Spitzer and Sarbox Were Deregulation? (more debunking Rat lies)

Wall Street Journal ^ | 10/31/2008 | JAMES FREEMAN

[uncommonsense]

...Barack Obama analyzed the causes of the credit meltdown. "Now, we also have to recognize that this is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush, supported by Senator McCain, a theory that basically says that we can shred regulations and consumer protections and give more and more to the most, and somehow prosperity will trickle down."

One had to look far and wide in the spring of 2002 to find anyone who thought the Sarbanes-Oxley law was an experiment in cowboy capitalism. For example, on its front page of April 25, 2002, the New York Times reported: "House and Senate negotiators agreed . . . on a broad overhaul of corporate fraud, accounting and securities laws aimed at curbing the rampant abuses that have shaken Wall Street . . . Some lawmakers called it the most sweeping securities legislation since the 1930s."

Of course, in the years since this sweeping securities legislation was enacted, its costs have been many times official estimates... even liberal Democrats such as New York Sen. Charles Schumer came to realize that the regulatory monster created by Sarbanes-Oxley had to be tamed.

Mr. Schumer was so concerned about the migration of business from Wall Street to London, Hong Kong and even Dubai that he joined New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in commissioning a study of the problem and potential solutions. Schumer and Bloomberg wrote that "our regulatory framework is a thicket of complicated rules." They warned that without reform, "we will no longer be the financial capital of the world."

Mr. Bush's staggering 2003 increase of more than 24% was the largest in the last 50 years. If Mr. Obama considers this a record of deregulation -- America's economy could be in for a very long four years.

[griswold3]

As always, to the ‘progressives’, the government didn’t go far enough.

This Progressive Social Engineering will be the death of us.
Stop it NOW! (or at least on Nov 4) Just when the ‘progressives’ think there’s no way they could lose this one!

[Liz]

ACORN’s Food Stamp Mortgages
American Spectator, October 29, 2008, By Matthew Vadum

FR Posted by reaganaut1

With wanton disregard for the economic well being of America, a decade ago the social justice entrepreneurs of the ultra-leftist Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) let Americans know their strategy for bringing equality of result to the housing market — at all costs. In a circa 1999
document, “To Each Their Home: Success Stories from the ACORN Housing Corporation,” the ACORN affiliate called the American Dream a sham and bragged about undermining banks’ underwriting standards.

The brochure acknowledged there may be scattered “stories of hope and success” in ACORN-targeted communities, but “they also belie the supposition that if you simply work hard, sacrifice and save, you can easily buy a home of your own.” (The document is
available here—thread link.)

ACORN Housing took credit for developing “several innovative strategies” to get around pesky traditional lending guidelines, which were unfair because they “were geared to middle class borrowers.” Instead of using passé measures of creditworthiness such as, say, credit history and having an adequate income, ACORN convinced lenders to adopt “more flexible underwriting criteria that take into account the realities of lower income communities.” Henceforth, some banks serving inner cities would accept “less traditional income sources such as food stamps.” (See Foundation Watch, November 2008.)

It’s unclear why ACORN stopped there. Perhaps the rent-a-mob group, renowned for occupying banks, disrupting legislative hearings and emergency medical facilities, surrounding the homes of politicians and CEOs, and annoying trapped motorists into paying tribute as part of its “toll roads” program, could have convinced narrow-minded bankers to accept another financial innovation.

How about accepting “Monopoly” money for down payments?

Financial tomfoolery like including food stamps on loan
applications was encouraged by the Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which opened banking to ACORN-style agitation that over time weakened underwriting criteria and helped to alter the culture of financial institutions in the U.S.

This 1977 law, whose enactment ACORN lobbied for, punishes lenders for limiting loans to wealthier, more creditworthy markets, a practice called “redlining.” It gives banking regulators discretionary authority to make trouble for banks that fail to lend enough money to “underserved” minority communities.

—SNIP—

[Shermy]

Wall Street Journal Opinion page.

Always good for a laugh.