QUOTE

"You know, I'm the President during this period of time, but I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived in President, during I arrived in President."

George W. Bush, ABC News interview, Dec. 1, 2008

QUOTE

 “Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative ideas; it is not because of the merit of our positions; it is not because we care about children; and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child.


“The NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them; the union that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees.


“This is not to say that the concern of NEA and its affiliates with closing achievement gaps, reducing drop rate rates, improving teacher quality, and the like are unimportant or inappropriate. To the contrary these are the goals that guide the work we do. But they need not and must not be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights, or collective bargaining.


“That is simply too high a price to pay.”

(jimhanson @ Aug. 12 2010,10:23 am)

QUOTE

Today, we have an administration that insists on passing bills that the American people don't want--but they pass them anyway.

QUOTE

Today, we have an administration that insists on passing bills that the American people don't want--but they pass them anyway.

QUOTE

LIE #2 Legislation Obamunist administration passed DESPITE THE FACT THAT MOST AMERICANS OPPOSED THEM.  

In the same week the U.S. Senate passed a major financial reform bill touted as reining in Wall Street, Democrats pulled ahead of Republicans, 49% to 43%, in voters' generic ballot preferences for the 2010 congressional elections.

QUOTE

Monday, July 19, 2010 Republican candidates now hold a nine-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, July 18, the widest gap between the two parties in several weeks.  

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% of Likely Voters would vote for their district's Republican congressional candidate, while 36% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent.  Support for Republicans inched up a point from last week, while support for the Democrat fell two points.

While solid majorities of Democrats and Republicans support the candidates of their respective party, voters not affiliated with either party prefer the Republican candidate by a 47% to 21% margin.

Republicans have led on the Generic Ballot since mid-June 2009, and their lead hasn’t dipped below five points since the beginning of December.  Twice this year, they've posted a 10-point lead. However, the results were much different during the last two election cycles when Democrats regularly had large advantages.

QUOTE

Bush the Elitist made $300 Million during his 8 years as President..

QUOTE

Most Americans Say Bailouts Were Bad Idea, Political Class Disagrees
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 Looking back, 59% of voters nationwide believe the federal bailouts for banks and other financial institutions were a bad idea. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 26% think they were a good idea.

The numbers are similar for the bailout loans given to General Motors and Chrysler: 60% say they were a bad idea, and just 26% hold the opposite view.

Public opposition to the bailouts has been strong right from the start. In September, right after Lehman Brothers collapsed, just seven percent (7%) of voters thought the federal government should use taxpayer funds to keep a large financial institution solvent. Sixty-five percent (65%) said the companies should file for bankruptcy. A week later, following Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s appeal for a $700 billion bailout, support increased a bit but only to 28%. The more voters learned about the plans, the more opposition grew.

But, in the end, the opinions of the Political Class mattered more than the opinions of voters. Today, by a 61% to 23% margin, the Political Class still believes the bailouts for the financial industry were a good idea. By a 64% to 23%, they say the same about the auto bailouts.

QUOTE

Whatever you do, don't take any blame..

QUOTE

That's because of government interference--FANNIE AND FREDDIE--the subject of this thread.  If you bothered to look, you would see that SEVERAL TIMES Bush took the unusual step of asking Congress to look into Fannie and Freddie--but since the Donks controlled Congress, they appointed their own as Chairmen of the House and Senate Finance Committees--the very same committees with oversight on Fannie and Freddie.  

