incredible Melting Nazi - YouTube[/ame]

 

[editec]

When are the resident GOP loyalists (or for that matter the DEM loyalists) going to look at the facts rather than simply listening to their parties happy time buullshitting rhetoric?

If one very carefully elects to ignore all the evidence that condemns YOUR party, then it is very very easy to find thge dirt on the OTHER party.

One of these days you idiot partisans might get it.

 

[PoliticalChic]

When are the resident GOP loyalists (or for that matter the DEM loyalists) going to look at the facts rather than simply listening to their parties happy time buullshitting rhetoric?

If one very carefully elects to ignore all the evidence that condemns YOUR party, then it is very very easy to find thge dirt on the OTHER party.

One of these days you idiot partisans might get it.

Was this post a substitute for the one you were unable to write.....you know, where you explain all the errors in my outline of why Democrat doctrine is the reason for the meltdown?

 

[Spoonman]

and now andrew cuomo is poisoning NY like his father before him

 

[PoliticalChic]

Got to admit it......Liberals have figured out a great time saver:

"Yep, I didn't read it."

I read it and you started the clock at the wrong time.

The countdown to meltdown, started with the Reagan tax cuts for the rich.

Clinton's contribution was signing the bill that officially repealed Glass-Steegall.

And it wasn't the housing bubble that caused the collapse, it was the derrivitives market.

The "sanitized" QE that started when Volcker retired and Greenspan took over is a much better candidate for cause. Starting with the 87 crash and straight through now it has been bubble and bust. By keeping interest rates low savings were discouraged and speculation was encouraged. I realize that this is not used as a talking point by either party but in conjunction with the Japanese experience and now the Chinese experience it fits the facts a lot better than anyone's talking points.

Willie, Willie, Willie.....



"The meltdown couldn’t have happened without Washington’s unexamined assumption that homeownership would transform the lives of low-income buyers in positive ways. “The program could not work because it tried to solve a problem of wealth creation through debt creation,” Harvard historian Louis Hyman recently observed, aptly comparing the FHA scandals with today’s subprime crisis.


Let's go over the details....and you'll see they prove exactly what I've said:


a. Congress passed a bill in 1975 requiring banks to provide the government with information on their lending activities in poor urban areas. Two years later, it passed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which gave regulators the power to deny banks the right to expand if they didn’t lend sufficiently in those neighborhoods. In 1979 the FDIC used the CRA to block a move by the Greater NY Savings Bank for not enough lending.

b. In 1986, when the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn) threatened to oppose an acquisition by a southern bank, Louisiana Bancshares, until it agreed to new “flexible credit and underwriting standards” for minority borrowers—for example, counting public assistance and food stamps as income.

c. In 1987, Acorn led a coalition of advocacy groups calling for industry-wide changes in lending standards. Among the demanded reforms were the easing of minimum down-payment requirements and of the requirement that borrowers have enough cash at a closing to cover two to three months of mortgage payments (research had shown that lack of money in hand was a big reason some mortgages failed quickly).

d. ACORN then attacked Fannie Mae, the giant quasi-government agency that bought loans from banks in order to allow them to make new loans. Its underwriters were “strictly by-the-book interpreters” of lending standards and turned down purchases of unconventional loans, charged Acorn. The pressure eventually paid off. In 1992, Congress passed legislation requiring Fannie Mae and the similar Freddie Mac to devote 30 percent of their loan purchases to mortgages for low- and moderate-income borrowers.





e. Clinton Administration housing secretary, Henry Cisneros, declared that he would expand homeownership among lower- and lower-middle-income renters. His strategy: pushing for no-down-payment loans; expanding the size of mortgages that the government would insure against losses; and using the CRA and other lending laws to direct more private money into low-income programs.

