GOP trying to put the blame for the financial crisis on poor people...

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Jun 26, 2007
11,925
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Originally posted by: JS80
Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Originally posted by: JS80
Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Bottom line is that if i was invincible and bulletproof then i could run a troop without much harm, especially if in case i did a really bad job i got to collect a bonus, come on man, you don't reward failures in ANY other case than if you are a fucked up CEO or close to one of them.

I had no fucking idea what fannie or freddie is so thank you for for explaining it, but isn't that in itself pretty fucked up?

Personally, i STILL think (and just so you know, this is happening in the UK too so it's not UK bashing US here, it's just me, personally) that if you fail, you should fucking lose.

Endgame, if you lose your money, you don't get your money, PERIOD. IF the government should do something, they should guarantee the lones to the people, not give the banks their officials more money and then let the rest cover the loans, that is just fucking stupid.

Socialism for the rich is just what all Communist countries have done, you think it will work for us? How about... pretty much NO.

OK here's a quick lesson on mortgage Securitization:

Bank customer(s) deposit $200k
Bank loans out $200k as mortgage
Bank has paper worth $200k + interest payments
Bank is bored, wants to make more money
In comes Fannie Mae, they go around buying mortgages.
Fannie pays bank $205k, now owns $200k mortgage + interest payments
Bank now has $205k cash
Bank loans out $205k as mortgage
Bank has paper worth $205k + interest payments
...
...
you get the picture, repeat.
...

Fannie is a govt sponsored entity (GSE) that was created to encourage banks to lend so there was more money available to potential homeowners.

Now imagine a world without Fannie. The bank would have to work hard to find investors to sell the loans to. Or they would keep the loan in their own books and go out and find more depositors to fund new loans.

So, in the first scenario, if you're a bank, do you necessarily give a shit you're loaning to someone creditworthy? After all a govt backed corporation will buy it anyway.

But in the second scenario, will the bank care? Of course, since they will be on the hook for the bad loan, they will have more rigorous standards. And any potential investor in the mortgages will also want to see good standards.


The govt caused this mess, not the market. Because govt caused it they must fix it.

If you had read what i wrote, that would have helped your stupid fucking arse not trying to make more excuses for just what i was saying the excuses was for.

Government can guarantee loans from the reserve while letting the banks with their CEO's suffer for their mistakes, these packages (in the UK, in the US, in the EU) mostly fixes the banks so they can guarantee the loans yet again while the CEO's gets a raise and a bigger bonus if they happen to do worse than before.

This is not a solution, if you have no will to do good more than "meh" then you won't do good, if it's your money at stake, maybe you'll do a bit better. makes sense, doesn't it?

Personally i think they should let the banks fail and go bankrupt while letting the mortages become instituted and sold via auctions when there is a time for that.

Your last post was incoherent talking about being invincible and bulletproof and something about "lones to the people" and you call me a stupid fucking arse? Go fuck yourself you retarded prick. I'm trying to educate your dumb arse without making you look stupid. Just because you have a prick british accent doesn't mean you're fucking intelligent. Fucking prick. Go rot in your government british healthcare.

You can hear my accent over the net you stupid fucking twat?

Go back to being an ignorant twat and relying on Jesus for everything, that is what you do best, debates are not something you're the least bit good at.

You don't have a solution except for what Bush is telling you, you never had a solution to anything except for what Bush is saying and that makes you pretty fucking pathetic.

I don't like you, i never liked you, i find you and your kind repulsive and a shame to modern society. For some fucking reason you equate Gods wors with what Bush says, it's fucking jesus camp for the grown ups you've been indoctrinating in.

You're fucking pathetic and no beter than the fucking fundamentalist idiots i'm fighting right here.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
Originally posted by: chess9
Originally posted by: Special K
Originally posted by: shira


That's utter nonsense. Interest rates in the U.S. were lowered (from 6.5% to 1% in the two-year period from 2001- to 2003) by Alan Greenspan in response to the dot-com bubble and 9/11, NOT in response to some desire to facilitate sub-prime mortgages. Those lowered interest rates helped create - among many other things - the housing bubble. And poor people - just like the rest of us - wanted a piece of the action.

Can you explain how the lowering of the Fed Funds rate contributed to the housing bubble? My understanding was that mortgage interest rates tracked the yield of the 10 year treasury bill, not the the Fed Funds rate.

I'm not disagreeing with your conclusion, I'm just trying to understand the relationship between Greenspan's actions and the housing bubble.

I listened to this NPR program here:

The Global Pool of Money

and they said Greenspan's interest rate cuts contributed to the housing bubble by lowering the yield on government bonds, forcing investors to seek higher returns elsewhere. This is what led to the popularity of MBS and the housing bubble/mortgage meltdown.

GREED is the word you are looking for. The enormous profits to be made from leveraging $1 into $50 in derivatives and options. Blaming Greenspan makes only slightly more sense than blaming the small pool of poorly qualified borrowers who defaulted. But, it might make a very good sound bite for Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter.

GREED drives capitalism. Without GREED we would have no reason for capitalism.

-Robert

The greed of capitalists is not a question, it's an assumption.

If you release a box of mosquitos at a nudist camp, you don't debate whether they will bite.

It's an attribute to be used for the good of society, not to be denied for the harm of society.

No one's arguing to get rid of capitalism in terms of denying the fact that people are more productive when they are rewarded more. We're saying to stop basing the system on the lie that capitalists *aren't* greedy, and instead design the system with checks so that the greed is kept on productive things and not allowed to harm society.

That's why, for example, capitalism and greed are productive for *competition* to make affordable widgets, while *monopoly* in making widgets needs to be prevented.

When we get into trouble is when the capitalist owners are able to make their own rules, rather than to prosper within the rules set up by a responsible government.
 
Jun 26, 2007
11,925
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0
Originally posted by: jbourne77
Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Originally posted by: JS80
Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Bottom line is that if i was invincible and bulletproof then i could run a troop without much harm, especially if in case i did a really bad job i got to collect a bonus, come on man, you don't reward failures in ANY other case than if you are a fucked up CEO or close to one of them.

I had no fucking idea what fannie or freddie is so thank you for for explaining it, but isn't that in itself pretty fucked up?

Personally, i STILL think (and just so you know, this is happening in the UK too so it's not UK bashing US here, it's just me, personally) that if you fail, you should fucking lose.

Endgame, if you lose your money, you don't get your money, PERIOD. IF the government should do something, they should guarantee the lones to the people, not give the banks their officials more money and then let the rest cover the loans, that is just fucking stupid.

Socialism for the rich is just what all Communist countries have done, you think it will work for us? How about... pretty much NO.

OK here's a quick lesson on mortgage Securitization:

Bank customer(s) deposit $200k
Bank loans out $200k as mortgage
Bank has paper worth $200k + interest payments
Bank is bored, wants to make more money
In comes Fannie Mae, they go around buying mortgages.
Fannie pays bank $205k, now owns $200k mortgage + interest payments
Bank now has $205k cash
Bank loans out $205k as mortgage
Bank has paper worth $205k + interest payments
...
...
you get the picture, repeat.
...

Fannie is a govt sponsored entity (GSE) that was created to encourage banks to lend so there was more money available to potential homeowners.

Now imagine a world without Fannie. The bank would have to work hard to find investors to sell the loans to. Or they would keep the loan in their own books and go out and find more depositors to fund new loans.

