Libertarians Are The True Political Moderates

[Bfgrn]

It is clear to anyone who has studied the financial crisis of 2008 that the private sector’s drive for short-term profit was behind it

Right, when the Clinton administration threatened banks to lower their lending standards and the Fed flooded them with virtually zero interest loans, and W continued that policy it was the bank's fault, not the politicians who used government force and confiscated assets to make them do it.

You're a sheep. Or in your native language, baaaaaa...

Propaganda alert! Pure BULLSHIT.

 

[Bfgrn]

Hmm.. I'm pretty sure you're not getting it. I'm not advocating for the extremes you're envisioning. We NEED laws holding people and businesses accountable for their actions. I'm arguing against the extremes of using regulation to mandate conformity in the name of convenience. It's not a good idea, and not just from the point of view of individual freedom. Committing everyone to uniform practices puts all of our eggs in one basket, and amplifies the damage when things go wrong. We should avoid it when we can, instead embracing diversity and experimentation.

I DO get it...the cure for a high fever is hypothermia.

If you say so. I disagree.



Shitty as it was, yes.



Yes. That's a delusional requirement.



If you want to buy that kind of policy, you should be allowed to, yes.



Another ridiculous requirement.

Should we go back to allowing Wall Street investors to CONTROL our health care by being allowed to punish insurance corporations who spend too much on treatments and coverage?

Wall Street investors don't control your health care unless you invite them to control it.

I am sure NONE of those provisions we lobbied for by insurance corporations.

In exchange for mandated customers, of course they were. Regulations that raise the cost of doing business, as long as they are forced on competitors, are always welcomed by the dominant players in an industry. They function as a barrier to entry and favor vested interests who can more readily absorb the overhead. This is par for the course with the regulatory game. You really haven't looked into this much, have you?

Those are ALL provisions that make our health insurance coverage better, not worse. I see you are trying to prove the cure for a high fever is hypothermia.

BTW, HOW do we stop Wall Street investors from controlling FOR PROFIT insurance corporations?

You have researched NOTHING...you spew dogma.

 

[dblack]

I DO get it...the cure for a high fever is hypothermia.

If you say so. I disagree.



Shitty as it was, yes.



Yes. That's a delusional requirement.



If you want to buy that kind of policy, you should be allowed to, yes.



Another ridiculous requirement.



Wall Street investors don't control your health care unless you invite them to control it.

I am sure NONE of those provisions we lobbied for by insurance corporations.

In exchange for mandated customers, of course they were. Regulations that raise the cost of doing business, as long as they are forced on competitors, are always welcomed by the dominant players in an industry. They function as a barrier to entry and favor vested interests who can more readily absorb the overhead. This is par for the course with the regulatory game. You really haven't looked into this much, have you?

Those are ALL provisions that make our health insurance coverage better, not worse. I see you are trying to prove the cure for a high fever is hypothermia.

BTW, HOW do we stop Wall Street investors from controlling FOR PROFIT insurance corporations?

You have researched NOTHING...you spew dogma.

Good answer! Good answer!

 

[kaz]

MYTH ALERT!

A "free market" doesn't exist. There is no such thing. All markets are constructed. Think of the stock exchange. It has rules. The WTO [World Trade Organization] has 900 pages of regulations. The bond market has all kinds of regulations and commissions to make sure those regulations carried out. Every market has rules.

So if free markets don't exist, then how are you blaming free markets for our endless economic woes exactly?

I am blaming it on "Marketists" like you, the twin sister of Marxists. People who believe in a 'religion' of 'invisible hands, magic, and voodoo, instead of logic, prudence and common decency.

Libertarians are like Marxists? Dude, I am the opposite of you. What on earth made you think we are almost the same?

I'm a freedom loving moderate. I support your right to be a Marxist, I just support my right to not be one. You propose to remove my choice, I propose to not infringe on your choice in any way. I'm live and let live, you're conquer or destroy.

What on earth made you think that your Marxism is like my libertarianism? That's just nuts, even for you.

