FNC just ran a repeat of who’s to blame. It too fixes the date at 1999. That would be Clinton but it is also with a Republican congress.
Allowing the commercial banking industry to combine with the investment industry without solid oversight seems to be the underlying culprit in all this.
One more reason to oppose power and money in DC. We need government to keep the playing field level but they must be stopped from helping businesses, or choosing winners and losers.
Had to be repeated.
Your brilliance is once again shining through. Govt. should be a "minor" regulator in business not a player.
It would be impossible to under estimate my loathing for the US Congress. If you examine any problem this country faces, or has faced in the past 35 years, you cannot escape the fact that Congress bears the lions share of blame. I know it is fun to point at cretins like Durbin, Schumer, Leahy, Reid, Pelosi etc., but the Republicans are no angels either. Presidents come and Presidents go, but Congress remains. They have the power to override vetoes so they bear ultimate responsibility for everything that happens or fails to happen. Since I am blaming Congress the institution I can not give Republicans a pass. You are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem, and Republican Congress critters are complicit. I know a lot of people will say “Yeah Congress sucks, but my Congress Critter is really great.” To that I say if you don’t want to be called a pig, quit wallowing around in the sty. Not only has our Congress failed us miserably, they continue to do so today and have the audacity to do so at our expense.
No, that's wrong. The date is 1977, under the Carter Administration. That is when the Community Reinvestment Act was passed, in response to allegations of banks' "red-lining" poor and minority neighborhoods. However, this Act was only loosely enforced until 1995, when the Clinton Administration imposed additiional requirements and enforcement procedures.
Under Clinton, banks were required, under penalty of law, to make loans to a percentage of the populations living in "disadvantaged" neighborhoods. If the banks did not meet the quota requirements, they were fined and applications for permission to open new branches or make mergers or acquisitions were delayed. Community organizers were encouraged, under the law, to make formal complaints about banks to the government, and these complaints were then taken into consideration when regulatory agencies were evaluating the banks' compliance with the law.
In addition, loan money for housing and development was distributed to third-party, non-profit, community organizations to dispense - which they did, to their cronies and supporters. (Obama was heavily involved in these activities in his capacity as a "community organizer.")
In order to avoid trouble with the government and the community organizations, the banks went ahead and made loans to people who otherwise wouldn't have passed a credit check - and then sold the loans to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae who were only to happy to pick them up (more loans on the books led to increased bonuses for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae executives).
The chief support for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae came from the Congressional Black Caucus and other left-wing Democrats. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae solidified their support in Congress by making enormous contributions to lawmakers. The Senators who received the most in contributions were Chris Dodd (head of the Senate Banking Committee) and Obama.
When Bush's Treasury Secretary, John Snow, made a recommendation to Congress in 2003 that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae be completely overhauled and placed under the Justice Department, on the grounds that there were no adequate tools to monitor them and they were severely under-capitalized, he met with furious opposition. When John McCain and two other Republican Senators co-sponsored a bill, in 2005, to impose reforms, it never made it to the floor - the Democrats threatened to filibuster. At that time, Barney Frank stated that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were perfectly sound and imposing restrictions on them would harm the "affordable housing" program and impede the "leverage" of the poor.
FNC is doing a cover-up - maybe they are afraid of what might happen to their broadcast license under a Democrat administration if they expose the truth.