So, in the first scenario, if you're a bank, do you necessarily give a shit you're loaning to someone creditworthy? After all a govt backed corporation will buy it anyway.

But in the second scenario, will the bank care? Of course, since they will be on the hook for the bad loan, they will have more rigorous standards. And any potential investor in the mortgages will also want to see good standards.


The govt caused this mess, not the market. Because govt caused it they must fix it.

If you had read what i wrote, that would have helped your stupid fucking arse not trying to make more excuses for just what i was saying the excuses was for.

Government can guarantee loans from the reserve while letting the banks with their CEO's suffer for their mistakes, these packages (in the UK, in the US, in the EU) mostly fixes the banks so they can guarantee the loans yet again while the CEO's gets a raise and a bigger bonus if they happen to do worse than before.

This is not a solution, if you have no will to do good more than "meh" then you won't do good, if it's your money at stake, maybe you'll do a bit better. makes sense, doesn't it?

Personally i think they should let the banks fail and go bankrupt while letting the mortages become instituted and sold via auctions when there is a time for that.

He was trying to help you. Being a dick = not necessary.

No he was not, he was trying to patronise me, that is not neccessary, indocrination of his makes it even less likely of him even passing the first litmus test.

Sad part is that you are like him, pathetic.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
14,303
136
Originally posted by: Butterbean
NEW YORK TIMES 1999:


"In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing PRESSURE from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits. "


http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f...alink&exprod=permalink


Demoncats kickced this mutha off

McCain and others warned of danger looking - Dems scoffed:


"New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae "

''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.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f...ec=&spon=&pagewanted=2

Liberals wreck everything they touch because they like to play God.

See, this is why I get frustrated on this topic. You debunk the propaganda and some moron posts it all over again. And even more frustrating, the links posted usually don't even back the argument the moron is trying to make.

For example, in this one:
Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.
Does that sound like one of those toxic subprime mortgages to you? Really?

And about those "liberals wrecking everything they touch because they like to play God," how then do you explain this "liberal" who has been in the White House these past 8 years?

White House.gov - Fact Sheet: President Bush Calls for Expanding Opportunities to Homeownership June 17, 2002

Fact Sheet: President Bush Calls for Expanding Opportunities to Homeownership

# Today, President Bush announced a new goal to help increase the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million before the end of the decade. The President's aggressive housing agenda will help dismantle the barriers to homeownership by providing down payment assistance, increasing the supply of affordable homes, increasing support for self-help homeownership programs, and simplifying the home buying process & increasing education. The President also issued "America's Homeownership Challenge" to the real estate and mortgage finance industries to join in his effort to increase the number of minority homeowners by taking concrete steps to tear down the barriers to homeownership that face minority families.

Background on the President's Homeownership Agenda

Buying a home is the biggest single investment most people will make in their lives. Homeownership is a cornerstone of America's healthy, vibrant communities, and benefits individual families by helping them build stability and long term financial security. But sadly, homeownership is out of reach for many Americans -- especially for minority families. For millions of these families, homeownership is a distant, unreachable dream.

President Bush has a comprehensive agenda to help increase the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million before the end of the decade.

While the overall homeownership rate has reached an all time high of nearly 68 percent, the statistics show a clear and persistent homeownership gap:

* Despite increases in minority homeownership during the decade of the 1990s, large persistent gaps between non-Hispanic whites and minorities remain and have narrowed only slightly;

* According to HUD, in 1994 the minority homeownership rate was 26.8 percent below the rate for white households;

* The African-American homeownership rate was 27.5 percentage points below the white rate, and the Hispanic rate was 28.8 percentage points below the white rate;

* The second quarter Census data for 2002 shows that non-Hispanic whites have a 74.3% homeownership rate, while African-Americans have a 48% rate and Hispanics a 47.6% rate; and

* Asian-Americans and other races have a 53.7% homeownership rate.

A new report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) -- which analyzed the most recent homeownership data from the U.S. Census Bureau -- highlights the many barriers that prevent minority families from owning their own home. The barriers include:

* A lack of inventory of affordable single-family housing available for sale in many areas where a majority of residents are minority families;

* A need for down payment assistance, which affects minority families to a greater extent than non-Hispanic whites because they have less accumulated wealth that can be used to help children with down payments;

* A lack of access to affordable mortgage credit;

* A lack of understanding of the homebuying process;

* Weak credit histories, often arising from a poor understanding of financial matters and where financial counseling is required;

* A lack of information about available homeownership programs in the community; and

* Language difficulties or cultural differences.

It doesn't have to be this way. The President's agenda will help tear down the barriers to homeownership that stand in the way of our nation's African-American, Hispanic and other minority families by:

# Providing Downpayment Assistance. The single biggest barrier to homeownership is accumulating funds for a down payment. The President has proposed $200 million annually for the American Dream Downpayment Fund to help roughly 40,000 families a year with their down payment and closing costs.

# Increasing the Supply of Affordable Homes. The President wants to dramatically increase the supply of homes available to low and moderate income families. The President has proposed the Single-Family Affordable Housing Tax Credit, which will provide approximately $2.4 billion to encourage the production of 200,000 affordable homes for sale to low and moderate income families.

# Increasing Support for Self-Help Homeownership Programs. The President's budget triples funding for organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity, that help families help themselves become homeowners through sweat equity and volunteerism in their communities.

# Simplifying the Home Buying Process & Increasing Education. When buying a home today a buyer faces a confusing and complicated process. The President and HUD want to empower homebuyers by simplifying the home buying process so consumers can better understand and benefit from cost savings. The President also wants to expand financial education efforts so that families can understand what they need to do to become homeowners.

The President also believes that government alone can't close America's homeownership gap. It is critical that our government challenge the private sector to take concrete steps to tear down the barriers to homeownership that face minority families. The President is issuing "America's Homeownership Challenge" to the real estate and mortgage finance industries to join in his effort to increase the number of minority homeowners by 5.5 million families by the end of the decade. Many organizations have already responded to the President's challenge by committing to:

# Substantially increase by at least $440 billion, the financial commitment made by the government sponsored enterprises involved in the secondary mortgage market, specifically targeted toward the minority market;

# Launching twenty-five different local initiatives across the nation, geared toward eliminating the specific homeownership barriers faced by minority families in those communities;

# Raising $750 million in below-market-rate investments by 2007, which will work in collaboration with local homeownership initiatives and be targeted to heavily minority program areas;

# Pursuing strategic partnerships in 20 top housing markets between homebuilders, lenders, local officials, and community leaders to develop approaches that address the local challenges to building homes for minority families living in urban centers;

# Establishing faith-based housing partnerships between the participants and at least 100 churches, mosques, synagogues, and other faith-based institutions;

# Aggressively developing new mortgage products so that conventional market alternatives are available to combat the predatory loan products that are disproportionately targeted to minorities;

# Creating new mortgage products to meet the unique needs of recent immigrants;

# Dramatically expanding financial education efforts for minorities, providing financial counseling to at least 380,000 minority families, and taking measures at the local level to reduce predatory lending; and

# Establishing multilingual, consumer-oriented internet Web sites designed to help minorities overcome barriers to homeownership, including creation of a central data bank of affordable housing programs made available to real estate agents when working with clients.

For more information on the President's initiatives please visit www.whitehouse.gov.

Nor was McCain doing any warning. That was Hagel's bill, not McCain's (McCain isn't even named in either link you posted, but you give him credit). More to the point, that new agency would have not done a thing about the issue you cite above.

