Republican Position - Minorities Caused the Financial Crisis

[Karen Kraft]

Nice twist Lavy. Inductive logic at it's very best.

Not one thinking individual that I know is blaming any minority. The blame lies squarely on the shoulders of congress who passed some very misguided legislation.

The goal of the legislation was to encourage 'minority' house ownership, not a bad idea in and of itself. But it also encouraged wreckless behavior. And minorities weren't the only ones that took advantage of the situation. Pile on top of that the implied garuntee of the loans by Freddie and Fannie and you had a recipe for disaster. You had wreckless lenders concocting convoluted terms and conditions while not doing due diligence on the applicants, who in many cases were guilty of fraud themselves, knowingly or not. The underwiting of 125's for the crowd that just had to have that PWC now, so why not mortgage the family shack at 125% of value? And when the bottom fell out of the market, which anyone with a lick of sense knew it would, why, just toss the keys on the floor and walk away.

The fact of the matter is that over 92% of all the mortgages out there are perfectly good, sub-prime or not. The problem is that the sub-primes were bundled with perfectly good prime mortagages and now no one knows which portfolios are shit and which aren't. So nobody wants to touch any of them.

But the root cause was government law and policy that encouraged the writing of high risk loans via a carrot (Freddie-Fanie) and stick (CRA) approach. High risk is high risk and forcing the financial markets to engage in that sort of behavior while implying that their ass was covered was not a very prudent policy in the long run. If the government wanted to underwrite high risk mortgages they should have just done so with a dedicated 'on budget' fund so that taxpayers could at least see what the governments true exposure was.

It's an old saw, but invariably true, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Ishmael

Don't waste your time. Since you and I are supposedly the same person, along with BB, Miles, and LittleNinja, we are ALL mindless "cut-and-paste wiki people," according to Lavatory.

Pearls before swine, I'm afraid.

 

[Ishmael]

This "racism" charge is hurled by Democrats all over the place.

California, Arizona, Nevada and Florida, 4 states with 21 percent of the population have over half the forclosures.

VIN SUPRYNOWICZ wrote a good column on this the other day. His observation is just fact:

I can't speak to Ca., Az., or Nv., but I can address Fl. The high foreclosure rates in Florida are primarily in Dade, Broward, and Collier counties. And most of them are as a result of a scam and the majority of them were high value condos. THe way it worked is buyer A would get a low, or no, down payment mortgage buying the property for $100K. (the property was a lot more expensive than that, but I'm going to use simple numbers.) The new owner would immediately execute a sale contract with buyer B for $140,000. Buyer A would only have to make one or two payments before the closing. (note: All of the buyers were either foriegn nationals or fictituous.) After the closing buyer A would deduct the payments made from the proceeds derived, in this case $40K., split the balance with buyer B and the buyer B would throw the keys in the door and walk. Buyer A was now free to pick up another property, line up a new buyer B, and do it all over again.

By running the mortgages through the sub-prime network they were freed from undue scrutiny from the lenders. It's a variation of the same con that led to the S&L crisis back in the 80's. These people weren't taken advantage of by anyone, they had a plan and executed it to a tee until the lenders started catching on.

The offshoot of the whole thing is that property in FL is appraised based on recent sales prices. So this con led to hyper-inflation in the local market. Property was being bought and sold far above it's realistic true value. And property taxes are set based on the same parameters, so the various cities thought they were looking at a huge windfall, and spent accordingly.

A few of the 'sellers' have been identified and the state is trying to make a case. But the 'B' buyers have vanished into thin air and it's damned hard to make the case without both parties to the scheme and that's how it differs from the S&L con.

Ishmael

 

[Ishmael]

Don't waste your time. Since you and I are supposedly the same person, along with BB, Miles, and LittleNinja, we are ALL mindless "cut-and-paste wiki people," according to Lavatory.

Pearls before swine, I'm afraid.

As long as people who don't post still read, all is not lost.

Ishmael

 

[zipman]

I don't recall ever seeing that accusation made.

Rather, the fault of the financial crisis has been to give sub-standard mortgages to people who had no ability to pay. These mortgages were encouraged through organizations that cater to lower income groups, and were not feasible at origination ... no credit checks, no employment history, no income tax records ... some even advertised to appeal to illegal immigrants.

These unsound lending practices began during Carter's term in office and continued through out Clinton's. Over the past 6 years, any attempt to monitor and/or regulate Fannie & Freddie were overun by a Democratic majority. These are facts, not accusations, that can easily be substantiated. Unlike your claim.

Giving mortgages to those who cannot afford them is what caused the financial crisis of today.

Actually they continued throughout Both of Bush's administrations as well. And it was the low interest rates during his first administration which fueled the fire even more.

Funny how you ignore that.

 

[Ishmael]

Actually they continued throughout Both of Bush's administrations as well. And it was the low interest rates during his first administration which fueled the fire even more.

Funny how you ignore that.

*chuckle*

The president doesn't set interest rates. Perhaps you're addressing the readers that are stupid enough to think he does.