QUOTE

2008 Nobel Prize in Economics winner Paul Krugman states that the notion "has been refuted up, down, and sideways."[104]  He also noted in November 2009 that 55% of commercial real estate loans were currently underwater, despite being completely unaffected by the CRA.[105] According to San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank Governor Randall Kroszner, the claim that "the law pushed banking institutions to undertake high-risk mortgage lending" was contrary to their experience, and that no empirical evidence had been presented to support the claim.[100] In a Bank for International Settlements  (BIS) working paper, economist Luci Ellis concluded that "there is no evidence that the Community Reinvestment Act was responsible for encouraging the subprime lending boom and subsequent housing bust", relying partly on evidence that the housing bust has been a largely exurban event.[106] Others have also concluded that the CRA did not contribute to the financial crisis, for example, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair,[101] Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan,[107] Tim Westrich of the Center for American Progress,[108] Robert Gordon of the American Prospect,[109] Ellen Seidman of the New America Foundation,[110] Daniel Gross of Slate,[111] and Aaron Pressman from BusinessWeek.[112]

Some legal and financial experts note that CRA regulated loans tend to be safe and profitable, and that subprime excesses came mainly from institutions not regulated by the CRA. In the February 2008 House hearing, law professor Michael S. Barr, a Treasury Department official under President Clinton,[67][113] stated that a Federal Reserve survey showed that affected institutions considered CRA loans profitable and not overly risky. He noted that approximately 50% of the subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies that were not regulated by the CRA, and another 25% to 30% came from only partially CRA regulated bank subsidiaries and affiliates. Barr noted that institutions fully regulated by CRA made "perhaps one in four" sub-prime loans, and that "the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight".[114] According to Janet L. Yellen, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, independent mortgage companies made risky "high-priced loans" at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts; most CRA loans were responsibly made, and were not the higher-priced loans that have contributed to the current crisis.[115] A 2008 study by Traiger & Hinckley LLP, a law firm that counsels financial institutions on CRA compliance, found that CRA regulated institutions were less likely to make subprime loans, and when they did the interest rates were lower. CRA banks were also half as likely to resell the loans.[116] Emre Ergungor of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found that there was no statistical difference in foreclosure rates between regulated and less-regulated banks, although a local bank presence resulted in fewer foreclosures.[117]

During a 2008 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the financial crisis, including in relation to the Community Reinvestment Act, asked if the CRA provided the "fuel" for increasing subprime loans, former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines said it might have been a catalyst encouraging bad behavior, but it was difficult to know. Raines also cited information that only a small percentage of risky loans originated as a result of the CRA.

(jimhanson @ Aug. 14 2010,2:45 pm)

QUOTE

 What does BLAME have to do with the Obamunists passing their unpopular agenda--an agenda SO unpopular that MOST people are against it--an agenda SO unpopular that it has caused the poll numbers for Obama and Congress to plummet--an agenda SO unpopular that the Donks are headed for big losses this fall?

While we are looking at unpopular agendas--Obambi's "Blame Bush" response for every ill facing his administration has reached its shelf life.  The majority of voters now blame Obama.  They've had enough of his whining and trying to deflect blame.  Obama is viewed as ineffective.

Talk about never accepting responsibility!

QUOTE

Legislative changes 1992
Although minor amendments were made directly to the Community Reinvestment Act concerning the consideration of minority and female owned institutions & partnerships during evaluations first established in 1991, other portions of the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 indirectly afftected the CRA practices at the time in requiring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government sponsored enterprises that purchase and securitize mortgages, to devote a percentage of their lending to support affordable housing.[4]

In October 2000, to expand the secondary market for affordable community-based mortgages and to increase liquidity for CRA-eligible loans, Fannie Mae committed to purchase and securitize $2 billion of "MyCommunityMortgage" loans.[49][50] In November 2000 Fannie Mae announced that the Department of Housing and Urban Development ("HUD") would soon require it to dedicate 50% of its business to low- and moderate-income families." It stated that since 1997 Fannie Mae had done nearly $7 billion in CRA business with depository institutions, but its goal was $20 billion.[51] In 2001 Fannie Mae announced that it had acquired $10 billion in specially-targeted Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) loans more than one and a half years ahead of schedule, and announced its goal to finance over $500 billion in CRA business by 2010, about one third of loans anticipated to be financed by Fannie Mae during that period.[52]