What's it like for you, BB, to know that you're just vomit-piece for a political machine, regurgitating without question everything they tell you? Tell us, because that is what you clearly are, and nothing more than.
And now you'll just ignore this and go puke the exact same excrement in some other thread when you get that chance. Your M.O. is that predictable. Troll a link or 2 and run.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
14,303
136
Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Vic, i understand your frustration, but seriously, i think their tactic is to bore us to death with bullsheit.

No, at the risk of invoking Godwin's law, this is precisely their tactic. They invent ridiculous lies, one after the other, and then keep repeating them over and over again to shout down the facts and the truth. Seriously, this is all that's coming out of the right here in America this election cycle. Even McCain is upset by it, but can't stop it.
 

JS80

Lifer
Oct 24, 2005
26,271
7
81
Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
You can hear my accent over the net you stupid fucking twat?

Go back to being an ignorant twat and relying on Jesus for everything, that is what you do best, debates are not something you're the least bit good at.

You don't have a solution except for what Bush is telling you, you never had a solution to anything except for what Bush is saying and that makes you pretty fucking pathetic.

I don't like you, i never liked you, i find you and your kind repulsive and a shame to modern society. For some fucking reason you equate Gods wors with what Bush says, it's fucking jesus camp for the grown ups you've been indoctrinating in.

You're fucking pathetic and no beter than the fucking fundamentalist idiots i'm fighting right here.

Yes I can hear that condescending accent through the intarwebs you piece of shit. You think you fucking know me? When have I ever invoked religion in any of my discussions on policy and politics?

Guess what? No one fucking likes you. You socialist british fuckhead. You can go fucking slave away for your dear government and bitch on the internet about topics you don't fucking understand while you pay sky high taxes and die waiting to get healthcare.

You think you're fucking enlightened because of your hug the government atheist ideology but look where it got you. You're a fucking nobody. You're going fucking no where so you have to act like you're better than people on the internets.

Anyone who disagrees with you is probably a "fundamentalist idiot" to you, but the irony is you're as fundamental as it gets to your own ideology. Open your fucking brain prick.
 

Butterbean

Banned
Oct 12, 2006
918
1
0
Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Vic, i understand your frustration, but seriously, i think their tactic is to bore us to death with bullsheit.

Dont take Vic too seriously. Hes the most myopic mis-educated banker I have ever seen - no wonder they got us in a mess.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
14,303
136
Originally posted by: Butterbean
Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Vic, i understand your frustration, but seriously, i think their tactic is to bore us to death with bullsheit.

Dont take Vic too seriously. Hes the most myopic mis-educated banker I have ever seen - no wonder they got us in a mess.

Oh, look, a personal attack without the slightest attempt to back up your argument or refute mine. Color me unsurprised.

:roll:

How about you explain to me why your 1999 NYT article is representative of a liberal agenda, as you say, when I posted a Bush press release from 2002 with an even more aggressive agenda to get the poor and minorities into homes. In fact, Bush called it America's Homeownership Challenge, and it was one of his personal pet projects throughout his entire administration.

Here's the big speech he gave for it even: Text

President Hosts Conference on Minority Homeownership
George Washington University
Washington, D.C.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, all. Thanks, for coming. Well, thanks for the warm welcome. Thank you for being here today. I appreciate your attendance to this very important conference. You see, we want everybody in America to own their own home. That's what we want. This is -- an ownership society is a compassionate society.

More and more people own their homes in America today. Two-thirds of all Americans own their homes, yet we have a problem here in America because few than half of the Hispanics and half the African Americans own the home. That's a homeownership gap. It's a -- it's a gap that we've got to work together to close for the good of our country, for the sake of a more hopeful future. We've got to work to knock down the barriers that have created a homeownership gap.

I set an ambitious goal. It's one that I believe we can achieve. It's a clear goal, that by the end of this decade we'll increase the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families. (Applause.)

Some may think that's a stretch. I don't think it is. I think it is realistic. I know we're going to have to work together to achieve it. But when we do our communities will be stronger and so will our economy. Achieving the goal is going to require some good policies out of Washington. And it's going to require a strong commitment from those of you involved in the housing industry.

Just by showing up at the conference, you show your commitment. And together, together we will work over the next decade to enable millions of our fellow Americans to own a piece of their own property, and that's their home.

I appreciate so very much the home owners who are with us today, the Arias family, newly arrived from Peru. They live in Baltimore. Thanks to the Association of Real Estate Brokers, the help of some good folks in Baltimore, they figured out how to purchase their own home. Imagine to be coming to our country without a home, with a simple dream. And now they're on stage here at this conference being one of the new home owners in the greatest land on the face of the Earth. I appreciate the Arias family coming. (Applause.)

We've got the Horton family from Little Rock, Arkansas, here today. Actually, it's not Little Rock; it's North Little Rock, Arkansas. I was corrected. (Laughter.) I appreciate so very much these good folks coming all the way up from the South. They were helped by HUD, they were helped by Freddie Mac. Obviously, they've got a young family. And when we start talking about owning a home, a smile spread right across the face of the dad that could have lit up the entire town of Washington, D.C. (Applause.) I appreciate you all coming. Thanks for coming. He had to make sure I knew that he was educated in Texas. (Laughter.)

Finally, Kim Berry from New York is here. She's a single mom. You're not going to believe this, but her son is 18 years old. (Laughter.) She barely looked like she was 18 to me. And being a single mom is the hardest job in America. And the idea of this fine American working hard to provide for her child, at the same time working hard to realize her dream, which is owning a home on Long Island, is really a special tribute to the character of this particular person and to the character of a lot of Americans. So we're honored to have you here, Kim, and thanks for being such a good mom and a fine American. (Applause.)

I told Mel Martinez I was serious about this initiative. We started talking about it and I said, well, you know, I'm the kind of fellow, I don't like to lay out a goal and don't mean it. I think it's not -- I don't think it's fair for the American people to be -- to have a President or anybody else, for that matter, lay out a goal and just kind of say it, but don't mean it. I mean it. And the good news is, Mel Martinez believes it and means it, as well. He's doing a fine job of running HUD, and I'm glad he has joined my Cabinet. (Applause.)

And I picked a pretty spunky deputy, as well, Alphonso Jackson -- my fellow Texan. (Applause.) I call him A.J.

I appreciate the Secretary of Agriculture being here. She's got a lot of money having to do with rural housing. I appreciate Ann's commitment to rural America. And I'm really proud of the job she's doing, as well, for the American people, serving in my Cabinet. Thanks for coming, Ann. (Applause.)

I've got some others in my administration, as I look around. I see Rosario Marin, who's the Treasurer of the United States. Rosario used to be a mayor. Thank you for coming, Madam Mayor. (Applause.) She understands how important housing is. I see other mayors around here, and I want to thank the mayors for coming. After all, it's in your interest that this project succeed.

I know we've got some folks from the faith-based community here. Luis Cortes, from Philadelphia is here; and my friend, Kirbyjon Caldwell, from Houston, Texas. Kirbyjon, I had breakfast with him this morning. He told me he was going to have to leave before my speech. He's a wise man, that Kirbyjon Caldwell. (Laughter.) But he has gone back home to Texas. I appreciate Margaret Spellings and her staff. Margaret is the Domestic Policy Advisor to the President, and I want to thank you for putting on this conference, Margaret.

