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Obama, Frank, Acorn, Wall St, all in kahootz together on Financial Fiasco
Read it and weep...Clinton even agrees; are you in denial? http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-102129 B Frank the Massachusetts Democrat blah blah blah, with the political class guilty only of failing to rein the capitalists in. Frank said; the country is in dire straits today "thanks to a conservative philosophy that says the market knows best." Wall Street has its share of private-sector culprits...Franks deciding to junk long-held standards of creditworthiness in order to make ill-advised loans to unqualified borrowers. It would be closer to the truth to say These SECTOR CULPRITS woke up to find the government twisting their arms and demanding that they do so - or else. Roots of this crisis go back to the Carter admin when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and "redlining" because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites. Pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. The Community Reinvestment Act was passed, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to "meet the credit needs" of "low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods." Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans. The two government-chartered mortgage finance firms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, encouraged this "subprime" lending by authorizing ever more "flexible" criteria for home loans to increase homeownership among minorities and the poor. Affirmative-action policies trumped sound business practices. They were given a manual (attached) by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston which advised mortgage lenders to disregard financial common sense. "Lack of credit history should not be seen as a negative factor," Lenders were directed to accept welfare payments and unemployment benefits as "valid income sources" HOW STUPID HOW STUPID HOW STUPID to qualify for a mortgage. Failure to comply could mean a lawsuit. It didn't take a financial whiz to recognize that a day of reckoning would come. "What does it mean when Boston banks start making many more loans to minorities?" Asked in this space in 1995. "Most likely, that they are knowingly approving risky loans in order to get the feds and the activists off their backs . .IMAGINE THAT!!!! . Who takes credit for this? Frank doesn't. But his fingerprints are all over this fiasco. Time and time again, Frank insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in good shape. Five years ago, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing. Now it is apparent to all, Frank blithely declares: "The private sector got us into this mess." Well, give the congressman points for gall. Wall Street and private lenders have plenty to answer for, but it was Washington and the political class that derailed this train. If Frank is looking for a culprit to blame, he can find one suspect in the nearest mirror. This is the type of SHADE TREE government Obama directs or rather SHADY government of Obama.
- TAGS:
- economy,
- obama,
- opinion,
- election08,
- obama_biden,
- mccain_palin,
- bailout
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