 

[kaz]

It is clear to anyone who has studied the financial crisis of 2008 that the private sector’s drive for short-term profit was behind it

Right, when the Clinton administration threatened banks to lower their lending standards and the Fed flooded them with virtually zero interest loans, and W continued that policy it was the bank's fault, not the politicians who used government force and confiscated assets to make them do it.

You're a sheep. Or in your native language, baaaaaa...

Propaganda alert! Pure BULLSHIT.

History is propaganda? Interesting. So when liberal politicians tell you things that didn't happen, you really believe that it did, even when you remember that it didn't. Amazing. The brainwashing is strong in this one...

 

[thanatos144]

Is it a requirement to be a pretentious asshole to be a libertarian or is it a coincidence that you all are?

tapatalk post

 

[Bfgrn]

Right, when the Clinton administration threatened banks to lower their lending standards and the Fed flooded them with virtually zero interest loans, and W continued that policy it was the bank's fault, not the politicians who used government force and confiscated assets to make them do it.

You're a sheep. Or in your native language, baaaaaa...

Propaganda alert! Pure BULLSHIT.

History is propaganda? Interesting. So when liberal politicians tell you things that didn't happen, you really believe that it did, even when you remember that it didn't. Amazing. The brainwashing is strong in this one...

History? From you?...You are spewing RIGHT WING propaganda. As USUAL. You are right wing, not libertarian.

WTF don't you actually educate yourself instead of parroting faux news propaganda.


Here are the FACTS we DO know:

1) The financial crisis was not caused by low and middle income families buying a home.

2) It was not caused by dead beat poor people.

3) Fannie and Freddie were not to cause.

4) The Community Investment Act was not the culprit either.

The crisis was caused by private lending, to mostly upper middle class and the wealthy. ONLY 6% of of all the higher-priced loans were extended by CRA-covered lenders to lower-income borrowers or neighborhoods in their CRA assessment areas. The majority of those foreclosed on were wealthy and upper middle class, plus a large segment of buyers who were wealthy home flippers looking for a fast buck. They strategically walked away from their mortgages, leaving people who bought homes to live in with lower values on their house and neighborhood.

AND, what really sucks for the right wing propaganda of lies, all the way back to the late '90's there was one very outspoken and vocal critic of predatory lending practices, they even held protests at companies like Wells Fargo and Lehman Brothers...ACORN

FACT- the Community Reinvestment Act was NOT to blame for the financial meltdown.


CRA was enacted in 1977 in response to concerns that banks were unwilling to lend in minority communities and in those in danger of "tipping." Note that we're talking about 1977. While one can argue about the precise timing of the start of what ultimately became the sub-prime bubble, as late as 2001, 24 years after CRA was enacted, only about 9.7 percent of mortgage originations (about $200 billion) were sub-prime or Alt-A loans (Alt-A loans have weak or no documentation of income or credit records); by 2006, sub-prime and Alt-A loans were 33.5 percent of loans made and had quintupled to $1 trillion.

CRA states, rather simply, that "regulated financial institutions have [a] continuing and affirmative obligation to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered." It requires the federal bank regulators to "assess the institution's record of meeting the credit needs of its entire community, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, consistent with safe and sound operation of such institution," (emphasis added) and to "take such record into account in its evaluation of an application for a deposit facility [including a merger or acquisition] by such institution."

Although CRA and its close cousin, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (passed in 1975 to gather data on bank lending patterns), had some effect during the 1980s, the statutes came into their own during the 1990s. In 1989, the Federal Reserve denied a proposed merger by the Continental Illinois Corporation because of poor CRA performance, the first time any agency had used this enforcement action. Amendments to CRA in 1989 and 1994 made data more public and more useable. With its reduction in direct federal support for housing, the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s rather ironically led to the growth of the community-development movement, which included both organizations that partnered with banks subject to CRA to meet community credit needs and entities that functioned as advocates to ensure that the statute was enforced (sometimes the same community groups played both roles).