All of us here in America should believe, and I think we do, that we should be, as I mentioned, a nation of owners. Owning something is freedom, as far as I'm concerned. It's part of a free society. And ownership of a home helps bring stability to neighborhoods. You own your home in a neighborhood, you have more interest in how your neighborhood feels, looks, whether it's safe or not. It brings pride to people, it's a part of an asset-based to society. It helps people build up their own individual portfolio, provides an opportunity, if need be, for a mom or a dad to leave something to their child. It's a part of -- it's of being a -- it's a part of -- an important part of America.

Homeownership is also an important part of our economic vitality. If -- when we meet this project, this goal, according to our Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, we will have added an additional $256 billion to the economy by encouraging 5.5 million new home owners in America; the activity -- the economic activity stimulated with the additional purchasers, the additional buyers, the additional demand will be upwards of $256 billion. And that's important because it will help people find work.

Low interest rates, low inflation are very important foundations for economic growth. The idea of encouraging new homeownership and the money that will be circulated as a result of people purchasing homes will mean people are more likely to find a job in America. This project not only is good for the soul of the country, it's good for the pocketbook of the country, as well.

To open up the doors of homeownership there are some barriers, and I want to talk about four that need to be overcome. First, down payments. A lot of folks can't make a down payment. They may be qualified. They may desire to buy a home, but they don't have the money to make a down payment. I think if you were to talk to a lot of families that are desirous to have a home, they would tell you that the down payment is the hurdle that they can't cross. And one way to address that is to have the federal government participate.

And so we've called upon Congress to set up what's called the American Dream Down Payment Fund, which will provide financial grants to local governments to help first-time home buyers who qualify to make the down payment on their home. If a down payment is a problem, there's a way we can address that. And when Congress funds the program, this should help 200,000 new families over the next five years become first-time home buyers.

Secondly, affordable housing is a problem in many neighborhoods, particularly inner-city neighborhoods. You may -- we may have qualified home buyers, but if there's no home to buy, this initiative isn't going anywhere. And so one of the things that we're going to -- that I'm doing is proposing a single-family affordable housing credit to encourage the construction of single-family homes in neighborhoods where affordable housing is scarce. (Applause.)

Over the next five years the initiative will provide home builders and therefore home buyers with -- home builders with $2 billion in tax credits to bring affordable homes and therefore provide an additional supply for home buyers. It's really important for us to understand that we can provide incentive for people to build homes where there's a lack of affordable housing.

And we've got to set priorities. And one of the key priorities is going to be inner-city America. Good schools and affordable housing will help revitalize our inner cities.

Another obstacle to minority homeownership is the lack of information. You know, getting into your own home can be complicated. It can be a difficult process. I had that very same problem. (Laughter and applause.)

Every home buyer has responsibilities and rights that need to be understood clearly. And yet, when you look at some of the contracts, there's a lot of small print. And you can imagine somebody newly arrived from Peru looking at all that print, and saying, I'm not sure I can possibly understand that. Why do I want to buy a home? There's an educational process that needs to go on, not only to explain the contract, explain obligation, but also to explain financing options, to help people understand the complexities of a homeownership market, and also at the same time to protect people from unscrupulous lenders, people who would take advantage of a good-hearted soul who is trying to realize their dream.

Homeownership education is critical. And so today, I'm pleased to announce that through Mel's office, we're going to distribute $35 million in 2003 to more than 100 national, state and local organizations that promote homeownership through buyer education. (Applause.)

And, of course, one of the larger obstacles to minority homeownership is financing, is the ability to have their dream financed. Right now, we have a program that all of you are familiar with, maybe our fellow Americans are, and that's what they call a Section 8 housing program, that provides billions of dollars in vouchers to help low-income Americans with their rent. It encourages leasing. We think it's important that we use those vouchers, that federal money to help low-income Americans go from being somebody who leases to somebody who owns; that we use the Section 8 program to not only help with down payment, but to help with continuing monthly mortgage payments after they're into their new home. It is a -- it is a way to help us meet this dream of 5.5 million additional families owning their home.

I'm also going to encourage the lending industry to develop a mortgage market so that this script, these vouchers, can regularly be used as a source of payment to provide more capital to lenders, who can then help more families move from rental housing into houses of their own.

These are some of the barriers that home owners face, potential home owners face, and this is what we intend to do about it. But like in a lot of our life, government can't do everything. It's impossible to provide every aspect of a national strategy, particularly in this case. And that's why we need the help of private and nonprofit sectors in our country to help play a vital role in helping to meet the goal. Many of you here represent the nonprofit, as well as the private sectors of our economy and our country, and I want to thank you for your commitment.

Last June, I issued a challenge to everyone involved in the housing industry to help increase the number of minority families to be home owners. And what I'm talking about, I'm talking about your bankers and your brokers and developers, as well as members of faith-based community and community programs. And the response to the home owners challenge has been very strong and very gratifying. Twenty-two public and private partners have signed up to help meet our national goal. Partners in the mortgage finance industry are encouraging homeownership by purchasing more loans made by banks to African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities.

Representatives of the real estate and homebuilding industries, through their nationwide networks or affiliates, are committed to broadening homeownership. They made the commitment to help meet the national goal we set.

Freddie Mae -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- I see the heads who are here; I want to thank you all for coming -- (laughter) -- have committed to provide more money for lenders. They've committed to help meet the shortage of capital available for minority home buyers.

Fannie Mae recently announced a $50 million program to develop 600 homes for the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. Franklin, I appreciate that commitment. They also announced $12.7 million investment in a condominium project in Harlem. It's the beginnings of a series of initiatives to help meet the goal of 5.5 million families. Franklin told me at the meeting where we kicked this office, he said, I promise you we will help, and he has, like many others in this room have done.

Freddie Mac recently began 25 initiatives around the country to dismantle barriers and create greater opportunities for homeownership. One of the programs is designed to help deserving families who have bad credit histories to qualify for homeownership loans. Freddie Mac is also working with the Department of Defense to promote construction and financing for housing for men and women in the military.

There's all kinds of ways that we can work together to meet the goal. Corporate America has a responsibility to work to make America a compassionate place. Corporate America has responded. As an example -- only one of many examples -- the good folks at Sears and Roebuck have responded by making a five-year, $100 million commitment to making homeownership and home maintenance possible for millions of Americans.

There have been other steps that are being taken to close the homeownership gap. And you've heard some of the stories here today, people much more eloquent than me, to talk about what's taking place on the front line of meeting this national goal.

The non-profit groups are bringing homeownership to some of our most troubled communities. And as you know, I'm a strong advocate of what I call the faith-based initiative. And the reason I am is because I understand the universal call to love a neighbor like you'd like to be loved yourself, and that includes helping somebody find a home.

One such example is the Enterprise Foundation, a national non-profit organization that provides assistance to grassroots homeownership organizations. Because of their work, as one example, 185 affordable homes will be available in the Baltimore neighborhood that was once so crime-ridden that people had written it off. Revitalizing neighborhoods is a real possibility if people put their mind to it. And at the same time, you're helping people own a home in America.

And the faith-based community is doing some fantastic work when it comes to encouraging homeownership, whether it be financial counseling, or job training or other outreach services, to help people understand what it takes to buy a home.

And then there's my friend Kirbyjon Caldwell. He not only provides counseling and job training, he actually decided to encourage a development of homes in the Houston area. People -- low-income people are going to be able to more afford a home in Texas because of Kirbyjon's vision and work. He's answered the call of faith to help people help themselves and to help them realize dreams.