QUOTE

Economist Stan Liebowitz wrote in the New York Post that a strengthening of the CRA in the 1990s encouraged a loosening of lending standards throughout the banking industry. He also charges the Federal Reserve with ignoring the negative impact of the CRA.[95] In a commentary for CNN, Congressman Ron Paul, who serves on the United States House Committee on Financial Services, charged the CRA with "forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks."[102] In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Austrian school economist Russell Roberts wrote that the CRA subsidized low-income housing by pressuring banks to serve poor borrowers and poor regions of the country

QUOTE

Liberal--and liberals--would have us believe that the government pressure on banks to make loans to people that otherwise wouldn't qualify--upon possible penalty for NOT doing so--had no effect on the banking crisis--that these bankers WANTED to make those kinds of loans.  

QUOTE

2008 Nobel Prize in Economics winner Paul Krugman states that the notion "has been refuted up, down, and sideways."[104]  He also noted in November 2009 that 55% of commercial real estate loans were currently underwater, despite being completely unaffected by the CRA.[105] According to San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank Governor Randall Kroszner, the claim that "the law pushed banking institutions to undertake high-risk mortgage lending" was contrary to their experience, and that no empirical evidence had been presented to support the claim.[100] In a Bank for International Settlements  (BIS) working paper, economist Luci Ellis concluded that "there is no evidence that the Community Reinvestment Act was responsible for encouraging the subprime lending boom and subsequent housing bust", relying partly on evidence that the housing bust has been a largely exurban event.[106] Others have also concluded that the CRA did not contribute to the financial crisis, for example, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair,[101] Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan,[107] Tim Westrich of the Center for American Progress,[108] Robert Gordon of the American Prospect,[109] Ellen Seidman of the New America Foundation[/b],[110] Daniel Gross of Slate,[111] and Aaron Pressman from BusinessWeek.[112]

(jimhanson @ Aug. 14 2010,2:45 pm)

QUOTE

Obambi's "Blame Bush" response for every ill facing his administration has reached its shelf life.  The majority of voters now blame Obama.  They've had enough of his whining and trying to deflect blame.

QUOTE

A careful examination of the video shows that it was October, 2002.  The policy was already in place from the Clinton administration.

Liberal's post was specific to the Community Reinvestment Act--passed in 1977.  The act has been amended many times.

Note that the mandate for Federal involvement happened during the Clinton Administration.

QUOTE

One of the approaches, the American Dream Down Payment Act, will help low-income Americans afford the down payment and closing costs on their first home. Bush is asking Congress to provide $200 million a year for the program. He also proposes to make zero down-payment loans available to first-time buyers whose mortgages are guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration.

QUOTE

In addition, Bush is proposing a tax credit to encourage builders to provide 200,000 affordable homes over five years for low-income families.

QUOTE

These and other steps, he said, will push the nation toward his goal of adding 5.5 million new minority home owners by the end of the decade.

But housing advocates say assistance for renters is just as critical a component to addressing the housing needs of families with limited financial resources.

QUOTE

Economist Stan Liebowitz wrote in the New York Post that a strengthening of the CRA in the 1990s encouraged a loosening of lending standards throughout the banking industry. He also charges the Federal Reserve with ignoring the negative impact of the CRA.[95] In a commentary for CNN, Congressman Ron Paul, who serves on the United States House Committee on Financial Services, charged the CRA with "forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks."[102] In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Austrian school economist Russell Roberts wrote that the CRA subsidized low-income housing by pressuring banks to serve poor borrowers and poor regions of the country

QUOTE

spend·thrift   /ˈspɛndˌθrɪft/  –noun
1. a person who spends possessions or money extravagantly or wastefully; prodigal.

QUOTE

You DIDN'T include the people in the same article that say Fannie and Freddie were to blame.  Is that not cherry-picking?

QUOTE

You just keep walking around mumbling about Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barney Franks, and the CRA causing the housing market collapse, it won't change anyone's mind.

QUOTE

So far, rescuing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has cost the government more than $148 billion. That number is expected to grow.

