Democrats Caused The Global Financial Meltdown

[Meister]

WOW... Did kiss my declare that it was both sides fault? All I can say is...HACK.

WHAT litany of points??? The first point is a DEAD link that has no article attached to it.
--1991-- ACORN interfered with a House Banking Committee meeting for two days protesting a move to bring CRA reform.


Irony...if people had listened to ACORN, maybe the foreclosure crisis would have been averted...

Acorn Led Financial Sector With Warnings on Lending
The national advocacy group appears to deserve recognition for its prudent -- and ignored -- early advice about home loan practices.

In fact – according to a string of 1999 and 2000 reports in American Banker, a 173-year-old publication calling itself "the leading information resource serving the banking and financial services community" – ACORN was an outspoken, consistent advocate for exactly the kinds of regulations that experts across the political spectrum now agree could have prevented the global economic crisis.

On August 4, 2000, American Banker reported on ACORN protests at nationwide offices of Lehman Brothers – the investment bank that went bankrupt last month because of its investment in over-valued mortgage-backed securities:

"Acorn members said they want Lehman and other investment banks to sign a code of ethics, pledging to adhere to 'best practices' in the mortgage lending business. Though the banks are not lenders, the group argues that they provide capital and financial support to abusive lenders by buying and securitizing their loans.

'They have to look at the terms of the loans they are funding and say they won't buy or securitize loans with unconscionable terms,' said Bertha Lewis, executive director of Acorn in New York. 'These secondary market players can see what kind of loans these are. They must refuse to buy loans from predatory lenders.'"

ACORN's campaign to get investment banks to adopt best practices for the mortgages they bought was aimed at drying up the secondary market for the toxic mortgages now at the bottom of the fallen financial house of cards. If investment banks didn't buy the shady loans, predatory lenders wouldn't receive the capital to make such loans, ACORN reasoned.

Acorn Led Financial Sector With Warnings on Lending - City Limits Magazine - CityLimits.org

ACORN to Protest Predatory Lending at Wells Fargo Annual Meeting

Publication: Business Wire
Date: Thursday, April 22 2004

Business Editors

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 22, 2004

More than 125 ACORN members will demonstrate at Wells Fargo's annual meeting on April 27 to protest the company's predatory lending practices. Members will travel to Wells' San Francisco headquarters to confront Wells' top managers about abusive mortgage loans.

ACORN to Protest Predatory Lending at Wells Fargo Annual Meeting; ACORN Members Will Also Speak at Meeting in Support of Anti-Predatory Lending Resolution. | Trends & Events > Talks & Meetings from AllBusiness.com


Poor People Protest predatory lending practices by Wells Fargo

WASHINGTON - The racially discriminatory, predatory lending practices of Wells Fargo, along with President George Bush’s Social Security Privatization plan, were targets of hundreds of ACORN members protesting in Washington March 7.

Demonstrators from Florida to Massachusetts, to Ohio, to as far away as Chicago descended on Washington, bringing with them ACORN’s “take-it-to-streets” tactics to make known their opposition to the privatization of Social Security; to rally at the offices of major tax preparation firms which make quick “tax-return loans”; and to release a new report demonstrating racial discrimination and predatory lending by Wells Fargo during the group’s 2005 Legislative Conference.

“We have actually been doing a campaign on Wells Fargo, to improve their practices on lending for several years now,” Matthew Mayers, legislative director of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), said in an interview.

A lot of ACORN’s attention has been focused on predatory lending practices by banks and mortgage companies that result in low-income people, the elderly, and non-Whites being much more likely to get bad loans that take money away from them unfairly, said Mr. Mayers. Predatory lending involves charging exorbitant interest rates, failing to disclose all loan terms, and marketing to people with financial and credit problems who likely cannot repay a loan. They are loans which are doomed to fail.

In early February, about 100 ACORN demonstrators protested inside and outside the Wells Fargo Financial building in Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania. The protesters occupied the lender’s downtown Harrisburg office for about 20 minutes until police arrived and dispersed the crowd, according to WNEP-TV 16.

Many predatory lending victims have lost their homes, said Mr. Mayers. “They’re sort of ‘bait and switch’ and people don’t know the kind of loan they’re going to get and then they find out” when it’s too late. “Our new study actually shows that people of color, particularly African Americans, are much more likely to be singled out for some of these bad loans.

“We’re really calling on (Wells Fargo) to change their practices,” he said.