The Clinton administration made enforcement of CRA a priority. A major stimulus to this effort was the 1994 Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Act, which permitted, through merger and acquisition, the nationwide banks we have today. That brought the CRA's primary enforcement mechanism, consideration of a bank's record of serving its community in evaluating the merger application, into play.

***

What happened during the 1990s? The homeownership rate, which had been stagnant since the 1960s, climbed from 64 percent in 1994 to 67.8 percent in 2001, with larger increases for minorities, women, and lower-income families. Between 1993 and 1998, CRA-covered lenders increased their home-mortgage lending in low- and moderate-income areas by 39 percent, compared to a 17 percent increase in other areas. In 2002, the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard found that "CRA has expanded access to mortgage credit; CRA-regulated lenders originate more home purchase loans to lower-income people and communities than they would if CRA did not exist." And CRA did not just expand home-mortgage lending. Testifying in 1999, Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan reported that in 1997 alone, CRA loans included "525,000 small business loans worth $34 billion; 213,000 small farm loans worth $11 billion; and 25,000 community-development loans totaling $19 billion."

What didn't happen? An explosion of sub-prime lending. That came later. So for starters, the timing is entirely wrong for the contention that CRA caused the crisis. Nevertheless, by the end of the 1990s, bank regulators became concerned that poor lending practices were beginning to develop in the home-lending market and that some might ignore CRA's admonition that CRA lending needed to be done "consistent with safe and sound operation." In 1999, banking regulators issued guidance concerning sub-prime lending and made the point that CRA lending needed to be responsible -- well underwritten, well priced, and understandable by the borrower.

Even efforts after 2001 to press Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy sub-prime loans, as part of the Bush administration's "Ownership Society," do not implicate CRA. Those who scapegoat CRA often contend that it was a reckless push for homeownership -- by both the Clinton and Bush administrations -- that led to the sub-prime crisis. But while homeownership increased significantly during the Clinton years, sub-prime (and also Alt-A) lending was still under 10 percent of mortgage originations when President Bill Clinton left office. President George W. Bush's further pressure for homeownership, which included substantial pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase loans, in particular low-documentation loans, was dubious policy, but cannot be blamed on CRA. In 2006, the height of the sub-prime boom, almost two-thirds of the high-cost loans made were for purposes other than the purchase of a home by an owner-occupant -- they were mostly refinancings to extract equity. But even this overstates the case against homeownership. As the Center for Responsible Lending has demonstrated, between 1998 and 2006, only about 9 percent of sub-prime loans went to first-time homebuyers.

Note also that CRA applies only to banks and savings institutions ("thrifts"). It does not apply to credit unions, independent mortgage companies, or investment banks. And banks and thrifts get credit under CRA only for lending to low- and moderate-income borrowers or in low- and moderate-income census tracts in their assessment areas, broadly the area near their branches which, for large institutions, generally includes entire metropolitan areas. This is critically important to understanding the role of CRA in the current debacle. When CRA was enacted, there were approximately 18,000 banks and thrifts, which made about 70 percent of all home-mortgage loans, and almost all loans were originated by branches and thus were covered by CRA. By 2006, there were 8,700 banks and thrifts, with a market share of about 43 percent. Even adding the share of their CRA-covered subsidiaries (15 percent), this was a marked decline.

 

[kaz]

Propaganda alert! Pure BULLSHIT.

History is propaganda? Interesting. So when liberal politicians tell you things that didn't happen, you really believe that it did, even when you remember that it didn't. Amazing. The brainwashing is strong in this one...

History? From you?...You are spewing RIGHT WING propaganda. As USUAL. You are right wing, not libertarian.

WTF don't you actually educate yourself instead of parroting faux news propaganda.

LOL. I'm a libertarian being programmed by a conservative channel. Not sure why conservatives want me to be a libertarian, but according to you, they do. On the other hand, you're a liberal who agrees with the liberal media on every issue, but it's only because you're an independent thinker who makes up your own mind.

