Posted on 05/15/2009 8:10:42 PM PDT by sickoflibs
If you realize both parties in Washington think our money is theirs and you trust them to do the wrong thing, this list is for you.
If you think there is a Santa Claus who is going to get elected in Washington and cut a few taxes and spend a few trillion and jump start the economy, and get our lost money back, this list is not for you.
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Where would Reid, Dodd et al be on those cards?
"The fact that Greenspan still has any credibility shows just how little understanding the general public, including Wall Street and the media, actually have about this crisis."
This is so true. I dont even hear this on mainstream conservative talk radio or from conservatives that depend on it.
They would be Kings. And Barney Frank would be a Queen.
>>Where would Reid, Dodd et al be on those cards?
>
>They would be Kings. And Barney Frank would be a Queen.
Maxine Waters could be another Queen.
Hm, it’s a good idea.
I wonder how much start-up capital I’d need...
Collecting his payoloa in a speaking fee. The realtor's spent 57++ million lobbying for easy credit and no down payments the past ten years. So you can thank them for the falling value of your property.
So how about we stop the campaigning and be serious about it? (not you org, them)
Well that's certainly the talk radio main theme. They beat that sole theory to death. CRA certainly made the problem worse and got democrats to live and vote in republican districts but....
1) Many more buyers bought property they couldn't afford assuming the bubble was real (guess why?) than those under CRA, many middle class good earners lured into investment because of bubble there were assured was REAL ECONOMIC GROWTH!
2)Bush promoted CRA goals and took credit for them,
3) Bush promoted illegal Hispanics who were the big beneficiaries of CRA.
President Bush Mortgage Speech 2002(Helping those w bad credit buy houses)
During the peak of the ‘prosperity “ bubble, I was running out of patience discussing this, particularly with elderly folks who blindly thought Greenspan was good for the country. He always seemed to me to be a grandstander who loved to see his name in the press, and he should be made to acknowledge his wayward child publicly.
I don't see them posting anymore.
“1) Many more buyers bought property they couldn’t afford assuming the bubble was real (guess why?) than those under CRA, many middle class good earners lured into investment because of bubble there were assured was REAL ECONOMIC GROWTH!”
The “bubble” was artificially expanded not just because of the low rates but also because of government distortions from mortgage deductions and coercion by regulators that forced bankers to qualify many more risky applicants for home mortgages.
Remember those “toxic” securities? The regulators permitted the bankers to repackage the risky loans into securities instruments and derivatives. Remember the screams from European investors (both private and governmental) when they saw their value evaporate back in Fall of 2008? They (and many of us) were suckered into buying mutual fund shares that included these toxic assets.
Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Fannie May, and Freddie Mac are the biggest perpetrators of this horrific mess. We need to keep the heat on them for lying about their part.
I am convinced that the leftists purposely planned the hysteria as the “October Surprise” that strengthened Obama and caused John McCain to flounder.
No, the democrats wanted more voters moving into republican districts and Bush helped them and the inevitable crash came before Bush got out which was justice even if it led to very bad things (democrats in power.).
To much bad has happened for me to go with the political spin.
It’s good to see someone else realizes the CRA was not the main culprit.
It was so obvious that people were overpaying for property and borrowing too much against their homes. So, when talk radio started blaming the CRA, I did some research myself. And I found out the real story was very different.
Then I had to debate with people (in person and online) over that CRA theory. My point was: Maybe the CRA is a bad policy; go ahead and repeal it. But, it’s not the source of the blame for the mortgage crisis.
The interest rates dropped too low by the Fed led to a housing bubble. And everyone (Main St. AND Wall St.) went nuts buying and selling overpriced property and bad securities. I thought the stock market was a good comparison, and I tried to explain it that way.
But, no one would listen to little ol’ me. ;-) So, I was so glad to see the Peter Schiff video (of his lecture at Von Mises) because here was someone, who was in favor of small gov’t and who’d predicted the crisis, saying exactly what I’d been trying to explain. He compared the mortgage crisis to a stock market crash. And he never mentioned the CRA. He explained it much better, though, and he was more fun to listen to. ;-) I’ve been sending the video link around.
The FED fed the bubble, and its near-zero fed funds rate made it an easy decision for managers to put their money into real estate at 6% instead of overnight loans at .5%.
Malinvestment? You bet it is.
Read Tom Woods' best-seller, Meltdown and watch his 50-minute talk on BookTV. It complements Schiff's videos very well.
There is plenty of blame to go around ... but, yes it is true that Greenspan coulda stopped it in its tracks.
Ping
I despise Greenspan but I think part of the resaon for low interest rates was to goose the economy to accommodate the Iraq war and the massive expansion of government spending fostered by Democrats and Republicans.
GWBush knew that a humming economy allowed the public to support the Iraq war and this was impressed upon Alan Greenspan. Only problem was that the economy was based on house building and flipping and taking money out of houses. Plus trillions of dollars of credit default swaps and other Wall Street monkey business
Does the 57 million include the money from the mortgage broker’s lobbying effort?
Agree totally, and the veritable computerized archive of tiresome talking points is Sean Hannity. Listening to him can be a very wearing experience. And hearing his perpetual guest Karl Rove, even though I’m not one who demonizes him, is even more wearing. They’re ALL still playing partisan politics, while avoiding serious responsibility for this crisis. The Repubs just want to get back in power, without quite knowing what they’ll have to do to get there, and still casting about for a pantheon of “fresh faces” with a “new message”. NONE of them least of all the new RNC hiphop Chairman, seems willing to throw Bush under the bus, because they’re still playing the saving grace card of Bush “keeping us safe”. Our system of “elected representatives’ is not going to be scrapped anytime soon, so the ONLY thing that’s going to make an impression on both a new population of Republicans in the upcoming election cycle, is to let them know that WE dictate policy for them, NOT them for us. Demanding ‘accountability’ is also not an answer, because the kind of spending that Bush did, and that Obama increased tenfold, SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED IN THE FIRST PLACE.Saying we want ‘oversight’ and accountability has become a very easy thing to evade and to fudge on: they’d ALL agree to it, then appoint their own chickens to guard the henhouse.
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