QUOTE

The Obama administration's management of Fannie and Freddie has been under fire for months from Republicans on Capitol Hill. In December, the Treasury Department eliminated a $400 billion cap on how much money it would give the mortgage giants to keep them from failing

QUOTE

Fannie and Freddie buy mortgages and package them into securities with a guarantee against default. They have ensured that millions of Americans can get home loans — even after the housing market collapsed.

QUOTE

Fannie and Freddie amplified the housing boom by buying mortgages from lenders, allowing them to originate even more loans. They grew into behemoths because they lobbied aggressively and played the Washington political game to a T. But after both companies bought boatloads of risky mortgages, they required a federal rescue.

(jimhanson @ Aug. 17 2010,7:43 pm)

QUOTE

People bought into it because good banking principles were not followed with government intervention.  No money down--limited creditworthiness--those aren't good banking principles, but those concerns go out the window when the GOVERNMENT IS THE GUARANTOR.

QUOTE

Legislation by Republicans
H. R. 3755: Zero Downpayment Act
Feb. 3, 2004

H. R. 1276: American Dream Downpayment Act
Oct. 1, 2003

A Home Of Your Own: Expanding Opportunities for All Americans
Jun. 1, 2002
< http://www.americandreamdownpaymentassistance.com/white_house_docs.cfm >

QUOTE

On July 30, 2008, the Federal Government passed H.R. 3221 - Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. Section 2113 of the bill prohibits seller-funded DPA (Down Payment Assistance) for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration. Prior to this bill, the seller could contribute up to 6% to the buyer to cover either a down payment or closing costs on an FHA loan. The changes are effective October 1, 2008. This bill is means the Elimination of Non Profit Down Payment Assistance. Only Government funded housing grants are available for Down Payment Assistance under the American Dream Down Payment Assistance Act. Follow the link for the housing program in your area.
< http://www.americandreamdownpaymentassistance.com/dpa_app.cfm >

QUOTE

Dem. Frank says abolish Freddie and Fannie
'They only question is what do you put in their place
.By JoAnne Allen

updated 8/18/2010 8:49:05 AM ET
WASHINGTON — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be abolished rather than reformed as part of the Obama administration's planned overhaul of the government's role in housing finance, Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee, said on Tuesday.

"They should be abolished," Frank said in an interview on Fox Business, when asked whether the mortgage giants should be elements in housing market reform. "They only question is what do you put in their place," Frank said.

The Federal Housing Administration should be fully self-financing and Freddie and Fannie should be replaced with a new mechanism to help subsidize housing, Frank said in the interview.

"There is no more hybrid private-public," the Massachusetts Democrat suggested. "If we want to subsidize housing then we could do it upfront and let the budget be clear about that."

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were government-sponsored enterprises, privately owned companies supported by the government, until the Bush administration took control of the companies in 2008 to save them from collapse.



Frank said that he does believe the federal government should have a role in building affordable rental housing but thinks money should go toward projects by private developers.

On the question of whether the government should still provide some guarantees in the mortgage market, Frank said: "If we have it (guarantees), it has to be self-financed by the people who are benefiting."

Frank commented after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner convened a Washington conference of housing industry leaders to hear ideas about reforms for the $10.7 trillion mortgage market.

The firms' pursuit of growth and profits helped precipitate the financial crisis of 2007-2009, but their vast resources also helped minimize its impact.

Together, Fannie and Freddie and the Federal Housing Administration now back 90 percent of new U.S. home mortgages.

Fannie and Freddie have received $150 billion in taxpayer bailout money.

In the Fox Business interview, Frank also was critical of public policy that promoted homeownership at any cost. He also said the federal government should not be a "backstop" in guaranteeing mortgages.

"There were people in this society who for economic and, frankly, social reasons can't and shouldn't be homeowners," Frank said. "I think we should, particularly, stop this assumption that you put everybody into homeownership."

"Public policy has been too much to try to push people into homeownership."

Copyright 2010 Reuters. Click for restrictions.

