Barney Frank’s Fire
it seems Bruce and I have been reading different sources to reach the same conclusion. It was not a failure of government to regulate which caused the current problems facing Wall Street, but an excess of government intervention which provoked it.
Bruce posts my friend Rich Miniter’s piece which I had not yet seen, but addresses many of the issues I’ve been learning about these past seventy-two hours or so.
A bill passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by a Democratic President (Jimmy Carter–can he do anything right?), the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, basically forced banks to make loans to would-be home-buyers without good credit histories. Another Democratic President, Bill Clinton, expanded on the bill.
The two institutions at the heart of this crisis are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are GSEs. Some media sources sometimes fail to define GSE. Well, it means Government Sponsored Enterprises. Let me repeat they are Government Sponsored Enterprises. They are not the free market.
Republicans have been calling for reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac throughout the Bush Administration, with the President himself calling for reform 17 times just in 2008.
As I mentioned before, John McCain co-sponsored legislation in the 109th Congress designed to fix the problem. Meanwhile, as per the video below, House Democrats thwarted reform while Republicans warned of the upcoming crisis.
And there is Barney Frank in 2004, saying all is hunky-dory at Fannie Mae.
It’s kind of like a guy who’s enjoying the warmth and comfort of a roaring fire in a nice house. People are feeding the fire with logs bought on government credit. The Republicans suggested we stop feeding the fire and put a grate in front of the fireplace. Led by Frank, the Democrats said we don’t need one, becoming almost belligerent in their opposition.
The Republicans, to their discredit, didn’t press the manner.
But, now the fire has grown out of control and the house is burning down. And the Democrats are blaming those who tried to contain it before it got out of hand.
Yet, if they bothered to heed the warning signs, the house will still be standing and we’d still have a fire in the fireplace.
More than anyone else in the U.S. House of Representatives, Barney Frank is responsible for the Wall Street meltdown. He should be ashamed of himself and should resign his position as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and take responsibility for the mess he helped create.
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Republicans need to ask for donations to have this 9 minutes played on the MSM provided they won’t black ball it. We need to buy commercial time if necessary. There were “whistle blowers” there were plenty of adults, the Democrats stonewalled. Because they liked no doc, no salary loans. Director Falcon if listened too would have been a hero, instead the Dems treated him like a racist idiot. Time to ask for accountability from the Democrats.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — September 29, 2008 @ 5:54 pm - September 29, 2008
This is a stunning smoking guy. But the Dems have already got up lies about the Bush admin causing the scandal. That capitalism caused the scandal. BS.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — September 29, 2008 @ 5:58 pm - September 29, 2008
You are really peddling this? That the subprime loans caused this?
The problems were caused when the loans were repackaged and sold! Do you know why? Deregulation of the industry. Who supported this? McCain! Let’s look at McCain advisor Gramm. His Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act made it easier to sell such merged investments, repealed Glass-Steagall, allowed banks to run wild. Less oversight, less clarity: financial meltdown. Well done GOP.
Your boys caused this problem, my friend, and all the Barney-Frank-attacking in the world won’t change it.
Comment by torrentprime — September 29, 2008 @ 6:18 pm - September 29, 2008
torrent you got the Dems talking points down pretty well. If there weren’t any bad subprime loans to people who couldn’t afford them, repackaging them would be mute. Case closed.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — September 29, 2008 @ 6:28 pm - September 29, 2008
Um, torrent, once again, you don’t even address the post I wrote. Please address the issues of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s insolvency and how they contributed to the problem.
And please note how was pushing subprime loans? Not Gramm-Leach-Bliley, but, the federal government. Check it out. Do your research. And watch the video. See which party favored more oversight.
So, address what I wrote and the information I provided & don’t just attach your DailyKos talking points to my blog.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — September 29, 2008 @ 6:30 pm - September 29, 2008
I think it’s time that torrentprime was slapped with a hard, cold, dose of reality.
Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.
And what starts off that article?
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.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — September 29, 2008 @ 6:55 pm - September 29, 2008
And meanwhile, torrentprime, here’s another.
White House hopeful Barack Obama talks a lot on the campaign trail about how failing banks have used subprime loans to victimize customers.
“Part of the reason we got a current mortgage crisis has to do with the fact that people got suckered in to loans that they could not pay,” he told a crowd in Reading, Pa., last week. “There were a lot of predatory loans that were given out, a lot of teaser rates. Banks and financial institutions making these loans were making money hand over fist.”