In another case, after seven years of litigation by the Federal Trade Commission, the agency reached an agreement with Capital City Mortgage Corp. in late February. Capital City is a Washington-based company whose home-lending practices triggered a national assault on abusive lending. Capital City agreed it would stop making consumer loans that use a house as security and that it would disclose fees and terms on future commercial loans.

Capital City was alleged to have used fraud and deception to put minority homeowners with credit problems into loans they couldn’t afford. The high fees and high-interest penalties reportedly sent many into foreclosure.

Capital City foreclosed on one in five mortgage loans made from 1984 to 1995, and on one in three made from 1989 to 1991. The national foreclosure rate has stayed around one in 100 in recent years, and the percentage of “subprime” loans in foreclosure—those loans made at higher cost to people with faulty credit—is on the order of four in 100.

The FTC has subsequently sued 19 other companies, mostly national or regional firms, and has won millions of dollars in those cases.

“Companies know they can make a lot of money by going into low-income areas and into minority areas where there may not be other options for loans,” said Mr. Mayers. “Years ago, the fight was about ‘red-lining,’ about not getting any type of loans or credit, particularly in urban areas, inner city areas. Now it’s about, not the quantity of the credit, but the quality. They’re giving loans, but a lot of them are really kind of rip-off loans.”

The group can claim some successes, said Mr. Mayers. ACORN has pressured some companies “to change their ways, he noted.

“Probably, the most well known was Household Finance, where we did our typical ACORN tactics of taking it to the streets and mobilizing people. At the same time, the attorney-general had a suit against them and they really cleaned up their act in a lot of ways, worked to get people better loans, and a lot of people found a much more cooperative relationship” with (Household Finance), he said. “The other part of it is that we’ve really pushed for good legislation on the state level. We passed legislation in places like New York and Illinois.”

Poor People Protest predatory lending practices by Wells Fargo

Like most reasonable, unbias people would admit....it was from both parties where the real estate mess developed.

September 30, 1999
"Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
By STEVEN A. HOLMES

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans."
Fannie Mae fiasco started under Clinton's watch. | The Hive

And ACORN led the fight AGAINST subprime borrowers, predatory lending practices and WARNED people buying homes not to fall for their shady practices.

And your point is.......?

 

[FA_Q2]

And ACORN led the fight AGAINST subprime borrowers, predatory lending practices and WARNED people buying homes not to fall for their shady practices.

Yes, those EVIL banks that were FORCING people to purchase homes that were far outside what they could pay for and forcing them to lie about income. Here in Seattle we had a BUS DRIVER turning less than 30k a year that purchased a 705K home. That was not a predatory loan practice, the people that were taking these loans were NOT victims. They chose to take loans to get into far better homes than they were able to afford because that is what they wanted.

 

[Bfgrn]

And ACORN led the fight AGAINST subprime borrowers, predatory lending practices and WARNED people buying homes not to fall for their shady practices.

Yes, those EVIL banks that were FORCING people to purchase homes that were far outside what they could pay for and forcing them to lie about income. Here in Seattle we had a BUS DRIVER turning less than 30k a year that purchased a 705K home. That was not a predatory loan practice, the people that were taking these loans were NOT victims. They chose to take loans to get into far better homes than they were able to afford because that is what they wanted.

AGAIN, you prove that you are not educated, so I will help...EDUCATE yourself...


Don't Blame the Community Reinvestment Act

Homeownership rates and CRA enforcement soared in the 1990s, but sub-prime came later. CRA shouldn't be the scapegoat for the housing meltdown.

Don't Blame the Community Reinvestment Act

 

[LibocalypseNow]

Barney Frank & Chris Dodd should be wearing orange jumpsuits for what they did to our country. Instead,the Democrat creeps are hailing them as "Heroes." They started the ball rolling on this catastrophic economic collapse. They still haven't been held accountable and i doubt they ever will be. What a sad scam.

 

[KissMy]

There is nothing about ACORN protesting against loaning money to people with subprime credit scores in the April 22 2004 article. That was added in to other Newer & revised articles after the subprime loans started becoming a problem. The demands in the original article about the protest posted below does not have them protesting subprime credit scores.

Democrats are trying to revise & rewrite actual history.

Thursday, April 22 2004 ACORN to Protest Predatory Lending at Wells Fargo Annual Meeting

The Wells practices which ACORN is protesting include:

-- financing high and often hidden fees into loans

-- engaging in bait-and-switch tactics, including promising low rates and then making loans at higher rates

-- trapping borrowers in excessive rates with expensive prepayment penalties

-- using marketing and pricing practices which mislead borrowers into refinancing out of perfectly good existing mortgages into much higher cost loans, leaving them struggling to pay bills and at risk of foreclosure

-- failing to have rigorous policies in place to ensure that borrowers in the same circumstances are treated the same way, regardless of which part of Wells Fargo they do business with, or that borrowers with A credit get loans at A rates.