QUOTE

"These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

QUOTE

However, many others dispute that the CRA was a significant cause of the subprime crisis. 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics winner Paul Krugman states that the notion "has been refuted up, down, and sideways."[104]  He also noted in November 2009 that 55% of commercial real estate loans were currently underwater, despite being completely unaffected by the CRA.[105] According to San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank Governor Randall Kroszner, the claim that "the law pushed banking institutions to undertake high-risk mortgage lending" was contrary to their experience, and that no empirical evidence had been presented to support the claim.[100] In a Bank for International Settlements  (BIS) working paper, economist Luci Ellis concluded that "there is no evidence that the Community Reinvestment Act was responsible for encouraging the subprime lending boom and subsequent housing bust", relying partly on evidence that the housing bust has been a largely exurban event.[106] Others have also concluded that the CRA did not contribute to the financial crisis, for example, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair,[101] Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan,[107] Tim Westrich of the Center for American Progress,[108] Robert Gordon of the American Prospect,[109] Ellen Seidman of the New America Foundation,[110] Daniel Gross of Slate,[111] and Aaron Pressman from BusinessWeek.[112]

Some legal and financial experts note that CRA regulated loans tend to be safe and profitable, and that subprime excesses came mainly from institutions not regulated by the CRA. In the February 2008 House hearing, law professor Michael S. Barr, a Treasury Department official under President Clinton,[67][113] stated that a Federal Reserve survey showed that affected institutions considered CRA loans profitable and not overly risky. He noted that approximately 50% of the subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies that were not regulated by the CRA, and another 25% to 30% came from only partially CRA regulated bank subsidiaries and affiliates. Barr noted that institutions fully regulated by CRA made "perhaps one in four" sub-prime loans, and that "the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight".[114] According to Janet L. Yellen, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, independent mortgage companies made risky "high-priced loans" at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts; most CRA loans were responsibly made, and were not the higher-priced loans that have contributed to the current crisis.[115] A 2008 study by Traiger & Hinckley LLP, a law firm that counsels financial institutions on CRA compliance, found that CRA regulated institutions were less likely to make subprime loans, and when they did the interest rates were lower. CRA banks were also half as likely to resell the loans.[116] Emre Ergungor of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found that there was no statistical difference in foreclosure rates between regulated and less-regulated banks, although a local bank presence resulted in fewer foreclosures.[117]

During a 2008 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the financial crisis, including in relation to the Community Reinvestment Act, asked if the CRA provided the "fuel" for increasing subprime loans, former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines said it might have been a catalyst encouraging bad behavior, but it was difficult to know. Raines also cited information that only a small percentage of risky loans originated as a result of the CRA.

(Glad I Left @ Aug. 18 2010,1:18 pm)

QUOTE

Why don't we just go with the fact that it is NOT gov't responsibility to make sure everyone has a home.  If you cannot afford something, you don't buy it!  It really isn't that difficult of a concept.
I don't care if you are D or an R, gov't job is to make sure the lending practices are fair and that someone is not getting screwed by unfair lending practices, it is NOT their damn job to put you in a house.

QUOTE

Legislation by Republicans
H. R. 3755: Zero Downpayment Act
Feb. 3, 2004
H. R. 1276: American Dream Downpayment Act
Oct. 1, 2003
A Home Of Your Own: Expanding Opportunities for All Americans
Jun. 1, 2002
< http://www.americandreamdownpaymentassistance.com/white_house_docs.cfm >

QUOTE

The problem with zero down is the buyer has to pay a much higher interest rate

QUOTE

Many times they are forced into an Adjustable Rate Mortgage just so they can qualify and have a smaller monthly payment, but when interest rates go up, so does their payment. Many subprime people could barely handle their original monthly payment.

(irisheyes @ Aug. 19 2010,5:09 pm)

QUOTE

Just because someone is wealthy doesn't automatically mean they can pay off their house at any moment, especially after the market takes a dive.  Many of them followed the same bigger fool than me theory that everyone else did.  Or they just decided to give the place up when their house value went too far underwater.