One of the banks that went under after making a lot of subprime loans — leaving 1,400 of its customers without part of their savings — was Chicago’s Superior Bank.
At the helm of Superior Bank at least some of the time was Obama’s national finance chairwoman, Penny Pritzker, an heiress to the Pritzker fortune.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — September 29, 2008 @ 6:59 pm - September 29, 2008
No, the problem with this thread is that not one of your articles or posts remotely connects the subprime mortgages to the crisis. @5, it’s your argument: you make the connection. Were some of the loans bad? Sure. Did FM contribue to that? Sure. But there have always been people with high-risk loans (and higher risk interest rates to go along with them). Are you advocating that all of those people should never get loans, ever? (Gene, I’m looking at you).
What none of this “blame the poor people” post does is explain how it led to country-wide meltdown. The answer is it didn’t. There have always been high-risk loans, throughout history, and it didn’t lead to financial meltdowns. But the deregulation, GOP-led, which allowed the bad loans to get mixed and sold, did. The deregulation of banks and financial institutions allowing the same company to package and sell these things led to this. The GOP did all that. Nothing you’ve said changes those facts. Nice try though. Well, not really, but I know if it’s all you’ve got left.
Comment by torrentprime — September 29, 2008 @ 7:06 pm - September 29, 2008
@7: And Gramm has been lobbying Congress against anti-predatory lending practices, taking the mortgage companies’ money, trying desperately to prevent regulation which would stop predatory practices.
McCain advisors: the gifts that keep on giving. I can’t decide if Rick Davis’ ties to Fannie Mae or Gramm’s ties to the financial industries are funnier. Or more indicative of McCain’s hypocrisy.
Comment by torrentprime — September 29, 2008 @ 7:17 pm - September 29, 2008
Um, torrent, did you even read the post? Did you watch the video? It showed how Republicans favored increased regulation, oversight, over Fannie Mae?
Please address the actual post to which you attach your comment rather than offering random left-wing talking points (and repeating them ad nausem).
OK, address the involvement of GSEs, not free market enterprises, government supported enterprises.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — September 29, 2008 @ 7:37 pm - September 29, 2008
Then, torrentprime, if you so hate “predatory lenders”, why aren’t you screaming about Penny Pritzker, who controlled and ran one of the very banks that did all of the things about which you and Obama are screaming?
And as far as taking money from Fannie Mae, care to address the fact that BARACK OBAMA was the second-highest recipient of money from them in the entire US Senate, DIRECTLY? If money from Fannie Mae makes one corrupt, why doesn’t that apply to Obama?
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — September 29, 2008 @ 8:03 pm - September 29, 2008
What changed 10 years ago was the threats to lending institutions to loosen their lending practices. My sister worked for a mortgage company. MONTHLY they received from government agencies threatening letters and directives that if they didn’t lend to poor, minority customers, they would face inspections, and audits. And cries of racism. Watch the hearings, who is on the side of proper and safe lending. And who is on the side of….”lend now to some who may not be able to pay the note back, we’ll figure it out later.” The Democrats and their troll beaurocrats were not on the side of people who play by the rules. It is the people who pay their mortgages on time, who don’t ask for any special treatment, who understand legal papers when they sign em, who have been flooding Capital Hill with their outrage. Their is a reason God invented RENT. It is for people white and black alike who can’t get proper credit to finance a house purchase. Case closed.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — September 29, 2008 @ 8:10 pm - September 29, 2008
NDT why isn’t the media screaming for the Democrats to give back those contributions. Some people can use the money to pay their monthly mortgage.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — September 29, 2008 @ 8:11 pm - September 29, 2008
Franklin Raines, friend and advisor to Obama looted Fannie for $100 million. Where’s the outrage, where’s the money?
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — September 29, 2008 @ 8:12 pm - September 29, 2008
I’m picturing President Obama having lunch with the nutty Rev Wright, the thief Franklin Raines, dumbo Nancy Pelosi, and soft spoken incompetent Harry Reid. Wonder if Ms Obama would be proud then?
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — September 29, 2008 @ 8:15 pm - September 29, 2008
To Gene’s point, here’s a great article outlining how Obama’s friends and supporters at ACORN were doing exactly the shakedowns that his sister described.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — September 29, 2008 @ 8:28 pm - September 29, 2008
You’re DAMN right. Only a dumbass would look at this mess and say “Hey! We need to do it again!”.
