Free Republic

Since the summer of 2008, the U.S. Treasury and the Fed have initiated a welter of new spending, lending, and subsidizing programs ostensibly aimed at steming the recession that began early in that year and deepened quickly in its last quarter and in the first quarter of 2009. Among the most notable of these programs have been attempts to prop up the real estate market and the residential construction industry, where the Fed’s easy-money policies in the first half of the present decade induced lenders to make millions of mortgage loans to home buyers who would not have qualified for...

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration, in a major shift on housing policy, is abandoning George W. Bush’s vision of creating an “ownership society’’ and instead plans to pump $4.25 billion of economic stimulus money into creating tens of thousands of federally subsidized rental units in American cities. The idea is to pay for the construction of low-rise rental apartment buildings and town houses, as well as the purchase of foreclosed homes that can be refurbished and rented to low- and moderate-income families at affordable rates.

Bush's "ownership society" has collapsed under the dead weight of debt. There is too much debt and too little income to support it. Please consider President shifts focus to renting, not owning. The Obama administration, in a major shift on housing policy, is abandoning George W. Bush’s vision of creating an “ownership society’’ and instead plans to pump $4.25 billion of economic stimulus money into creating tens of thousands of federally subsidized rental units in American cities. The idea is to pay for the construction of low-rise rental apartment buildings and town houses, as well as the purchase of foreclosed...

Old: The 1980s ushered in a lasting change: the systematic transfer of risk from the government and employers down to individuals. Tax cuts on income and capital gains, for example, were meant to encourage you to invest more in stocks, buy homes, and start up businesses. These activities became the pillars of what George W. Bush would later dub the "ownership society." But the ownership society also forced you to take on risks and responsibilities that had previously been spread around, including paying for health care and ensuring your own retirement security. The 401(k), which sprang up in the early...

WH accuses Times of 'gross negligence' By: Mike Allen December 21, 2008 02:12 PM EST The White House on Sunday issued a blistering 500-word response to a scathing 5,000 word article on the front page of Sunday's New York Times that says President Bush and his style and philosophy of governing played a direct role in the mortgage meltdown that's crippling the nation's economy. The response accused the nation's largest Sunday paper of "gross negligence." "The Times' 'reporting' in this story amounted to finding selected quotes to support a story the reporters fully intended to write from the onset, while...

The situation is so dire in some neighborhoods of Detroit that it's hard to believe that you're still in the world's strongest superpower, which continues to pump billions of dollars into foreign aid each year. In the semi-abandoned downtown area of Detroit, men gather at intersections, concealing the bottles of beer they're carrying in brown paper bags but unable to hide their swagger. Uninspired graffiti covers the crumbling walls of historic buildings and dubious bars tucked beneath skyscrapers, some of which are completely empty. No less telling of how bad things have become are signs put up on stores reading...

Burning Down The House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis?End-to-End rundown on what caused it, who, and how. MustSeePC..

It was always tempting to dismiss the ownership society as an empty slogan--"hokum" as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich put it. But the ownership society was quite real. It was the answer to a roadblock long faced by politicians favoring policies to benefit the wealthy. The problem boiled down to this: people tend to vote their economic interests. Even in the wealthy United States, most people earn less than the average income. That means it is in the interest of the majority to vote for politicians promising to redistribute wealth from the top down. So what to do? It was...

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad economic vision Tuesday, saying it's time to replace an "on your own" society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity. The Democratic senator said what the Bush administration touts as an "ownership society" really is an "on your own" society that has widened the gap between rich and poor. "I prefer a 'we're all in it together' society," she said. "I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none." Clinton said she would...

Before Hurricane Katrina flooded the tear ducts of our politicians and the vaults of our treasury, President Bush had us talking about America’s “ownership society.” This is one of the best things he has done. He did it prominently in his reelection campaign. He did it bravely in relation to Social Security, which risks the outrage of the media and the votes of older people who always vote. If he did it in some ways foolishly, never mind. It showed promise because it had us talking about something central for a change. This question of ownership is at the heart...

Bush's Ownership Society Why No One's Buying. By Paul Glastris ----------------------------- Conservatives have a knack for taking good ideas—say, patriotism or faith—to the sort of ideologized extreme that brands the ideas as theirs and leads liberals to abandon them. We're seeing that now with the issue of choice and individual empowerment. Those very concepts used to be associated with liberal causes like abortion and voting rights. But over the last couple of decades, conservative intellectuals have roped them to a larger agenda to revolutionize government. And they're perfectly open about it. Talk to scholars at the Cato Institute or the...

