The entire notion of expanded home ownership as a social engineering goal was and is laughably cart-before-the-horse. It is a means of building wealth and achieving individual economic stability ... if you pay down the note, don’t buy more than you can honestly afford and stay put to the point of owning the home outright, then continue to live in that primary residence to derive the economic benifit of actual ownership.
This we did not encourage, at all. Instead, we ended up with further social engineering enabling individuals with no documentation whatsoever to acquire very costly properties with no skin in the game, no incentive to stick with the mortgage through periodic adversities. This led to inflated prices, strawman buyers and fraud galore. It also led to the price collapse we’ve experienced, thus laying bare even greater malfeasance and fraud further up the food chain in the inancial world, worldwide.
And so here we are.
Governments aided and abetted above and beyond CRA because they were profiting too, from Freddie and Fannie right on down to counties and municipalities, which experienced a boom in tax receipts so long as the game of musical chairs continued. Builders, mortgage brokers and real estate agents were just as guilty themselves. There were private sector bad actors.
It was a feeding frenzy, fed by cheap money and fraud. To claim that the whole mess rests at the feet of President George W. Bush is highly disingenuous to the point of being a politically motivated lie.
He did, however, go along with it and even expand it, so he’s not innocent, either.
“Governments aided and abetted above and beyond CRA because they were profiting too, from Freddie and Fannie”
Connected Democrats pocketed HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS by cooking the books at Fannie to hide the huge losses they were taking, Circa 1999-2002. Fannie and Freddie were sending Millions to ACORN HOUSING, that was being used to support Democrat Campaigns.
Connected Democrats were using Fannie and Freddie as a personal piggy-bank to fund vote-buying projects, etc.
All of that is too politically-incorrect to remember in today’s Orwellian DoubleThink media world. BUT FR NEVER FORGETS.....
And all that foreign investment and rental units ruined neighborhoods. It filled neighborhoods with illegal aliens (in Arizona for sure) and people who did not maintain the properties. It also falsely sky rocketed property values.
Interesting Video on Youtube, quoting Democrats own words, trying to cover-up the Fannie Book-keeping scandals that so many Democrats personally profited from.
The best part is Maxine Waters saying “We are trying to fix that isn’t broke. Fannie has done TREMENDOUSLY under the fine leadership of Mr. Franklin Raines!”
(oh, and if you doubt that, YOU MUST BE A RASSISS!!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vELjMuCkmvc
.................Governments aided and abetted above and beyond CRA because they were profiting too, from Freddie and Fannie right on down to counties and municipalities..................
And don’t forget that Frank Reines and Jamie Gorelick, among many others had multi millions of bonuses tried to growing Fanny Mae by sucking up as much paper as they could so they could meet their “profit targets” to unleash huge personal bonuses.