f. Shortly after Cisneros announced his plan, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac agreed to begin buying loans under new, looser guidelines. Freddie Mac, for instance, started approving low-income buyers with bad credit histories or none at all, so long as they were current on rent and utilities payments. Freddie Mac also said that it would begin counting income from seasonal jobs and public assistance toward its income minimum, despite the FHA disaster of the sixties.

g. Freddie Mac began an “alternative qualifying” program with the Sears Mortgage Corporation that let a borrower qualify for a loan with a monthly payment as high as 50 percent of his income, at a time when most private mortgage companies wouldn’t exceed 33 percent. The program also allowed borrowers with bad credit to get mortgages if they took credit-counseling classes administered by Acorn and other nonprofits. Subsequent research would show that such classes have little impact on default rates.

h. Pressuring nonbank lenders to make more loans to poor minorities didn’t stop with Sears. If it didn’t happen, Clinton officials warned, they’d seek to extend CRA regulations to all mortgage makers. In Congress, Representative Maxine Waters called financial firms not covered by the CRA “among the most egregious redliners.”





i. Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) shocked the financial world by signing a 1994 agreement with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), pledging to increase lending to minorities and join in new efforts to rewrite lending standards. The first MBA member to sign up: Countrywide Financial, the mortgage firm that would be at the core of the subprime meltdown.

j. A 1998 sales pitch by a Bear Stearns managing director advised banks to begin packaging their loans to low-income borrowers into securities that the firm could sell. Forget traditional underwriting standards when considering these loans, the director advised. For a low-income borrower, he continued in all-too-familiar terms, owning a home was “a near-sacred obligation. A family will do almost anything to meet that monthly mortgage payment.” Bunk, says Stan Liebowitz, a professor of economics at the University of Texas: “The claim that lower-income homeowners are somehow different in their devotion to their home is a purely emotional claim with no evidence to support it.”

k. Any concern was quickly dismissed. When in early 2000 the FDIC proposed increasing capital requirements for lenders making “subprime” loans—loans to people with questionable credit, that is—Democratic representative Carolyn Maloney of New York told a congressional hearing that she feared that the step would dry up CRA loans. Her fellow New York Democrat John J. LaFalce urged regulators “not to be premature” in imposing new regulations.

l. In July 1999, HUD proposed new levels for Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s low-income lending; in September, Fannie Mae agreed to begin purchasing loans made to “borrowers with slightly impaired credit”—that is, with credit standards even lower than the government had been pushing for a generation.

m. In 2004 Congress pressed new affordable-housing goals on the two mortgage giants, which through 2007 purchased some $1 trillion in loans to lower- and moderate-income buyers. The buying spree helped spark a massive increase in securitization of mortgages to people with dubious credit.

n. In October 1994, Fannie Mae head James Johnson had reminded a banking convention that mortgages with small down payments had a much higher risk of defaulting. (A Duff & Phelps study found that they were nearly three times more likely to default than conventional mortgages.) Yet the very next month, Fannie Mae said that it expected to back loans to low-income home buyers with a 97 percent loan-to-value ratio—that is, loans in which the buyer puts down just 3 percent—as part of a commitment, made earlier that year to Congress, to purchase $1 trillion in affordable-housing mortgages by the end of the nineties. According to Edward Pinto, who served as the company’s chief credit officer, the program was the result of political pressure on Fannie Mae trumping lending standards.





o. In 1992, the Boston Fed produced an extraordinary 29-page document that codified the new lending wisdom. Conventional mortgage criteria, the report argued, might be “unintentionally biased” because they didn’t take into account “the economic culture of urban, lower-income and nontraditional customers.” Lenders should thus consider junking the industry’s traditional income-to-payments ratio and stop viewing an applicant’s “lack of credit history” as a “negative factor.” Further, if applicants had bad credit, banks should “consider extenuating circumstances”—even though a study by mortgage insurance companies would soon show, not surprisingly, that borrowers with no credit rating or a bad one were far more likely to default. If applicants didn’t have enough savings for a down payment, the Boston Fed urged, banks should allow loans from nonprofits or government assistance agencies to count toward one. A later study of Freddie Mac mortgages would find that a borrower who made a down payment with third-party funds was four times more likely to default, a reminder that traditional underwriting standards weren’t arbitrary but based on historical lending patterns.

p. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus launched Hogar in 2003, an initiative that pushed for easing lending standards for immigrants, including touting so-called seller-financed mortgages in which a builder provided down-payment aid to buyers via contributions to nonprofit groups. As a result, mortgage lending to Hispanics soared. And today, in districts where Hispanics make up at least 25 percent of the population, foreclosure rates are now nearly 50 percent higher than the national average, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

q. Republicans and Democrats, meanwhile, have scrambled to reignite the housing market through ill-conceived tax credits and renewed federal subsidies for mortgages, including the Obama administration’s mortgage bailout plan, which recalls the New Deal’s HOLC. Behind these efforts is a fundamental misconception among politicians that housing drives the American economy and therefore demands subsidy at virtually any cost. Our praiseworthy initial efforts—to eliminate housing discrimination and provide all Americans an equal opportunity to buy a home—were eventually turned on their heads by advocates and politicians, who instead tried to ensure equality of outcomes."
Obsessive Housing Disorder by Steven Malanga, City Journal Spring 2009




Again:
"...the program was the result of [Democrat] political pressure on Fannie Mae trumping lending standards."

So....as I have said.....and proven.....the crisis is the responsibility of Democrat policy: "social justice" taking precedent over traditional free market based scrutiny.



The crisis was caused by:
a. Some Democrats

b.Other Democrats

c. Support by......Democrats.

 

[jwoodie]

So were any lenders ever forced to make loans even when they knew that applicants were not qualified?

The government never told lenders to relax standard banking procedures when vetting the credit worthiness of applicants.

Of course it did:

1. Banks were told that federal approval of expansions/consolidations would be conditioned on increasing their loans to minority applicants.

2. Fannie and Freddie were all too happy to buy up these loans with little or no documentation of credit worthiness.

3. In so doing, they created a market for subprime loans, which were then traded as having implied government backing.

Do you really believe that financial institutions were all suddenly infected with a "greed virus" which caused them to deliberately undermine their existence?

 

[Sarah G]

How Democrats Destroyed The Economy

I'm pretty sure Democrats and Republicans together did a bang up job butt fucking us all.

And once again the guy with the goofy username sticks with his noncommittal and most rhetorical BS.

 

[Spoonman]

Another 100% biased thread by PC.
Yep, I didn't read it. I've read enough opinions from people much more qualified than any political hack. A huge majority of economist blame; The Fed, the Dems, the GOP, the banks, unqualified home buyers and Wall Street.
But with PC, noooooo, it's all the Dems fault! When a person is as loyal to an ideology as PC, you're never going to get an objective view on anything that's political.

Well I read the post. You didn't miss anything. Given that the Clinton administration and Bill Clinton was much to cozy with Wall Street and bought into the deregulation schtick. You don't have to cast Cuomo as the fall guy for this, Larry Summers and a bunch of people who should have known better were pushing it. It was a epic huge mistake in judgment. That is much more apparent now than it was at the time, but some people spotted the problem from the beginning.

Your criticism of PC is spot on. The problem was Wall Street influence in both parties in general, and the "centrist" political strategy of the Clinton administration in particular. So what's the takeaway? I think Obama still doesn't get it. Wall Street doesn't give a shit for systemic risk, they are perfectly willing to let the house burn down as long as they have a clear path to the door with their money. That money was gained by setting fire. Stop making arson profitable, and the fires will stop.

You can get off your knees now.....your Democrat creds have been burnished.

OK...now, stand up and pretend to be a man.



The essence of the OP is simply that Democrat policies are responsible for the mortgage meltdown.

The proof is easily established.....to any with the exception of Democrat dupes....
Clearly you've made that list.