If you want to loan money to people who are lying to you, you go right ahead. Just don’t go loaning out money and expect me to pay you back. I had nothing to do with it.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — September 29, 2008 @ 11:30 pm - September 29, 2008
Raines got $100 Million, Obama’s other advisor, former Fannie Chairman Jim Johnson, who is STILL advising Obama despite supposedly “resigning” in disgrace after being caught in the Countrywide scandal, got $70 million. Clinton appointee Jamie Gorelick — the woman who prevented the US from uncovering the 9/11 plot with the “wall” she erected between the CIA and FBI (so that the Clintons wouldnt have to worry about their foreign campaign donations being detected) — is also up to her neck in causing ghe collapse of Fannie — for which she also profited in the tens of millions.
O’Bama, Kerry, Clinton, Pelosi… the list of top beneficiaries of Fannie donations reads like a who’s who of the Democrat Party.
And the difference torrent, is while McCain has a man whose firm used to lobby for Fannie, but who has never lobbied for Fannie himself — unlike Democrats, John McCain was actually pushing legislation that Fannie was most opposed to — the same legislation that Democrats blocked.
So, sorry Torrent, go get a new set of talking points. The ones you have have failed miserably, just like your party.
Cant wait til that FBI investigation results in frog marching Democrats right into prison. Lord, someone arrest Gorelick before she destroys again!
Comment by American Elephant — September 30, 2008 @ 2:20 am - September 30, 2008
Imagine if Obama gets elected and impeached in the same year!
Comment by American Elephant — September 30, 2008 @ 2:21 am - September 30, 2008
what is it with these Leftards who think they know so much about a topic and then reveal themselves to be totally ignorant of it?
There’s so many examples of this.. I cant’ stand the retardedness much longer.
Comment by Vince P — September 30, 2008 @ 2:41 am - September 30, 2008
18: Jamie Gorelick deserves to be in Islamic Hell
Ishaq:185 “In hell I saw women hanging by their breasts. They had fathered bastards.”
Comment by Vince P — September 30, 2008 @ 2:44 am - September 30, 2008
No, Vince, even THEY don’t think they know what they’re talking about. They run to HuffPo and Dailykos and get their marching orders and regurgitate them on cue. They haven’t the faintest idea what they’re talking about.
Comment by American Elephant — September 30, 2008 @ 3:00 am - September 30, 2008
AE: true.
Alan Colmes is the worst at this.
HIs blog is just a republlishing of whatever trash about Sarah Palin he could find.
http://www.alan.com
Comment by Vince P — September 30, 2008 @ 3:46 am - September 30, 2008
I can not begin to imagine how much fear and motivation to cover up is motivating the Democrats like Pelosi, Frank, Dodd, the black caucus etc. in this mess. The real socialists and con artists have so much to explain away that they are forced to walk the tiger while holding a cobweb leash. Meanwhile, the more moderate Democrats are peeling away from their party leadership and leaving them even more exposed.
No matter what, this is not a bailout being handed to Paulson. He his a very short shelf life and he should not be considered a player. We should be looking at this “bailout” in terms of what Franklin Raines would do with the money if President Obama appointed him Secretary of the Treasury. This is some huge sandbox for mischief.
Not fixing blame is to keep a blind eye to the cause of this mess. A bailout that does not address the “root causes” is just another Congressional taffy pull.
Pelosi screams about the deregulating actions of the Republicans. If Pelosi could find a Republican to blame, he would already have his head on the gate post. If Pelosi could point to the Republican deregulations that caused this, she would screech their names.
Meanwhile, “someone” needs to fire some “straight talk” and force the MSM to deal with it. If a presidential candidate for the Republican party can’t get press coverage in the last 30 days of the campaign, then we need to wrap it up now.
Comment by heliotrope — September 30, 2008 @ 8:12 am - September 30, 2008
A side note: Yesterday, a woman called Rush and said she could buy any number of foreclosure houses in Detroit for $1,000. So I googled “foreclosure houses $1000 Detroit” and the first entry is about a house that sold for $1 in August and cost the bank $10,000 to get off its books.
Plenty of these houses across the urban landscape have been stripped of their copper pipes, cabinets, etc. and left to rot. They are only worth the land they sit on and carry a load of back taxes and would cost plenty to tear down.