The Bravos were legal homeowners before they were legal residents. After nearly a decade living in a "dangerous" part of Richmond, the couple from Mexico City -- Guadalupe, 50, and Javier, 52 -- closed on a nearly $400,000 Pinole home in 2003. They had saved up money from years of cleaning homes and doing maintenance work, employed their daughter as an interpreter for their dealings with a real estate agent and found a mortgage lender that required only the tax identification number available to anyone who works in the United States. A growing number of banks are providing such loans,...

Before Hurricane Katrina flooded the tear ducts of our politicians and the vaults of our treasury, President Bush had us talking about America’s “ownership society.” This is one of the best things he has done. He did it prominently in his reelection campaign. He did it bravely in relation to Social Security, which risks the outrage of the media and the votes of older people who always vote. If he did it in some ways foolishly, never mind. It showed promise because it had us talking about something central for a change. This question of ownership is at the heart...

When an Orange County judge issued a ruling in mid-August in favor of one of the three breakaway churches that seceded from the Episcopal Church (ECUSA) and the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles last summer, he confirmed that the parish was in conformity with U.S. cultural assumptions about ownership.St. James, Newport Beach, along with All Saints, Long Beach and St. David's, North Hollywood, associated itself with the Diocese of Luweero, in Uganda, in August 2004, and its leadership claimed that the parishioners were the rightful owners of all of the church's property. The diocese and ECUSA sued the three congregations,...

A new national organization of black Republicans is set to launch Monday, hoping to effectively represent the party's ideals in the African-American community. The National Black Republican Association will make its announcement at a Washington, D.C, law firm. "The creation of the National Black Republican Association is the product of the dreams and efforts of scores of black Republicans across the nation," said interim Chairperson Frances Rice, co-founder of a black Republican group in Sarasota, Fla. "Black grass-roots activists have always been involved locally and nationally within the Republican Party, but there was always agreement that we needed a national...

President Bush's fifth State of the Union address laid out an agenda that is perhaps the most ambitious domestic agenda of any second term President. The President's plan for an “ownership society” could go a long way in giving citizens more control over their own lives. Stephen Moore, president of the Free Enterprise Fund, has compiled a book that provides a short, easy-to-read defense of President Bush's policies entitled Bullish on Bush: How George W. Bush's Ownership Society Will Make America Stronger. Originally written before the 2004 election in order to persuade voters that President Bush's policies are better for...

The 20th Century’s energizing dynamic was totalitarian socialism. Leading that parade were proponents like Stalin and Communist Russia, Hitler and his National Socialist Party, China’s Chairman Mao and a host of lesser lights like Saddam Hussein in Iraq. All preached the equality of outcomes for their people despite their own personal power-hungry obsessions. All seduced the world with their “humanity” that no one should paid more for their work than any other. They all preached a socialism that elevated the group at the expense of the individual. Fortunately for America, their citizens continued their abiding devotion to individualism during the...

Clinton appearing now on CNN Larry King Dead: "I am sympathetic to the President. I like the idea of an ownership society. We tried to do this for welfare when I was president."

Many of the older generation still have emotional scars from the Great Depression seared into their souls. Even Baby Boomers had parents that lost everything and imparted that fear into their children. It made them life long Democrats and gave that party an almost uninterrupted congressional run from 1932 until 1994. When faced with a suggestion that a New Social Security plan would improve that system, they have a knee jerk reaction to reject it emanating from deep within. I am convinced that no amount of logic, facts or argument will ever change that reaction. It is planted too deep....

BrookesNews.Com Headline: United Airlines says it can't pay $9.8 Billion in Pensions. Yet they have an infinitesimal problem compared to the Congress of the United States. Congress has an unfunded $11 Trillion Social Security "pension" they haven't either put in the bank or recorded on the people's books. The pilots and stewardesses think they have a problem. Wow, they have no idea what a problem really is. Yet our MSM, the Democrats, the liberal elite, Democrat Congressmen all proclaim "Hey, no problem, No hurry, we can obstruct Republicans" until the unrecorded liability is $25 Trillion (and we have to cancel...