Had the Democrats honored the Constitution, specifically the enumerated powers, then Emperor Franklin the First would not have created Fannie nor Freddie.
To put that another way.....if Democrats had faith in substituting "social justice" for the free market.....why didn't they author an amendment toward that end?


The answer is that, as with every totalitarian government, Democrats mandate whatsoever they wish, laws be damned.



Here is your remedial:
1. Democrat FDR shredded the Constitution....ignoring article I, section 8, the enumerated powers.
He created GSE's Fannie and Freddie to do something the Constitution didn't authorize: meddle in housing.

2. Democrat Carter....the CRA, constraining banking policy

3. Democrat Clinton....strengthened the CRA
Under Clinton, HUD threatened banks, again, to give unrequited loans.
Henchmen: Democrats Cisneros and Cuomo.

4. Democrats Frank and Dodd barred any governmental discipline in this area.


That's the CliffNotes version.
The OP will provide you with far more details than you can handle.

i'm still waiting for any liberal to show me the legislation put into place under Bush that they claim destroyed the economy and ruined the housing market.

 

[Moonglow]

Well I read the post. You didn't miss anything. Given that the Clinton administration and Bill Clinton was much to cozy with Wall Street and bought into the deregulation schtick. You don't have to cast Cuomo as the fall guy for this, Larry Summers and a bunch of people who should have known better were pushing it. It was a epic huge mistake in judgment. That is much more apparent now than it was at the time, but some people spotted the problem from the beginning.

Your criticism of PC is spot on. The problem was Wall Street influence in both parties in general, and the "centrist" political strategy of the Clinton administration in particular. So what's the takeaway? I think Obama still doesn't get it. Wall Street doesn't give a shit for systemic risk, they are perfectly willing to let the house burn down as long as they have a clear path to the door with their money. That money was gained by setting fire. Stop making arson profitable, and the fires will stop.

You can get off your knees now.....your Democrat creds have been burnished.

OK...now, stand up and pretend to be a man.



The essence of the OP is simply that Democrat policies are responsible for the mortgage meltdown.

The proof is easily established.....to any with the exception of Democrat dupes....
Clearly you've made that list.



Had the Democrats honored the Constitution, specifically the enumerated powers, then Emperor Franklin the First would not have created Fannie nor Freddie.
To put that another way.....if Democrats had faith in substituting "social justice" for the free market.....why didn't they author an amendment toward that end?


The answer is that, as with every totalitarian government, Democrats mandate whatsoever they wish, laws be damned.



Here is your remedial:
1. Democrat FDR shredded the Constitution....ignoring article I, section 8, the enumerated powers.
He created GSE's Fannie and Freddie to do something the Constitution didn't authorize: meddle in housing.

2. Democrat Carter....the CRA, constraining banking policy

3. Democrat Clinton....strengthened the CRA
Under Clinton, HUD threatened banks, again, to give unrequited loans.
Henchmen: Democrats Cisneros and Cuomo.

4. Democrats Frank and Dodd barred any governmental discipline in this area.


That's the CliffNotes version.
The OP will provide you with far more details than you can handle.

i'm still waiting for any liberal to show me the legislation put into place under Bush that they claim destroyed the economy and ruined the housing market.

I am still waiting for you to post any evidence the GOP tried to restrain the so-called democratic policy of ruining the USA's economy. Same with Polyvinylchic.

 

[PoliticalChic]

You can get off your knees now.....your Democrat creds have been burnished.

OK...now, stand up and pretend to be a man.



The essence of the OP is simply that Democrat policies are responsible for the mortgage meltdown.

The proof is easily established.....to any with the exception of Democrat dupes....
Clearly you've made that list.



Had the Democrats honored the Constitution, specifically the enumerated powers, then Emperor Franklin the First would not have created Fannie nor Freddie.
To put that another way.....if Democrats had faith in substituting "social justice" for the free market.....why didn't they author an amendment toward that end?