Has it ever crossed your mind, even for a brief moment, that you just might be a moron?

 

[kaz]

Is it a requirement to be a pretentious asshole to be a libertarian or is it a coincidence that you all are?

tapatalk post

I'm going with coincidence. What about you? Is your being a dick related to your being conservative or is that just you?

 

[thanatos144]

Is it a requirement to be a pretentious asshole to be a libertarian or is it a coincidence that you all are?

tapatalk post

I'm going with coincidence. What about you? Is your being a dick related to your being conservative or is that just you?

Just me

tapatalk post

 

[HelenaHandbag]

History is propaganda? Interesting. So when liberal politicians tell you things that didn't happen, you really believe that it did, even when you remember that it didn't. Amazing. The brainwashing is strong in this one...

History? From you?...You are spewing RIGHT WING propaganda. As USUAL. You are right wing, not libertarian.

WTF don't you actually educate yourself instead of parroting faux news propaganda.

LOL. I'm a libertarian being programmed by a conservative channel. Not sure why conservatives want me to be a libertarian, but according to you, they do. On the other hand, you're a liberal who agrees with the liberal media on every issue, but it's only because you're an independent thinker who makes up your own mind.

Has it ever crossed your mind, even for a brief moment, that you just might be a moron?

That thought has crossed my mind numerous times.

 

[Bfgrn]

History is propaganda? Interesting. So when liberal politicians tell you things that didn't happen, you really believe that it did, even when you remember that it didn't. Amazing. The brainwashing is strong in this one...

History? From you?...You are spewing RIGHT WING propaganda. As USUAL. You are right wing, not libertarian.

WTF don't you actually educate yourself instead of parroting faux news propaganda.

LOL. I'm a libertarian being programmed by a conservative channel. Not sure why conservatives want me to be a libertarian, but according to you, they do. On the other hand, you're a liberal who agrees with the liberal media on every issue, but it's only because you're an independent thinker who makes up your own mind.

Has it ever crossed your mind, even for a brief moment, that you just might be a moron?

Very telling, you decided to ignore the evidence and respond to a comment. Now THAT shows you really are a thinking man...LOL

Hey Einstein, please EXPLAIN how the CRA which was ONLY 6% of of all the higher-priced loans in America, caused a GLOBAL boom and bust?

EXPLAIN how suburbs boomed and busted and went into foreclosure in much greater numbers than inner cities. The tiny suburbs and exurbs of South Florida and California and Las Vegas and Arizona were the big boomtowns, not the low-income regions. The redlined areas the CRA address missed much of the boom; places that busted had nothing to do with the CRA.

Examining the big lie: How the facts of the economic crisis stack up | The Big Picture

But hey, keep parroting the faux news propaganda.

 

[kaz]

[Very telling, you decided to ignore the evidence and respond to a comment. Now THAT shows you really are a thinking man...LOL

I have two modes, serious and fun. The choice is up to you. When you started telling me that conservative Fox is programming my libertarian views, you chose fun. If you want me to take what you say seriously, don't start your posts by being a dumb ass.

As for your oratory, it's half truths and slanted points and redefinition of what happened. Here's basic logic for you to ask questions when you're confronted with leftist propaganda.

1) In functioning markets, there are winners and losers, wise choosers and poor choosers. The market fixes that by rewarding the winners and punishing the losers.

2) In government controlled markets, players act according to skewed rules determined by government because only government can use force to skew markets.

You're arguing that the entire market got greedy at the same time and simultaneously made the same stupid decisions. While they followed government relaxed lending policy and using government money.

A critical mind would question the leftist politicians making that claim...

 

[HelenaHandbag]

[Very telling, you decided to ignore the evidence and respond to a comment. Now THAT shows you really are a thinking man...LOL

I have two modes, serious and fun. The choice is up to you. When you started telling me that conservative Fox is programming my libertarian views, you chose fun. If you want me to take what you say seriously, don't start your posts by being a dumb ass.