The other thing Kirbyjon told me, which I really appreciate, is you don't have to have a lousy home for first-time home buyers. If you put your mind to it, the first-time home buyer, the low-income home buyer can have just as nice a house as anybody else. And I know Kirbyjon. He is what I call a social entrepreneur who is using his platform as a Methodist preacher to improve the neighborhood and the community in which he lives.

And so is Luis Cortes, who represents Nueva Esperanza in Philadelphia. I went to see Luis in the inner-city Philadelphia. Luis is -- at least he was -- he's probably still there -- in what one would call a tough neighborhood. There's a lot of abandoned buildings. And I mean, beautiful old structures just empty. Luis had a dream to revitalize his neighborhood, starting with a good charter school, one that would work, one that would teach kids how to read and write and add and subtract.

But he also understood that a homeownership program is incredibly important to revitalize this neighborhood that a lot of folks had already quit on. I suspect one day we'll all go back to Luis' neighborhood and we'll find first-time home owners there, and a good education system. And this will be the beginning of a -- of a neighborhood revitalization in that part of Philadelphia, because there was vision and drive and hope for our fellow citizens.

So I want to thank you all for coming. I want to thank you for your determination to help close the minority homeownership gap. It's an incredibly important initiative for this country. See, America is a good and generous country. It's a great place. Part of it was to make sure that the dream, the American Dream, the ability to come from anywhere in our society and say, I own this home, is a reality -- can be achievable for anybody, regardless of their status, regardless of their -- of whether or not they -- whether or not they think the dream is meant for them.

I mean, we can put light where there's darkness, and hope where there's despondency in this country. And part of it is working together as a nation to encourage folks to own their own home.

Again, I want to tell you, this is an initiative -- as Mel will tell you, it's an initiative that we take very seriously. We're going to stay on it until we're -- until we achieve the goal. And as we all achieve the goal, we can look back and say, America is a better place for our hard work, our efforts and our desires for our fellow Americans to realize the greatness of our country.

Thank you for coming. May God bless your vision. May God bless America. (Applause.)

I'd say that the one who is mis-educated here is you, BB. You probably had no clue that the country was facing an economic crisis until Rush finally admitted that we were facing one just 2-3 weeks ago. Or should I play the Sean Hannity video from just last month where he said that there was absolutely NOTHING wrong with the economy. Oh, but now he's feeding you that it's all the Dems fault, right? That's called propaganda, dipshit, and you believe it because you are stupid, and only see what you want to see.

edit: bolded some of the juiciest parts for BB.
 
Jun 26, 2007
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Originally posted by: Butterbean
Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Vic, i understand your frustration, but seriously, i think their tactic is to bore us to death with bullsheit.

Dont take Vic too seriously. Hes the most myopic mis-educated banker I have ever seen - no wonder they got us in a mess.

Excuse me, but i am a liberal, an English liberal and so is Vic, (even though i am a Tory who has no wish for the Monarchy to come back in charge and believe in individual freedom as the greatest of liberties).

I take him VERY seriously because he has good ideas, i made a mistake and thought McCain could solve anything, he has proven that he cannot.

In his own words:

I will sit down and discuss with Pakistans leadership what can be done, they are our allies.

I will not sit down with the government of Spain.

Now a retarded twat like yourself won't put this together so i will do it for you.

We ARE in Pakistan, no discussion needed, half of the ISI are already on board with the Taliban and Al Qaueda, the time for talks is long gone.

Spand IS THERE! An ally, one of the TWO strongest the US has.

Fuck McCain and fuck Palin, they don't know their arses from their elbows.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
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I'm not an English liberal. Here in America, we call that a classical liberal. Or a progressive libertarian. About the same thing though, I know.
Also, in America, the word "Tory" refers to the conservative colonists who sided with the English monarchy and against the revolution. Just FYI.
 

Stuxnet

Diamond Member
Jun 16, 2005
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Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Originally posted by: jbourne77
Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Originally posted by: JS80
Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Bottom line is that if i was invincible and bulletproof then i could run a troop without much harm, especially if in case i did a really bad job i got to collect a bonus, come on man, you don't reward failures in ANY other case than if you are a fucked up CEO or close to one of them.

I had no fucking idea what fannie or freddie is so thank you for for explaining it, but isn't that in itself pretty fucked up?

Personally, i STILL think (and just so you know, this is happening in the UK too so it's not UK bashing US here, it's just me, personally) that if you fail, you should fucking lose.

Endgame, if you lose your money, you don't get your money, PERIOD. IF the government should do something, they should guarantee the lones to the people, not give the banks their officials more money and then let the rest cover the loans, that is just fucking stupid.

Socialism for the rich is just what all Communist countries have done, you think it will work for us? How about... pretty much NO.

OK here's a quick lesson on mortgage Securitization:

Bank customer(s) deposit $200k
Bank loans out $200k as mortgage
Bank has paper worth $200k + interest payments
Bank is bored, wants to make more money
In comes Fannie Mae, they go around buying mortgages.
Fannie pays bank $205k, now owns $200k mortgage + interest payments
Bank now has $205k cash
Bank loans out $205k as mortgage
Bank has paper worth $205k + interest payments
...
...
you get the picture, repeat.
...

Fannie is a govt sponsored entity (GSE) that was created to encourage banks to lend so there was more money available to potential homeowners.

Now imagine a world without Fannie. The bank would have to work hard to find investors to sell the loans to. Or they would keep the loan in their own books and go out and find more depositors to fund new loans.

So, in the first scenario, if you're a bank, do you necessarily give a shit you're loaning to someone creditworthy? After all a govt backed corporation will buy it anyway.

But in the second scenario, will the bank care? Of course, since they will be on the hook for the bad loan, they will have more rigorous standards. And any potential investor in the mortgages will also want to see good standards.


The govt caused this mess, not the market. Because govt caused it they must fix it.

If you had read what i wrote, that would have helped your stupid fucking arse not trying to make more excuses for just what i was saying the excuses was for.

Government can guarantee loans from the reserve while letting the banks with their CEO's suffer for their mistakes, these packages (in the UK, in the US, in the EU) mostly fixes the banks so they can guarantee the loans yet again while the CEO's gets a raise and a bigger bonus if they happen to do worse than before.

This is not a solution, if you have no will to do good more than "meh" then you won't do good, if it's your money at stake, maybe you'll do a bit better. makes sense, doesn't it?

Personally i think they should let the banks fail and go bankrupt while letting the mortages become instituted and sold via auctions when there is a time for that.

He was trying to help you. Being a dick = not necessary.

No he was not, he was trying to patronise me, that is not neccessary, indocrination of his makes it even less likely of him even passing the first litmus test.

Sad part is that you are like him, pathetic.

No, that's how you interpreted it because you're a paranoid moron with an inferiority complex. Your insults came out of absolute nowhere with zero provocation.

Twit.
 

Stuxnet

Diamond Member
Jun 16, 2005
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Originally posted by: Vic
Originally posted by: Butterbean
Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Vic, i understand your frustration, but seriously, i think their tactic is to bore us to death with bullsheit.

Dont take Vic too seriously. Hes the most myopic mis-educated banker I have ever seen - no wonder they got us in a mess.

Oh, look, a personal attack without the slightest attempt to back up your argument or refute mine. Color me unsurprised.