Or this;

Just the Facts

Ishmael

 

[tmleadr03]

*chuckle*

The president doesn't set interest rates. Perhaps you're addressing the readers that are stupid enough to think he does.

Or this;

Just the Facts

Ishmael

Or perhaps he is ignoring the fact that Pres. Bush called for MORE oversight in 2001 and was shot down by the democrats. And then called again in 2003, and then McCain did it in 2005... Each time it was voted down by the democrats.

 

[Sharon_]

Republican Position - Minorities Caused the Financial Crisis

You really need to build a town to house all your strawmen in.

Plus it would help the housing bust. ACORN can get all the little strawmen and strawwomen sub prime mortgages and register all the straw people to vote. Democrat, of course.

 

[Sharon_]

Don't waste your time. Since you and I are supposedly the same person, along with BB, Miles, and LittleNinja, we are ALL mindless "cut-and-paste wiki people," according to Lavatory.

Pearls before swine, I'm afraid.

Okay. I need a scorecard as I, too, am Ishmael. I read it on the 'net.

Please to have the Real Ishmael(tm) stand up chuck and get these cards out post haste so I know what day I am he and he is me and I am you and we are all together.

 

[Odd_ball]

Or perhaps he is ignoring the fact that Pres. Bush called for MORE oversight in 2001 and was shot down by the democrats. And then called again in 2003, and then McCain did it in 2005... Each time it was voted down by the democrats.

Who controlled Congress in 2001, 2003, and 2005?

(Clue: not Democrats.)

 

[tmleadr03]

Who controlled Congress in 2001, 2003, and 2005?

(Clue: not Democrats.)

And yet all of them voted against the two. And some RINOs.

 

[Odd_ball]

And yet all of them voted against the two. And some RINOs.

Of course. So did every Republican. And the bank lobbyists were handing out millions to those who voted for less regulation.

 

[unregistered]

 

[zipman]

*chuckle*

The president doesn't set interest rates. Perhaps you're addressing the readers that are stupid enough to think he does.

Or this;

Just the Facts

Ishmael

Did I say he did? *chuckle*

What about the bills that the republican congress and republican senate couldn't get passed do to a republican chairman.

You might want to look into that.

 

[zipman]

Or perhaps he is ignoring the fact that Pres. Bush called for MORE oversight in 2001 and was shot down by the democrats. And then called again in 2003, and then McCain did it in 2005... Each time it was voted down by the democrats.

In 2002, he made a goal to help 5.5 million minorities become homeowners by the end of this decade and created several government programs to do so.

Those were low-income minority owners.

 

[The_Trouvere]

Here's an interesting read from the NY Times in 1999.

You may wish to read to whom this leftest rag points fingers.

If Democrats are responsible it is for compassionate reasons. Republicans are responsible for greedy reasons. The New York Times is one of the most prestigious newspapers in the English language.

At any rate, GW had eight years to stop this mess from happening. When the price of houses kept going up he said that proved that his economic policies worked, and that tax cuts worked.

 

[Ham Murabi]

If Democrats are responsible it is for compassionate reasons. Republicans are responsible for greedy reasons. The New York Times is one of the most prestigious newspapers in the English language.

Ever heard of Jason Blair?

 

[The_Trouvere]

Ever heard of Jason Blair?

Yeah. He was forced to resign. Is that the best you can to to smear a great newspaper?

His sad story does indicate problems with affirmative action, however. If he had been white he never would have been hired by The New York Times.

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Democrats Caused Financial Crises

October 06, 2008
Democrats attack their benefactor
Randall Hoven
Henry Waxman waxed righteously indignant, as the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee grilled Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers, deploring his $480 million in pay the last 8 years. One Democrat even said, "I wonder how he sleeps at night."


Now let's go over to Open Secrets and look up this same Mr. Fuld, shall we? It turns out Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers gave $151,300 in disclosed political donations in recent years . How does it break down?


$45,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
$10,000 to the Democratic National Committee Services Corp.
$4,600 to Hillary Clinton, $4,600 to Chris Dodd and $2,300 to Barack Obama.
Other contributions to Democrats: Dick Gephardt, Joe Lieberman, Jack Reed, Erskine Bowles, Joseph Driscoll, Nita Lowey, Bob Torricelli, Frank Lautenberg, Brendan Byrne, Jon Corzine, Bill Bradley, Chuck Schumer, Ted Kennedy, Ed Markey, and Dianne Feinstein.


And what about Republicans?


John McCain ($2,300), George W. Bush ($2,000), Bob Dole ($2,000), Jon Christenson ($1,000), Mike Crapo ($1,000), Phil Gramm ($1,000), Arlen Specter ($1,000), and Jack Fields ($500).


My arithmetic says Republicans received well under 10% of Mr. Fuld's political contributions.


When I searched OpenSecrets for all contributions from Lehman Brothers, the page returned a fatal error because the number of contributions exceeded 1000. So then I searched only for donations from Lehman Brothers to Barack Obama. The total was $322,075.


AmericanThinker