I wonder how many foreclosures involve houses that are now trash? All we ever hear about are the poor, honest people struggling to be home-owners.
I have know several successful “slum lords.” They have a talent for providing cheap housing for unreliable tenants. It is not an honorific title, but it is a needed service. I suspect that there are many foreclosed houses that needed the supervision of a slum lord. Banks don’t do that work.
Comment by heliotrope — September 30, 2008 @ 8:40 am - September 30, 2008
How’s this: Barney Frank makes me ashamed to be a gay.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — September 30, 2008 @ 11:07 am - September 30, 2008
Better yet, M-M, how about this? It makes me ashamed that Barney Frank is gay. (I’m still totally cool with myself).
Comment by Draybee — September 30, 2008 @ 1:26 pm - September 30, 2008
Having been born and raised in Massachusetts, I left as soon as possible and would never vote for anyone of any political leaning from Massachusetts. I’ve never liked and have, indeed, always distrusted Barney Frank.
It was Massachusetts politics that made me staunchly independent. That fat cat (“cat” being another name for…) Frank should resign. He HAD to have known that those mortgages were poison, or at least potentially so, and that the entire process is ripe for excessive abuse.
I’m just plain sick to my stomach with it all.
Comment by Non-partisan Miamian — September 30, 2008 @ 1:34 pm - September 30, 2008
Better said, thanks for the assist Draybee.
In any event, he makes me sick, too.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — September 30, 2008 @ 2:07 pm - September 30, 2008
The irony is that the leftards-love THAT line-like to tell US we do not know what we are talking about on, oh any issue. But, on this, we DO know what we are talking about. What really is worrisome is that this government bailout/rescue sounds like bad money going after worse money. And yes, it is LOUSY for the government to set up lending institutions as social engineers. And, they have to lose money for all of their efforts. The reality is that the government has been in the mortgage business for 30 years now. What was it that “Rev.” Wright fellow said? Oh, yes, he commented about chickens coming home to roost!
Comment by Mark J. Goluskin — September 30, 2008 @ 3:24 pm - September 30, 2008
oh that’s right. it was a conservative controllled, conservative lead government that executed leadership in 2004. hmmmmmmmm.
Comment by michael — September 30, 2008 @ 5:48 pm - September 30, 2008
michael bone up man. When the Dems were in the minority they intentionaly gummed up the works of government. If any measure didn’t have the support of 60 Senators, no laws or regs were being passed. They threatened filabusters. Now leftists say, hey why didn’t the Republicans pass laws and regs to prevent the crisis. Their problem is we’ve got all these u tube vids nowadays. Just today one of the brave Democrats is admitting his parties neglect and wishing his collegues would fess up too.I say we give a couple immunity then perp walk the rest. First Bill Clinton, now some Dem House members are finding religion. Time for the media and Republicans to hammer it home. The Dems are crooks and their hands are all over this mess.
$700 BILLION DEMOCRAT SCANDAL. Largest in the history of the world.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — September 30, 2008 @ 9:21 pm - September 30, 2008
if you watch msnbc, blame is all on conservatives and if you watch fox, blame is all on liberals for the financial meltdown.
can someone please have the balls to admit that both sides and many unidentified sides are to blame?
Back in 2005, I remember a friend of mine who briefly worked for a subprime loan sweatshop telling me that it was like that movie “Boiler Room” You had managers screaming at you that you had to meet sales quota hourly and to “Get the loan dealt” whether or not you had payroll verification or signatures or anything else. How were these a-holes running these subprime shops able to do this? There needs to be more regulation on this!! Sorry – I know most of you hate regulation but it needs to be there…We need to get this crisis dealt with and stop blaming sides – that is beyond the point at this time. We can bitch about partisan politics later….
Comment by anthony — September 30, 2008 @ 10:06 pm - September 30, 2008
It took a few days before the republican talking points were released, but Gay patriot in good republican fashion is now on board. As expressed in its crudest form, Ann Coulter in her imitable , if racist manner, sums up the GOP talking point: “THEY GAVE YOUR MORTGAGE TO A LESS QUALIFIED MINORITY” . (just like they gave all GP readers their rightful admission to Harvard or Yale to unqualified minorities).
Yes if we only didn’t allow those colored folks to buy homes and let them clean white folks homes where they were all so happy none of these problems would have happened.