As for your oratory, it's half truths and slanted points and redefinition of what happened. Here's basic logic for you to ask questions when you're confronted with leftist propaganda.

1) In functioning markets, there are winners and losers, wise choosers and poor choosers. The market fixes that by rewarding the winners and punishing the losers.

2) In government controlled markets, players act according to skewed rules determined by government because only government can use force to skew markets.

You're arguing that the entire market got greedy at the same time and simultaneously made the same stupid decisions. While they followed government relaxed lending policy and using government money.

A critical mind would question the leftist politicians making that claim...

Well...

 

[kaz]

[Very telling, you decided to ignore the evidence and respond to a comment. Now THAT shows you really are a thinking man...LOL

I have two modes, serious and fun. The choice is up to you. When you started telling me that conservative Fox is programming my libertarian views, you chose fun. If you want me to take what you say seriously, don't start your posts by being a dumb ass.

As for your oratory, it's half truths and slanted points and redefinition of what happened. Here's basic logic for you to ask questions when you're confronted with leftist propaganda.

1) In functioning markets, there are winners and losers, wise choosers and poor choosers. The market fixes that by rewarding the winners and punishing the losers.

2) In government controlled markets, players act according to skewed rules determined by government because only government can use force to skew markets.

You're arguing that the entire market got greedy at the same time and simultaneously made the same stupid decisions. While they followed government relaxed lending policy and using government money.

A critical mind would question the leftist politicians making that claim...

Well...

Yes, he's wondering what I'm talking about. He keeps insulting us, how does he not have a critical mind?

 

[Bfgrn]

[Very telling, you decided to ignore the evidence and respond to a comment. Now THAT shows you really are a thinking man...LOL

I have two modes, serious and fun. The choice is up to you. When you started telling me that conservative Fox is programming my libertarian views, you chose fun. If you want me to take what you say seriously, don't start your posts by being a dumb ass.

As for your oratory, it's half truths and slanted points and redefinition of what happened. Here's basic logic for you to ask questions when you're confronted with leftist propaganda.

1) In functioning markets, there are winners and losers, wise choosers and poor choosers. The market fixes that by rewarding the winners and punishing the losers.

2) In government controlled markets, players act according to skewed rules determined by government because only government can use force to skew markets.

You're arguing that the entire market got greedy at the same time and simultaneously made the same stupid decisions. While they followed government relaxed lending policy and using government money.

A critical mind would question the leftist politicians making that claim...

One of the guys making these claims is not a 'leftist politician', he is a conservative economist on leave from a teaching post at the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business.

Greed has been with us since man began walking upright. And the market did EXACTLY what would be predicted. LOOK at the foreclosure map. People were severely punished.

Your problem is the banks you claim were pressured to issue loans to lower income families were NOT the lenders issuing the sub-prime loans. It was PRIVATE 'free market' practitioners who provided a get rich quick gimmick for wealthy speculators and investors to get in, then get OUT of an INVESTMENT with a bundle of cash. These people were not buying a 'homestead'. It was merely an investment that went south, so they all walked away. THAT is why there was a sudden bust and not a slow deflation of the housing market.

60% of higher-priced loan originations — the technical definition of subrpime — went to middle- or higher-income borrowers or neighborhoods who aren’t targeted by CRA. More than 20% of the higher-priced loans were extended to lower-income borrowers or borrowers in lower-income areas by institutions that aren’t banks — and aren’t covered by CRA.

• Nonbank mortgage underwriting exploded from 2001 to 2007, along with the private label securitization market, which eclipsed Fannie and Freddie during the boom.

Check the mortgage origination data: The vast majority of subprime mortgages — the loans at the heart of the global crisis — were underwritten by unregulated private firms. These were lenders who sold the bulk of their mortgages to Wall Street, not to Fannie or Freddie. Indeed, these firms had no deposits, so they were not under the jurisdiction of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp or the Office of Thrift Supervision. The relative market share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dropped from a high of 57 percent of all new mortgage originations in 2003, down to 37 percent as the bubble was developing in 2005-06.

