Posted on 09/08/2008 7:06:36 AM PDT by joinedafterattack
There are as many starting points for the mortgage meltdown as there are fears about how far it has yet to go, but one decisive point of departure is the final years of the Clinton administration, when a kid from Queens without any real banking or real-estate experience was the only man in Washington with the power to regulate the giants of home finance, the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), better known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded "kickbacks" to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. Three to four million families are now facing foreclosure, and Cuomo is one of the reasons why.
(Excerpt) Read more at villagevoice.com ...
He was more concerned with banning firearms in .gov housing projects. Ya know.
“blahblah BDS.”
Great response!!!
“The simple fact is the Gov’t shouldn’t decide how many homeowners are created or tell banks to give loans to minorities who can’t qualify.”
Home (aka property) ownership is generally considered a good thing. It makes the country more stable helps people to create wealth.
You’re whole issue seems to be with the minorities. Don’t you want minorities to own property?
Referring to minorities, I was talking about Pres. Bush's comprehensive Housing reform to created 5.5 Mil minority homeowners.
I don't care what they look like only that they can pay their mortgage and don't need a bailout.
The Government was responsible for making the rules. I think if we are looking to assign blame there are plenty of people and groups who acted together in causing this problem, including politicians, mortgage companies, appraisers, real estate agents, speculators and people bad at math. None of it could have happened without the rule changes at HUD under Cuomo.
I want everyone to be able to purchase property if they are able to meet the same criteria that must be met in order to demonstrate the ability to pay for the property. If you, or any one else, wants to see people with insufficient income and credit histories obtain loans, then you should co-sign for their purchase.
I did not choose to co-sign for these foreclosed properties but I am being taxed to cover the loans. This is my punishment for buying a home I can afford and paying my mortgage on time. I live in an old 900 sqf home with 2 bedrooms and a single bath. We make do.
I hate this kind of sloppy writing. Why not just come out and say "...who, at 39, became the youngest..."?
According to wikipedia, he is the elder son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York, and was married to (now divorced from) a daugher of Robert F. Kennedy. (Forgive me for living under a rock.)
Regards,
“I don’t care what they look like only that they can pay their mortgage and don’t need a bailout. “
So instead of focusing the discussion on minorities it might help to instead focus on giving loans to unqualified buyers.
The Achilles heel of your argument is that these 5.5 million minorities are not the problem. Its the 2% of the American population who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Some were taking advantage of the circumstances, others were responsible people just trying to buy a house. Many foreclosures in this round are in this latter category. People who could afford the home at the time but with the downturn can no longer make their payments.
bump
Bumping this for a later read of the whole article but what I’ve read so far is quite fascinating — and amazing to see this coming out of the Village Voice. Thanks for posting — it’s nice to see, once again, evidence of a ticking “time-bomb” left by the corrupt Clinton Administration for the Bush Administration. Maybe Bush and his team can be criticized for not seeing or fixing some of this, but with the Recession, Terrorist Attacks, Diminished Capabilities at the CIA, Diminished Capabilities in our Armed Forces, Internet Bubble and Bear Market Meltdown — I’d say that the Bush Administration had quite a bit on its plate, especially when the Dem-controlled Senate decided to slow-roll W’s Cabinet appointments.
Yes, bookmark this tread/article for an in-depth read.
I received this interesting email today:
Important information that needs to get out from the American Spectator. If
only half of the stuff that is coming out about this guy is true, then
voting for him has got to be a purely emotional act without sense or reason.
Fanny, Freddie, and Obama
By The Prowler
Published 9/8/2008 12:08:38 AM
When President George W. Bush nominated Henry Paulson to
serve as Treasury Secretary, Republicans raised a red flag that Paulson,
who, along with his wife, has strong ties to the Democrat party, would not
be an honest broker with Republicans.
That seems to have been borne out, with sources inside of
Treasury reporting that Paulson briefed Sen. Barack Obama and his campaign
advisers on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout plan before offering such
a briefing to the McCain campaign.
In fact, the McCain campaign had sought a similar briefing
several days ago as word spread that a bailout plan was to be unveiled and
had been turned down by Paulson’s senior staff.