The only problem with the latest right-wing talking point is there is no evidence to support it. The vast majority of defaults on mortgages have nothing to do with the Community Reinvestment Act, but are on private “unregulated” loans that most repuplicans, including McCain, supported deregulating.
Did the CRA result in giving loans to people likely unable to pay mortgage payments? Yes, very likely. Is this the cause of the current financial breakdown? Only in the minds of the most deluded water boys of the republican party.
I am not a huge fan of O’Bama but if he pulls this off, I do think he owes Tine Fey a Cabinet Position, preferably “Commissioner of Correct Lesbain and Gay Politics”. Shoosh!!
Comment by Brendan — September 30, 2008 @ 10:12 pm - September 30, 2008
Oh Brendan.. anyone with a brain.. which excludes you, has known about the Democrat Enron, Fannie Mae, for years.
I’ve been saying the Fed Govt is bankrupt for about a year now.
Comment by Vince P — September 30, 2008 @ 10:23 pm - September 30, 2008
Oh Vince P, thou of small brain , still does not answer the central question. Is the current financial crisis primarily about low income borrowers the core of the problem regarding the collapse of the financial markets? The answer is no. Despite the wet dreams of gay republicans here the crisis is one of private markets and not so-called “socialist” funding of low income people’s mortgages. Don’t you folks want people to own homes? would you prefer socialist forms of public housing? Geesh, make up your mind.
Comment by Brendan — September 30, 2008 @ 10:53 pm - September 30, 2008
Brendan, wanna provide some evidence to back up your name-calling?
You say, we’re repeating talking points here, fine, then rebut them.
And where, oh, where, do you get the racists notions you have? Are you suggesting we don’t want black people to buy homes? If you have evidence, please provide it.
And no, this is not a crisis entirely of private markets, but primarily of excessive government involvement. Please note, as I say in the post, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were government supported enterprises. They failed. And let’s not forget Countrywide, whose chief executive declared that “lenders have to stretch the rules a bit” to comply with the CRA.
Now, go address the points. And until you do, I’ll just consider that all you’re doing is spouting Democratic talking points.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — October 1, 2008 @ 12:01 am - October 1, 2008
And furthermore, there’s a very easy way to demonstrate the hollowness of Brendan’s points.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — October 1, 2008 @ 1:21 am - October 1, 2008
What’s being made obvious here is that the Obama campaign and its supporters like Brendan think it’s “racist” to require minorities to have the same credit ratings and history as white people. They believe that banks and lenders should be forced to loan to people with poor credit based on those peoples’ skin color, and that the government should then bail out these people when they default at the expense of other taxpayers.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — October 1, 2008 @ 1:24 am - October 1, 2008
“Please note, as I say in the post, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were government supported enterprises. They failed.”
I don’t dispute this, but you make a leap in logic when you conclude that the financial collapse is due to providing mortgages to low-middle income people. Such mortgages can and were provided safely and it was the sub-prime market (which goes far beyond the GSE’s) that initiated the current housing crisis. In fact it was HUD under the Bush Administration that allowed the GSEs to count as part of its affordable housing goals the purchase of high risk sub-prime mortgages against the advise of consumer activists.
Comment by Brendan — October 1, 2008 @ 7:49 am - October 1, 2008
No one ever stupidly said the problem was only with the poor folk or minorities.
The only one who keeps saying that is you. Why should we have to refute something we never said. Believe it or not, Non-Leftists are not consumed with identity politics are entire waking hours.
Comment by Vince P — October 1, 2008 @ 8:00 am - October 1, 2008
I’d love for anyone who wants to to own their own homes, thats why I support conservative economic principles. No, I dont support socialist public housing, which is why I dont support liberal socialist economic policies. But you act as if owning a home or public housing are the only choices. They arent. There is rental housing and private charitable temporary housing.
Comment by American Elephant — October 1, 2008 @ 11:26 am - October 1, 2008
“colored folk” ARE allowed to buy homes the same way anyone else is …a good credit rating, down payment and enough income to afford the payments. It is liberals who have the racist position, as they do with affirmative action, that inferior minorities need their benevolent white help to get ahead. This is not a question of “letting” anyone buy a home, it is the fault of liberals who force lenders to give loans to bad credit risks.