The answer is that, as with every totalitarian government, Democrats mandate whatsoever they wish, laws be damned.



Here is your remedial:
1. Democrat FDR shredded the Constitution....ignoring article I, section 8, the enumerated powers.
He created GSE's Fannie and Freddie to do something the Constitution didn't authorize: meddle in housing.

2. Democrat Carter....the CRA, constraining banking policy

3. Democrat Clinton....strengthened the CRA
Under Clinton, HUD threatened banks, again, to give unrequited loans.
Henchmen: Democrats Cisneros and Cuomo.

4. Democrats Frank and Dodd barred any governmental discipline in this area.


That's the CliffNotes version.
The OP will provide you with far more details than you can handle.

i'm still waiting for any liberal to show me the legislation put into place under Bush that they claim destroyed the economy and ruined the housing market.

I am still waiting for you to post any evidence the GOP tried to restrain the so-called democratic policy of ruining the USA's economy. Same with Polyvinylchic.

"... any evidence the GOP tried to restrain the so-called democratic policy of ruining the USA's economy. Same with Polyvinylchic."

Now....watch how I make you look like the Washington Generals to my Harlem Globetrotters....




WASHINGTON, Sept. 10— The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The proposal is the opening act in one of the biggest and most significant lobbying battles of the Congressional session.

After the hearing, Representative Michael G. Oxley, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, and Senator Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, announced their intention to draft legislation based on the administration's proposal. Industry executives said Congress could complete action on legislation before leaving for recess in the fall.

''The regulator has not only been outmanned, it has been outlobbied,'' said Representative Richard H. Baker, the Louisiana Republican who has proposed legislation similar to the administration proposal and who leads a subcommittee that oversees the companies. ''Being underfunded does not explain how a glowing report of Freddie's operations was released only hours before the managerial upheaval that followed. This is not world-class regulatory work.''

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''
Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - NYTimes.com



How ya' like me now, boyyyyyeeeeee?????

 

[G.T.]

the first sentence made me stop reading.

the economic collapse was before Obama's time. so, thread not credible.

 

[Moonglow]

So they talked about it.

 

[Spoonman]

i'm still waiting for any liberal to show me the legislation put into place under Bush that they claim destroyed the economy and ruined the housing market.

I am still waiting for you to post any evidence the GOP tried to restrain the so-called democratic policy of ruining the USA's economy. Same with Polyvinylchic.

"... any evidence the GOP tried to restrain the so-called democratic policy of ruining the USA's economy. Same with Polyvinylchic."

Now....watch how I make you look like the Washington Generals to my Harlem Globetrotters....




WASHINGTON, Sept. 10— The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The proposal is the opening act in one of the biggest and most significant lobbying battles of the Congressional session.

After the hearing, Representative Michael G. Oxley, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, and Senator Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, announced their intention to draft legislation based on the administration's proposal. Industry executives said Congress could complete action on legislation before leaving for recess in the fall.

''The regulator has not only been outmanned, it has been outlobbied,'' said Representative Richard H. Baker, the Louisiana Republican who has proposed legislation similar to the administration proposal and who leads a subcommittee that oversees the companies. ''Being underfunded does not explain how a glowing report of Freddie's operations was released only hours before the managerial upheaval that followed. This is not world-class regulatory work.''

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''
Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - NYTimes.com



How ya' like me now, boyyyyyeeeeee?????

so you can't provide any legislations they passed. looks like you just scored on your own basket genious. General 1 - Globe trotters 0 meadowlark lemon laughs at you

 

[jwoodie]

the first sentence made me stop reading.

the economic collapse was before Obama's time. so, thread not credible.

Not bad for a 2 year old!

 

[rdean]

If Republicans were able to use reconcilliation three times during the Bush years, they could have, well, you know.....

 

[JWBooth]

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.

This course was set with the passage of the 16th amendment and the creation of the central bank, the outcome is/was inevitable.