...Our priorities include: better housing for first time homebuyers and tenants, living wages for low-wage workers, more investment in our communities from banks and governments, and better public schools.

ACORN was not protesting against loaning money to people with subprime credit scores.

From Bfgrn's City Limits Article: Acorn Led Financial Sector With Warnings on Lending

But ACORN and other proponents of the Community Reinvestment Act – the 1977 law requiring banks to lend in all communities from which they receive deposits did promote a fairly nuanced message. They lobbied for more quality lending in low-income and minority communities while also calling for more stringent regulation of the kind of non-bank lenders like Countrywide that fueled the mortgage crisis. Campaigns by ACORN and like-minded groups including the Chicago-based Neighborhood Training and Information Center sought to shrink the risky-mortgage business by pressuring investment banks not to buy the debt, and also pushed for changes in the way banks measured creditworthiness so that people with lower credit scores could be eligible for decent mortgages from real banks.

 

[KissMy]

The nerve of these lying scum trying to defend ACORN, Fannie, Freddie, Clinton & the Democrats Congressional Black Caucus.

Fitch Ratings: Seriously Delinquent Prime RMBS Rise for 37th Straight Month Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

The 60-plus-day delinquency rate for US prime residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) rose in the 37th consecutive month in June, according to Fitch Ratings.

The credit-rating agency noted the "seriously" delinquent rate — of 60 days or more — within prime jumbo RMBS rose to 10.4% in June, up from 10.3% in May and 6.4% at the same time last year.

61 Percent of Employees Live Paycheck to Paycheck

One-third reduce long-term savings plans to make ends meet. A majority of American employees are finding themselves hard-pressed to live up to their household budgets, according to a new report from CareerBuilder. The survey of more than 4,400 full-time U.S. staffers found that 61 percent of respondents reported that they always or usually live paycheck to paycheck, an increase from 47 percent in 2008.

One-in-five workers (21 percent) polled said they are taking money from their long-term savings to satisfy financial burdens and have decreased their personal savings or 401(k) contributions over the last six months.

One-third of employees have forgone long-term savings plans. They have increased their savings each month (33 percent) and do not participate in 401(k)s, IRAs or other retirement plans (36 percent). Of those who did attempt to save, 30 percent saved $100 per month and 16 percent saved less than $50 per month.

Good times in the Government sector at the expense of the private sector. Obama gave government employees another HUGE raise.

Workforce Since Obama became President

Workforce Since Democrats took over Congress

Chinese rating agency strips Western nations of AAA status

Dagong Global Credit Rating Co used its first foray into sovereign debt to paint a revolutionary picture of creditworthiness around the world, giving much greater weight to "wealth creating capacity" and foreign reserves than Fitch, Standard & Poor's, or Moody's.

The US falls to AA, while Britain and France slither down to AA-. Belgium, Spain, Italy are ranked at A- along with Malaysia. Meanwhile, China rises to AA+ with Germany, the Netherlands and Canada, reflecting its €2.4 trillion (£2 trillion) reserves and a blistering growth rate of 8pc to 10pc a year.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, chief of the International Monetary Fund, agreed on Monday that the rising East is a transforming global force. "Asia's time has come," he said.

The IMF expects Asia to grow by 7.7pc in 2010, vastly outpacing the eurozone at 1pc and the US at 3.3pc. Emerging nations hold 75pc of the world's $8.4 trillion (£5.6 trillion) of reserves.

Dagong rates Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, and Singapore at AAA, along with the commodity twins Australia and New Zealand.

Chinese president Hu Jintao said in April that the world needs "an objective, fair, and reasonable standard" for rating sovereign debt. Dagong appears to have stepped into the role, saying its objective was to assess countries using methods that would "not be affected by ideology". "The reason for the global financial crisis and debt crisis in Europe is that the current international credit rating system does not correctly reveal the debtor's repayment ability,"

U.S. Stripped of AAA Credit Rating...By China

Despite repeated warnings going back several years from Moody's, S&P et al that the U.S. could lose its top credit rating with ongoing fiscal deficits and heavy debts, the platinum-plated AAA rating of the United States seems all untouchable.