• Private lenders not subject to congressional regulations collapsed lending standards. Taking up that extra share were nonbanks selling mortgages elsewhere, not to the GSEs. Conforming mortgages had rules that were less profitable than the newfangled loans. Private securitizers — competitors of Fannie and Freddie — grew from 10 percent of the market in 2002 to nearly 40 percent in 2006. As a percentage of all mortgage-backed securities, private securitization grew from 23 percent in 2003 to 56 percent in 2006

Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing laws overseen by either Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the Community Reinvestment Act.

These firms had business models that could be called “Lend-in-order-to-sell-to-Wall-Street-securitizers.” They offered all manner of nontraditional mortgages — the 2/28 adjustable rate mortgages, piggy-back loans, negative amortization loans. These defaulted in huge numbers, far more than the regulated mortgage writers did.

Consider a study by McClatchy: It found that more than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending. These private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year. And McClatchy found that out of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006, only one was subject to the usual mortgage laws and regulations.

A 2008 analysis found that the nonbank underwriters made more than 12 million subprime mortgages with a value of nearly $2 trillion. The lenders who made these were exempt from federal regulations.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

The lenders who caused the collapse were OUTSIDE of government 'control'

More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.

Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.

Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.


Read more here: Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis | Economics | McClatchy DC

How were those private lender outside government control? Were there absolutely no regulations that covered what they were doing?

Private Wall Street Companies Caused The Financial Crisis — Not Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Or The Community Reinvestment Act

In the four years since the housing bubble burst, triggering a collapse in global financial markets whose value had been propped up through the repackaging and trading of home loans via complex financial instruments, there’s been plenty of blame to go around. The Occupy Wall Street protests have called new attention to the root causes of the crisis, and led Republicans to reiterate their claim that government-backed lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the primary villains. The facts about the subprime mortgage market prove that claim false: Private firms dominated the subprime market boom of 2004-06, and were not even subject to the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act some Republicans vilify. Thanks to decades of financial deregulation, capped by President Bush’s decision to appoint Wall Street regulators who believed their job was to help banks rather than curb banking abuses, financial giants were able to turn the mortgage market into a high-stakes casino. As investigative reporters and Congress’ Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission have all shown, it was deregulation mixed with irresponsible and potentially illegal practices by private firms on Wall Street that caused both the bubble and the collapse.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No, Marco Rubio, government did not cause the housing crisis - The Washington Post

In his response to the State of the Union, Sen. Marco Rubio said: "This idea – that our problems were caused by a government that was too small – it’s just not true. In fact, a major cause of our recent downturn was a housing crisis created by reckless government policies."

For obvious reasons, this argument is very popular on the right, but there's precious little to back it up. The core claim can be a bit slippery, but it tends to go something like this: the existence and affordability goals of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs) and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) were a major reason we had a subprime-driven housing bubble and then a crash. The only problem? Pretty much all the evidence on the housing crisis shows that that's not true.

Let's go through some things we know.

1. Private markets, rather than the GSEs, created the subprime mortgage boom.

The subprime mortgage boom and the subsequent crash are very much concentrated in the private market, not the public market. Subprime is a creature of the private label securitization channel (PLS) market, instead of the Government-Sponsored Entities (GSEs, or Fannie and Freddie). The fly-by-night lending boom, slicing and dicing mortgage bonds, derivatives and CDOs, and all the other shadiness of the mortgage market in the 2000s were Wall Street creations, and they drove all those risky mortgages.

Funny, nothing you posted actually addressed the question I asked. Why am I not surprised?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

How were those private lender outside government control? Were there absolutely no regulations that covered what they were doing?