He's still right. You are indeed wrong. Just because no one bothers to correct you doesn't make you right. Some people aren't worth bothering with. You're one of them.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
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Originally posted by: jbourne77
Originally posted by: Vic
Originally posted by: Butterbean
Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Vic, i understand your frustration, but seriously, i think their tactic is to bore us to death with bullsheit.

Dont take Vic too seriously. Hes the most myopic mis-educated banker I have ever seen - no wonder they got us in a mess.

Oh, look, a personal attack without the slightest attempt to back up your argument or refute mine. Color me unsurprised.

He's still right. You are indeed wrong. Just because no one bothers to correct you doesn't make you right. Some people aren't worth bothering with. You're one of them.

Are you for real? How many more articles, Presidential press releases, data, and expert opinion do you need? WTF.

And all you do here now is spin partisan hackery straight from Rush's mouth and fling personal attacks. I'd say that makes you the one not worth bothering with.

I'm calling you out here. Prove me wrong or fuck off.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
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Linda Bush, speaking at a rally in Wisconsin on September 14, 2004 Text

And today -- and I love this statistic. I think it's very, very important and it really speaks to what the United States of America is about, and that is we have the highest home ownership rate in the United States, than ever before. More Americans own their own homes than ever before. In fact, more minorities own their homes than ever before. Now, more than half of all minority families own their own homes. I think that's terrific.

 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
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A conservative source, libertarian James Bovard at LewRockwell.com, written June 11, 2005

Bush Profiteering from Housing Defaults

Bush Profiteering from Housing Defaults

by James Bovard

President Bush is determined to end the prejudice against people who want to buy a home but don?t have any money. Since he became president the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has spent more than $120 billion. HUD public-housing projects continue to devastate poor neighborhoods. HUD largesse to local governments continues to finance the confiscation and demolition of private homes, and HUD programs continue to spur fraud and corruption around the nation.

Bush has done almost nothing to reduce HUD?s damage to America. Instead, he is devoting himself to expanding home giveaways. He proclaimed on June 16, 2003,

Homeownership is more than just a symbol of the American dream; it is an important part of our way of life. Core American values of individuality, thrift, responsibility, and self-reliance are embodied in homeownership.

In Bush?s eyes, self-reliance is so wonderful that the government should subsidize it.

Bush could be exposing taxpayers to tens of billions of dollars of losses, luring thousands of low- and moderate-income people to the heartbreak of losing their first house, and risking wrecking entire neighborhoods. Bush?s housing initiatives ? especially his ?American Dream Down Payment Act? to give free down payments to selected home buyers ? were key planks in his reelection campaign. He is also pushing Congress to enact a law to permit the feds to give zero-down-payment mortgages.

The Bush ?Dream Act? and the zero-down-payment plan are modeled after ?down-payment assistance programs? that have proliferated in recent years. These programs, often engineered by nonprofit groups, routinely involve a home builder giving a ?gift? to the nonprofit, which provides a home buyer with money for the down payment. The price of the house is sometimes increased by the same amount as the builder?s ?gift.? Almost all the mortgages created with down-payment assistance end up being underwritten or guaranteed by either the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) or Ginnie Mae (the Government National Mortgage Association).

Free down payments carry catastrophic risks. The default rate on mortgages from the largest down-payment-assistance organization, Nehemiah Corp., is 25 times higher than the nationwide mortgage-delinquency rate, according to the HUD inspector general. The default rate on Nehemiah mortgages quadrupled between 1999 and 2002, reaching almost 20 percent. The I.G. warned that permitting the Federal Housing Administration to insure mortgages made with gifts from down-payment organizations is ?endangering the FHA insurance pool.? HUD currently has no idea how many of the loans that the FHA is underwriting are closed with down-payment gifts.

Bush began pushing his American Dream Down Payment plan in 2002. The administration?s rhetoric echoed the 1968 Housing Act, which nullified state and local restrictions on where blacks and other groups could live. A June 17, 2002, White House Fact Sheet declared that Bush?s agenda

will help tear down the barriers to homeownership that stand in the way of our nation?s African-American, Hispanic, and other minority families by providing down-payment assistance. The single biggest barrier to home-ownership is accumulating funds for a down payment.

The Bush administration sounded as if requiring down payments is the new version of Jim Crow laws.
Enacting the ?American Dream?

The Bush administration finally got its ?Dream Act? pushed through Congress in the fall of 2003. The House leadership chose freshman congresswoman Katherine Harris (the Republican hero of the Florida 2000 recount) for the honor of sponsoring the bill. Harris declared,

As our nation continues to confront daunting threats both at home and abroad, we cannot neglect the most basic security of all, and that is a safe, clean, adequate place to live.

One congressional staffer raised the question of whether ?HUD will soon send out maids to ensure our right to a clean house.?

When Bush signed the act on December 16, 2003, he declared,

One of the biggest hurdles to homeownership is getting money ... so today I?m honored to be here to sign a law that will help many low-income buyers to overcome that hurdle, and to achieve an important part of the American Dream.

He plaintively added,

The rate of homeownership amongst minorities is below 50 percent. And that?s not right, and this country needs to do something about it.

Bush did not specify the precise percentage of blacks and Hispanics that would be ?right.? The new law authorized federal handouts of $5,000 each for 40,000 home buyers whose incomes are less than 80 percent of a local area?s median.

The Bush administration and Republicans portray down-payment giveaways as if they were primarily targeted to minorities:

* After Bush visited a black neighborhood in Atlanta in 2002 to hype his housing-aid proposal, his first HUD secretary, Mel Martinez, explained, ?We sell it that way, as a program for minorities, because we want minority buyers for these homes, but it?s available to anyone? who qualifies under income guidelines.
* When the House passed the American Dream Down Payment Act on October 1, 2003, House Speaker Dennis Hastert hailed the bill: ?We will help lift up our African-American and Hispanic communities.?
* HUD secretary Alfonso Jackson declared in February 2004 that the Bush administration efforts ?will help more Americans, particularly minorities, achieve that dream? of homeownership.
* If the down-payment program actually specifically targeted minorities, it would violate numerous federal laws and the U.S. Constitution.

The ?right? of homeownership

Bush talks as if people should be able to buy a house the same way they buy a couch at some dubious no-money-down furniture store. In a January 23, 2004, speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, he declared,

I?m asking Congress for $200 million to help people with their down payment.... Many citizens have the desire to own a home, but they don?t have the dough to make the down payment. And therefore, they balk at making the decision.

But to portray this as a ?balk? makes as little sense as criticizing the average wage earner for not purchasing a yacht.

Once Bush proclaims a national goal, he entitles himself to claim credit for the efforts of all Americans. At an October 15, 2003, talk at Ruiz Foods (the nation?s largest producer of frozen Mexican food) in Dinuba, California, Bush reminded listeners of his devotion to boosting homeownership: ?And so I let out a goal. I said over the next decade, we want there to be 5.5 million new minority homeowners.? Then Bush informed his listeners of what he?d helped to achieve: ?Last year, we did a pretty good job. There?s now 809,000 new minority homeowners in America.?

Bush took credit for every black and Hispanic person who bought a home during his administration ? even though the vast majority received no help from him. Bush exalts in the recent rise in the number of Americans who own homes as one of his greatest accomplishments:

It turns out that one of the fantastic statistics and one of the realities of our society today is more people own homes than ever before.