The top notch rating certainly has helped with continuing debt financing and bolstered the confidence of some government officials. Secretary Geithner, for example, said in a February interview that the U.S. government "will never" lose its credit rating, despite big budget deficits and a newly raised debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion.

Along came a Beijing-based rating agency--Dagong International Credit Rating Co. Its first order of business is to downgrade sovereign debt ratings on some major Western nations, while slamming its Western counterparts.

"The reason for the global financial crisis and debt crisis in Europe is that the current international credit rating system does not correctly reveal the debtor's repayment ability."

U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know

Last month, the International Monetary Fund released its annual review of U.S. economic policy. Its summary contained these bland words about U.S. fiscal policy: “Directors welcomed the authorities’ commitment to fiscal stabilization, but noted that a larger than budgeted adjustment would be required to stabilize debt-to-GDP.”

But delve deeper, and you will find that the IMF has effectively pronounced the U.S. bankrupt. Section 6 of the July 2010 Selected Issues Paper says: “The U.S. fiscal gap associated with today’s federal fiscal policy is huge for plausible discount rates.” It adds that “closing the fiscal gap requires a permanent annual fiscal adjustment equal to about 14 percent of U.S. GDP.”

The fiscal gap is the value today (the present value) of the difference between projected spending (including servicing official debt) and projected revenue in all future years.

Post Sub-Prime, the next wave of of foreclosure is here & it is fueled by Option-ARMs. That wave will be followed by Alt-As 1 year later.

 

[Toro]

If you are invoking the term "Acorn" to describe the financial crisis, you're doing it wrong.

 

[KissMy]

Democrats are turning the USA into one of their beloved GHETTOS.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Nice job with the links & research KissMy!

I wish Bush would have spent more political capital stopping this trainwreck, but we all know he would have been called racist & hater of the poor. Oh wait - they did call him that!racist & hater of the poor Plus they voted for wars & then said it was all Bush's fault 100%. I guess when the media & drive by voters were against him, he just did not have any capital to spend.

Time to Reap the Whirlwind

Why do people say Bush did not try? He did from 2003 until the melt down. The republicans did not have the numbers to beat a fillabuster by the party of "NO reform" for freddy and fanny. I blame the Republicans for not pushing this to the froint so the whole country could see how the democrats really are.

 

[Ava]

Great work.

I am aware of the long list of conspirators - but you put it all together very very well.

While Republicans, and a hungry for easy profits Wall St. certainly share in some of the blame, the warnings were in fact being issued from the Republican side and all but ignored by Democrats, whose easy-lending policies initiated what later became the subprime crisis.

And yet, the media has repeatedly failed to follow up on this.

Make no mistake, if the roles were reversed, and it was Republicans who had passed easy credit race based legislation, and ignored all the warnings, the Democrats would now be undergoing repeated Congressional hearings on the whole sordid affair.

As it is, these same Democrats who built the mess, now point the finger at all but themselves...

"These two entities--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac---are not facing any kind of financial crisis." Barney Frank [ 9/11/2003 ]

"Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, they are not in danger of going under----I do think their prospects of going forward are very solid." -- Barney Frank [ 7/14/2008 ]

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Great work.

I am aware of the long list of conspirators - but you put it all together very very well.

While Republicans, and a hungry for easy profits Wall St. certainly share in some of the blame, the warnings were in fact being issued from the Republican side and all but ignored by Democrats, whose easy-lending policies initiated what later became the subprime crisis.

And yet, the media has repeatedly failed to follow up on this.

Make no mistake, if the roles were reversed, and it was Republicans who had passed easy credit race based legislation, and ignored all the warnings, the Democrats would now be undergoing repeated Congressional hearings on the whole sordid affair.

As it is, these same Democrats who built the mess, now point the finger at all but themselves...

"These two entities--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac---are not facing any kind of financial crisis." Barney Frank [ 9/11/2003 ]

"Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, they are not in danger of going under----I do think their prospects of going forward are very solid." -- Barney Frank [ 7/14/2008 ]

Barney should be removed form his seat.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

I thought it was all Bush and Cheney's fault?

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Much of the first 35% of this post comes from The American Thinker artical: "Why the Mortgage Crisis Happened" The research & add ins are all mine. Much of the last 30% came from a Whitehouse.gov web page that disapeared the first day Obama took office.

​

“Prior to Lehman there was an abundance of the faith on behalf of depositors and investors that’s absolutely essential for a banking system -- there was a real trust,” Farr said. After Lehman “we all began to see that as we looked behind the curtain, the guy pulling the levers was not in very good shape at all.”