What an asinine canard. No one has ever said any such thing. Indeed, the major problem with sub-prime loans has not been minorities but people flipping houses given loans to buy houses they couldnt afford on the prospect that housing prices would only keep going up and that they would be able to repay the loan, with the knowledge that if they werent able to repay the loan, Fannie and Freddy were willing and eager to buy them up. Why? because the Democrats running Fannie and Freddy were giving themselves millions in bonuses for doing so, and they justified and demonized opponents of such practices all in the name of minority home ownership. they lambasted anyone who DARED oppose their destructive business practices as racist — just as you are lamely trying to do now.
But there is no such THING as a “predatory loan”. A loan is a loan is a loan. NO ONE is forced to enter into any loan agreement. People ARE expected, however, to know the terms of a loan before they sign it, and their signature is proof in any court of law that they accept responsibility for those terms.
Once again, liberal arguments are based entirely on lies.
But lenders did nothing illegal. If they did, please provie evidence. They were instead doing exactly what Fannie and Freddy wanted them to do — what Fannie and Freddy encouraged them to do and that was to make lots of loans to bad credit risks — and it was Fannie and Freddy who promised to buy them up.
Pratices that Republicans tried to stop with regulation that Democrats blocked and demonized as racist.
So, with all due respect, youre full of shit.
Comment by American Elephant — October 1, 2008 @ 11:55 am - October 1, 2008
“‘THEY GAVE YOUR MORTGAGE TO A LESS QUALIFIED MINORITY’ What an asinine canard. No one has ever said any such thing.”
That is the headline of Ann Coulter’s column.
“Fannie and Freddy were willing and eager to buy them up. Why? because the Democrats running Fannie and Freddy were giving themselves millions in bonuses for doing so, and they justified and demonized opponents of such practices all in the name of minority home ownership. they lambasted anyone who DARED oppose their destructive business practices as racist — just as you are lamely trying to do now. ”
Again this is factually incorrect. The policy of Fannie and Freddie being allowed to purchase sub-prime mortgage and to count this toward affordable housing goals was established by HUD under the Bush Administration. Consumer right groups, or “libtards” as most posters here seem to prefer objected to the change in practice but it was allowed under Bush.
All loans are not alilke and for years Fannie and Freddie guaranteed loans to low and middle income people–the recent problem is less a matter of who received the loan than the way the loans were packaged as very high risk instruments.
Comment by brendan — October 1, 2008 @ 5:06 pm - October 1, 2008
Again this is factually incorrect. The policy of Fannie and Freddie being allowed to purchase sub-prime mortgage and to count this toward affordable housing goals was established by HUD under the Bush Administration.
Epic fail.
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 July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.
Notice the date: September 30, 1999.
Any other Obama campaign lies to try to push?
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — October 1, 2008 @ 8:40 pm - October 1, 2008
You would think these Leftists would recongize the reality of this , but they dont. That makes me question their the sincerity of their concern
Comment by Vince P — October 2, 2008 @ 4:59 am - October 2, 2008
This video shows that Fannie Mae had a special relationship with Democratic Lawmakers (this is damning)-
YouTube – Explosive Video, Fannie Mae CEO calling Obama and the Dems the “Family” and “Conscience” of Fannie Mae
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usvG-s_Ssb0
This video shows Democratic Lawmakers defending Fannie/Freddie back in 2004 when REPUBLICANS and auditors asked for stricter oversight & regulations of Fannie/Freddie-
YouTube – Shocking Video Unearthed Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Economic Crisis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&feature=related
Video tying it all together-
YouTube – Burning Down The House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4&feature=iv&annotation_id=event_193366
In the last two days several of these Democrats (Barney Frank [Ma], Maxine Waters [Ca], etc.) have been in the news stating that they had “No Idea”, “we tried to stop it”. The Hypocrisy is shocking. These people are socialist traitors to our country.
This is the worst crises to hit America since the great depression, some say, aside from the loss of life our situation is far worse then what happened on 9/11.
You may not want to vote for MacCain and that’s fine but please remember this when you vote for our Legislators.
Comment by Steve — October 4, 2008 @ 1:12 am - October 4, 2008
[...] of the House Financial Services Committee, for his responsibility for the mortgage meltdown (here, here, here, here and here), he at least acknowledged the need for regulation of the [...]
Pingback by GayPatriot » Chris Dodd Fails to Disclose Dubious Dealings — October 20, 2008 @ 12:52 pm - October 20, 2008