The next question is: Why was the Obama campaign so keen
on getting advanced word about the bailout?
“They have a huge problem with the mortgage and housing
market story, and everyone is missing it,” says a Republican political media
consultant with ties to the Obama campaign due to the bipartisan nature of
the firm he does work with.
“You look at Obama’s economic advisers, the guys he has
counted on from day one and who have raised him a ton — and I mean a ton —
of money: Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, both of them are waist to neck
deep in the mortgage debacle.”
Both Raines and Johnson have served as CEO of Fannie Mae,
with Raines taking over from Johnson. Both are key political and economic
advisers to Obama.
“How can Obama go out with a straight face and saw it was
Republicans who made this mess, when it is his key advisers who ran the
agencies that made the big mess what it is?” says a Democrat House member
who supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. “It’s his people who are
responsible for what may well be the single largest government bailout in
history. And every single one of them made millions off the collapse that
are lining Obama’s campaign coffers. If the McCain campaign let’s this one
go, they deserve to lose.”
It isn’t just Fannie Mae where Obama has a problem.
Another close political adviser, in fact the one man responsible for
rallying support for Obama early on among Congressional Democrats, is Rep.
Rahm Emanuel, who served on the Board of Directors for Freddie Mac after
leaving the Clinton White House. According to Freddie Mac insiders, Emanuel
during his time on the board opposed every reform proposed by the Bush
Administration that would have impacted Freddie and Fannie Mae.
Emanuel claimed to be neutral in the primary race between
the wife of his old boss and his longtime Chicago acquaintance, Obama. But
the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, who would be first in line for
the vacated Senate seat of Obama should he win the presidency, quickly
dumped Clinton when it was clear Obama had a head of steam for the
nomination.
“We ought to be able to — rightly — hang the Fannie and
Freddie scandal around the neck of Obama, if they can get out in front,”
says a House Republican. “Middle-class folks’ mortgages are probably safe,
but the American taxpayer will also be paying for this scandal for years to
come.”
“Pres. Bush wanted 5.5 Mil more homeowners. Well, he got it. We are all homeowners now.”
Just more “compassionate conservatism”
Great info on Freddie and Fannie and their liberal friends of the Obama/Clinton mob. And not a surprise — the lid on Pandora’s Box (Washington, DC) is starting to be opened.
“Pres. Bush wanted 5.5 Mil more homeowners. Well, he got it. We are all homeowners now.”
::::::::::::
Yeah, another thing related to his OPEN BORDERS FOR ILLEGALS policy. It is burned into stone for his legacy to America.
Vote McCain & Palin
The article indicates that government decisions are a major reason for the crisis. Mandates for sub prime loans, relaxed rules about yield spread premiums, and lax reporting about loan portfolio quality are major reasons for the crisis. These policies were begun with rats and continued with the pubs. I think that Utopian government policies stopped normal market forces from working properly.
“I think that Utopian government policies stopped normal market forces from working properly. “
How did a government policy result is some schmuck fabricating his income on a loan application?
Perhaps lack of some regulation prevented oversight of senior bank managers that would have caught the rampant corruption, but they didn’t cause it.
Cuomo was NOT the only one. These organizations have provided cushy jobs with astronomical salaries and nothing much to do during their entire existence, and BOTH parties have made use of them. This link lists the recent crooks in control - and the hole that they crawled out of. I think that most of them belong behind bars, but I doubt it will happen.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2048328/posts?page=15#15
I think that these alternative income loans were also encouraged by home ownership mandates. The lax reporting requirements and yield spread policies facilitated this behavior. Government Utopian policies were contributing factors for the mess.
Financial institutions were punished if not meeting the subprime and alternative income mandates. The yield spread policies provided the green light to shady lending practices that pulled in the mandated loans. The ultimate note holder was left in the dark given these practices and the lax reporting requirements.
Greed is a natural human condition. The marketplace controls greed when properly working with full information and competition. Greed is not the cause of the crisis. Market breakdowns are the cause because normal constraints on greed were removed.
So true.
Bookmarked
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.