The percentage of Americans who own homes rose from 66.2 percent in 2001 to 68.6 percent in late 2003. But the foreclosure rate is rising much faster than the homeownership rate. The foreclosure rate for home mortgages has tripled since the early 1980s. The rate has especially ?gone up a lot ... in struggling neighborhoods in big cities,? according to Federal Reserve Board governor Edward Gramlich.

Zero-down-payment loans

A month after signing the ?Dream Act,? Bush urged Congress to permit the FHA to begin making zero-down-payment loans to low-income Americans. The administration forecast that such mortgages could be given to 150,000 home buyers in the first year. Secretary Jackson declared,

Offering FHA mortgages with no down payment will unlock the door to homeownership for hundreds of thousands of American families, particularly minorities.

Federal Housing Commissioner John Weicher said in January 2004 that ?the White House doesn?t think those who can afford the monthly payment but have been unable to save for a down payment should be deprived from owning a home,? National Mortgage News reported. While zero-down-payment mortgages have long been considered profoundly unsafe (especially for borrowers with dubious credit history), Weicher confidently asserted, ?We do not anticipate any costs to taxpayers.?

The Bush administration aims to make more dubious mortgages, even though the percentage of FHA single-family home loans that have defaulted rose 54 percent between 1999 and 2002, reaching 4.25 percent. Roughly 12 percent of all FHA mortgages are past due.

Avoiding making unsound mortgages seems to be the last item on HUD?s list of priorities. Weicher declared in January 2004, ?We have been addressing our default rate, and we are now able to help half the families who go into default avoid foreclosure.? This merely suppresses the evidence of a failed policy and sticks taxpayers with a larger bill once the roof finally falls in.

A neighborhood wrecking ball

The FHA continues wreaking devastation in some neighborhoods and cities across the country. A 2002 study by the National Training and Information Center, a Chicago nonprofit organization, found that between 1996 and 2000 21 percent of FHA loans in low-income areas in Baltimore defaulted and 25 percent of FHA loans in low-income areas in Queens, New York, defaulted. Eight of the 22 cities studied had default rates above 12 percent. The FHA paid out more than $5 billion in settlements on defaulted mortgages in 2001. More than 45,000 FHA homes were abandoned and vacant.

Homeownership carries far more financial rude surprises (such as the cost of major repairs) than does renting. If people get into a house they cannot financially handle and go bankrupt, they are much worse off than if they had never received down-payment assistance. Giving people a handout that leads them to financial ruin ? as the Small Business Administration perennially does for people unfit to be small business owners ? is wrecking-ball benevolence. The virtues of homeownership do not arise from living in a single-family dwelling and holding a piece of paper from a bank. Rep. Ron Paul (R?Tex.) commented,

In the original version of the American dream, individuals earned the money to purchase a house through their own efforts, oftentimes sacrificing other goods to save for their first down payment.... That old American dream has been replaced by a new dream of having the federal government force your fellow citizens to hand you the money for a down payment.

Bush?s freebie hype could make the millions of low- and moderate-income Americans who are saving and scrimping for a down payment feel like fools. Bush talks as if the federal government is obliged to relieve all Americans from the nuisance of ever having to accumulate any personal savings.

Down-payment handouts and zero-down-payments are a great political strategy for Bush. He gets the applause and the political credit now, and the defaults from the program may not surge until much later. He transfers the risk of homeownership from buyers to taxpayers and then pretends he has multiplied virtue in America. He preens as a great benefactor at the same time he undermines those virtues that he is claiming to multiply.

In the early 1930s, shanty-towns of destitute unemployed people were known as Hoovervilles. In the coming years, if neighborhood after neighborhood is wrecked by waves of defaults and foreclosures caused by the reckless new mortgage policies, the areas should be known as ?Bush blights.?

Ah Georgie, you wily liberal Democrat you...
 

Vic

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Jun 12, 2001
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Neil Cavuto interviews Bush on June 8, 2005 - transcript

Relevant portion -
CAVUTO: Let me ask you about the real estate bubble people talk about in this country. Do you think there is one?

BUSH: You know, I'm not a very good economic prognosticator, but I do know that there are a lot of first-time house-buyers or homebuyers entering into the market. And the reason I know that is, for example, more minority families own a home today than ever before. And a lot of that has to be one, good policy. For example, we're helping poor families with down payments. A lot of it has to do with interest rates. But, you know, I'll let the experts determine whether or not there's a housing bubble or not.

CAVUTO: When you have regions like Florida and Silicon Valley going at 30, 40 percent a year, even Alan Greenspan worries that we might have pockets of bubbles. Do you?

BUSH: You know, if Alan Greenspan (search) worries about it, I should worry about it, because he's done a heck of a good job, and he's a smart guy.

CAVUTO: Is he gone next year? Does he leave next year?

BUSH: Let me just finish on the housing market right quick.

CAVUTO: Sure.

BUSH: One thing is for certain is that people have got more money in their, more after-tax disposable income, and interest rates are such that people are now enjoying homeownership, which is a really important part of America.

Let me just talk about ownership real quick. First of all, Alan Greenspan has indicated that he is going to finish his term. And then we'll find a suitable replacement, hopefully somebody as good as Alan Greenspan, although that will be hard to do...

CAVUTO: A Democrat? Would you consider a Democrat?

BUSH: I would consider somebody who can do the job.

CAVUTO: Robert Rubin?

BUSH: Here you are trying to get me to, right on your TV show, make news by naming different people, which I refuse to do. Let me talk about ownership for a minute.

CAVUTO: Go ahead.

BUSH: If you look at a lot of our policy, we encourage ownership, and the reason why is because an ownership society is an optimistic society. It's a society in which the individual has got such a vital stake in the future of our country.

So when somebody owns their own home, you know, that's their home. It provides security of a home. It is an asset that they call their own.

When you have your own health savings account, it's something you can carry with you. It means you're in charge of your health care decisions, not a, you know, somebody far away in an office complex that you'll never visit.

When you have a personal savings account, a voluntary personal savings account as a part of a retirement system, it's your asset. You look at it on a quarterly basis to see whether or not you're getting a compound rate of interest that is suitable to your needs.

Ownership really is a vital part of the American experience. And we want more people owning something. We just don't want ownership to be confined to a certain segment of society. We want everybody, every single person, to be able to say, "This is my asset. And I intend to pass it on to whomever I choose."

And the more people own homes, the more homeowners there are, the better off America is. I'm not an economic forecaster, but I know something about America and American experience and American life. And the fact that more people are owning homes says we've got a more hopeful country.

The American people know who caused this. Bush has been on TV and in print pushing his "Ownership Society" for the past 6 years.

Just because you dittoheads can't remember what Rush said on his show the day before yesterday doesn't mean the rest of us are just as stupid.
 

chess9

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Apr 15, 2000
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More evidence that the only two home loans make to poor black families :) brought down Wall Street and the Republican Party:

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=6021608&page=1

"These former WaMu employees, 89 of them who worked throughout the company and around the country, described a bank eager to profit from a housing boom and lending frenzy that seemed to have contributed to the credit crunch and housing bust now plaguing the economy. Some of them spoke to ABC News, all of them are confidential witnesses in a recently filed shareholder class action lawsuit against WaMu."

....

"The Hugheses said they're scared and angry, anger amplified by the fact that WaMu executives got to keep their millions, paid out in salaries and bonuses, while they lost everything."

GREED, STUPIDITY, FREE MARKET ECONOMICS, and HUBRIS all point to the dangers of letting Republicans do anything more sophisticated than sweep the floors at a bank.

As one other poster said, the Republican Party should never be trusted again.