Private Wall Street Companies Caused The Financial Crisis — Not Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Or The Community Reinvestment Act

In the four years since the housing bubble burst, triggering a collapse in global financial markets whose value had been propped up through the repackaging and trading of home loans via complex financial instruments, there’s been plenty of blame to go around. The Occupy Wall Street protests have called new attention to the root causes of the crisis, and led Republicans to reiterate their claim that government-backed lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the primary villains. The facts about the subprime mortgage market prove that claim false: Private firms dominated the subprime market boom of 2004-06, and were not even subject to the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act some Republicans vilify. Thanks to decades of financial deregulation, capped by President Bush’s decision to appoint Wall Street regulators who believed their job was to help banks rather than curb banking abuses, financial giants were able to turn the mortgage market into a high-stakes casino. As investigative reporters and Congress’ Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission have all shown, it was deregulation mixed with irresponsible and potentially illegal practices by private firms on Wall Street that caused both the bubble and the collapse.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No, Marco Rubio, government did not cause the housing crisis - The Washington Post

In his response to the State of the Union, Sen. Marco Rubio said: "This idea – that our problems were caused by a government that was too small – it’s just not true. In fact, a major cause of our recent downturn was a housing crisis created by reckless government policies."

For obvious reasons, this argument is very popular on the right, but there's precious little to back it up. The core claim can be a bit slippery, but it tends to go something like this: the existence and affordability goals of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs) and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) were a major reason we had a subprime-driven housing bubble and then a crash. The only problem? Pretty much all the evidence on the housing crisis shows that that's not true.

Let's go through some things we know.

1. Private markets, rather than the GSEs, created the subprime mortgage boom.

The subprime mortgage boom and the subsequent crash are very much concentrated in the private market, not the public market. Subprime is a creature of the private label securitization channel (PLS) market, instead of the Government-Sponsored Entities (GSEs, or Fannie and Freddie). The fly-by-night lending boom, slicing and dicing mortgage bonds, derivatives and CDOs, and all the other shadiness of the mortgage market in the 2000s were Wall Street creations, and they drove all those risky mortgages.

Facts and conservatives – forever strangers.

Can you explain what facts I am ignoring when the idiot you agree with isn't answering the only question I asked?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

MYTH ALERT!

A "free market" doesn't exist. There is no such thing. All markets are constructed. Think of the stock exchange. It has rules. The WTO [World Trade Organization] has 900 pages of regulations. The bond market has all kinds of regulations and commissions to make sure those regulations carried out. Every market has rules.

So if free markets don't exist, then how are you blaming free markets for our endless economic woes exactly?

I am blaming it on "Marketists" like you, the twin sister of Marxists. People who believe in a 'religion' of 'invisible hands, magic, and voodoo, instead of logic, prudence and common decency.

Yet, for some reason, you failed to address the fact that I pointed to markets that actually work that way when they are completely outside government control. Is that because you hate facts?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Hmm.. I'm pretty sure you're not getting it. I'm not advocating for the extremes you're envisioning. We NEED laws holding people and businesses accountable for their actions. I'm arguing against the extremes of using regulation to mandate conformity in the name of convenience. It's not a good idea, and not just from the point of view of individual freedom. Committing everyone to uniform practices puts all of our eggs in one basket, and amplifies the damage when things go wrong. We should avoid it when we can, instead embracing diversity and experimentation.

I DO get it...the cure for a high fever is hypothermia.

If you say so. I disagree.



Shitty as it was, yes.



Yes. That's a delusional requirement.



If you want to buy that kind of policy, you should be allowed to, yes.



Another ridiculous requirement.

Should we go back to allowing Wall Street investors to CONTROL our health care by being allowed to punish insurance corporations who spend too much on treatments and coverage?

Wall Street investors don't control your health care unless you invite them to control it.

I am sure NONE of those provisions we lobbied for by insurance corporations.

In exchange for mandated customers, of course they were. Regulations that raise the cost of doing business, as long as they are forced on competitors, are always welcomed by the dominant players in an industry. They function as a barrier to entry and favor vested interests who can more readily absorb the overhead. This is par for the course with the regulatory game. You really haven't looked into this much, have you?

It is amazing how he talks about how evil insurance companies are, and then uses the fact that they lobbied for Obamacare as proof that it is a good thing, isn't it?