-Robert
 

shira

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
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Originally posted by: Special K
Originally posted by: shira


That's utter nonsense. Interest rates in the U.S. were lowered (from 6.5% to 1% in the two-year period from 2001- to 2003) by Alan Greenspan in response to the dot-com bubble and 9/11, NOT in response to some desire to facilitate sub-prime mortgages. Those lowered interest rates helped create - among many other things - the housing bubble. And poor people - just like the rest of us - wanted a piece of the action.

Can you explain how the lowering of the Fed Funds rate contributed to the housing bubble? My understanding was that mortgage interest rates tracked the yield of the 10 year treasury bill, not the the Fed Funds rate.

I'm not disagreeing with your conclusion, I'm just trying to understand the relationship between Greenspan's actions and the housing bubble.

I listened to this NPR program here:

The Global Pool of Money

and they said Greenspan's interest rate cuts contributed to the housing bubble by lowering the yield on government bonds, forcing investors to seek higher returns elsewhere. This is what led to the popularity of MBS and the housing bubble/mortgage meltdown.

Isn't NPR's information the answer to the question you just asked?

There's no lock-step connection between short-term and long-term rates. It's easy to see this because anyone watching mortgage rates see's them bumping up and down on a weekly basis, whereas benchmark short-term rates - such as the discount rate - tend to stay the same over many weeks or months.

One factor that can cause long-term rates to rise even as short-term rates fall (or vice versa) is inflation expectations. For example, if people believe inflation will increase from, say, 2% annually to 3% annually over the next year, then that will be incorporated into long-term rates, which will rise, absent any other effects.

But over the longer term, there's a high correlation between short- and long-term rates. In a longer-term environment of decreasing short-term rates, long term rates will likely decrease, too. Take a look at the charts for short- and long-term rates on this webpage. It pretty clearly shows the close relationship between the two.

Relation between short- and long-term rates
 

chess9

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Apr 15, 2000
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http://www.realclearpolitics.c...rges_from_bailout.html

"When Ronald Reagan was president, I had a sense of what ideas and principles his party stood for. When Newt Gingrich and his "Contract with America" brigade took Washington by storm in 1994, I knew what they believed -- loopy though it was -- and what they hoped to accomplish. I defy anyone to give a coherent explanation of what today's Republican Party, under George Bush and now John McCain, wants to do except perpetuate itself in power.

When a political party reaches the point of lurching incoherence, the most effective cure is a good, long spell in the wilderness. Americans should help Republicans out by sending them home to get their act together."


Good advice.

-Robert
 

DAPUNISHER

Super Moderator CPU Forum Mod and Elite Member
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Vic has posted a fair amount of hard evidence demonstrating the current administration's culpability. If the poor hung themselves, it is only because this administration, gave them the rope with the noose already tied, had them put their heads in it, and assured them there was no trap door under their feet.
 

Nemesis 1

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Dec 30, 2006
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I am an independent. Its really is wrong to blame the poor. If your poor and someone is willing to borrow you the money to be less poor . Your normally going to take it . Without thinking it threw.

BLAME ! Who is to Blame not the Dems. Or the Republicans . This problem started along time ago . Both parties are responsiable. Better wording would be BOTH parties are irresponseable.

Our government is broken beyond repair . Unless we decide to do the boston tea party again . Which won't happen . Why . Because those men were men. Today were nothing more than sheep being guarded by wolves.

Some years ago I went to work as an Iron worker great $$$. $33 hour back than that was good. I was assigned to work on a school project. When I had to lay the wire mesh for the Jamesville MN. School . Gym floor the Specs called for a vapor barrier first. I went to my boss and told him no vapor barrier. He said its barried 2 feet down . A promptly said that was out of spec. Than I decided to see for myself. I dugg down 3 feet no barrier. SoI went to the government inspector. Told him . He said it was installed I said no its not . He said it was and thats it . So I went back dugg another 2 feet down total 5feet. No barrier . I went back to inspector . He said its there and thast s that. So I laid the wire mesh . Later I was working on stairwells. The manufacture of the stepps got them wrong . We had to change the height of 1 tread. NOw this is dangerious. To our children I complained again . So now I was moved outside to work in the freezing cold . Than I was installing support beams and such ./ I had to drill holes into concrete install lag bolts and usea filler to lock the lag inplace . Wellagain . The compound were out of spec. Again I went to my boss who refused to gett the correct compounds. SO again I went to inspector . He said to use what my boss told me to . Which was a joke . The compound simply wouldn't work in the freezing cold in the area of fill and set. This was dangerious beyond belief. After dinner I couldn't stand it anymore . I told my boss that I was done in the construction business . I told him if the schools can't be built to specs. what short cuts were going on in other projects. I said good bye and F--- you. I also told the government inspector he was on the take and he was a disgrace. I never turned them in . But after the Bridge came down over the Mississippi right after inspection . I started to think what if something happens at that school. Would I be responsiable for being silent. Well I still kept quite. But every day since a think about it . Not a good tradeoff for being silent.


Its not our system that failed but the corruption inside the system has turned on itself.

As long as we let the 2 parties choose our canadates were doomed. We needed to get lawyers away from the governing body . Its a hugh conflict. DO you trust Lawyers and Judges I don't.

Ya ever watch real TV. I seen one last night quick stop robbery high speed chase . Violance. Man beating attendent with golf clud. The man was white drugger. 3 years in the pen . I have seen the same crime commeted by blacks or hispanics with less violance and they get 5-10 years for same crime. Just isn't right man.

It was a really bad deal .

We lost our roots somewhere along the line . Were $$$$$ control the outcome . Notice all the bad calls in sports . 1987 World series play at first. That umpire should never have played another game ever. We won YA! BS . We were cheated by corrupt officials. Sure we won on a Cheat . F---- that. I would rather lose . Recent football calls what a joke. MN Vikings 3-3 4 0f the games were decided by bad calls. MN lost 2 and won 2 . Pure BS . New orleans was cheated and so to was Detroit.

Man if I was young I would move to down under./

Point is the majority of us are OK . But the minority of us are ruining it for the rest.

Most of these people if you check . ARE Lawyers and Judges. How did Bush win in 2001. I judge decided. LOL . Wake up smell the roses and buy a gun you will want to use it soon enough. I am not stupid enough to believe that Republicans or Dems are to blame . Because We the people make the choice. We better start making better choices and the 2 party system is so corrupt that at the leadership level their the same its about power.

So Americans stop fighting each others and lets get good people into office. Someone who really doesn't want the job would be a step in the right direction . How about all of us coming up with a canadate both sides like and do a write in vote that would shake things up a lot . But what the Hell its 2008 . 2012 is D day . I personnelly Think that this election is an injustic to the Black canadate. When he wins he getts a country thats in ruin. Pure BS. Look at the running mates what a joke . Right now that job sucks and higher taxes won't fix the problem . It will only make it worse .

We have to reduce the size of government on all levels.

SS is a joke . I know a guy who has never worked 1 day in his life and is getting DSS not SSS as it should be.

My brothers wife is drawing DSS on a dease that can't be proven . Many people are using this one as way to fraud the system . I can tell ya for fact . This woman is fine and does not suffer until she is with a doctor . She a facker. I know for fact. I love her but that doesn't change the facts. For me anyway . If you can't prove or disprove an illiness than you shouldn't beable to claim its as illiness period.

The system is broken to fix it we have to take some backward steps.