Did liberals cause our mortgage meltdown?

BroncoBilly · #1 (**permalink**) 09-20-2008, 11:50 AM

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,424945,00.html

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.p...w&pageId=75717

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/may/31/news/mn-42807

Surprisingly, research done by economists a decade ago in 1998, particularly by Professors Ted Day and Stan Liebowitz at the University of Texas at Dallas, predicted the current problems and tried to warn people of a different cause. Starting during the early 1990s, mortgage-underwriting standards have been consistently weakened. Many of the names involved in the forefront of those changes, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as well as Countrywide and Bear Stearns, have been the most prominent financial entities to become insolvent.
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Mack · #2 (**permalink**) 09-20-2008, 12:48 PM

Is there any evidence in any of the links you posted that suggests the problem was caused by liberals? The second link doesn't even work.

I'll have a go...Is John McCain the antichrist?

The Roving Lunatic · #3 (**permalink**) 09-20-2008, 12:53 PM

Although I don't blame Bush directly, Its all part of the Legacy

Alice · #4 (**permalink**) 09-20-2008, 01:01 PM

No, liberals didn't cause our mortgage meltdown:

Quote:

Remember the "ownership society," fixture of major George W. Bush addresses for the first four years of his presidency? "We're creating...an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property," Bush said in October 2004. Washington think-tanker Grover Norquist predicted that the ownership society would be Bush's greatest legacy, remembered "long after people can no longer pronounce or spell Fallujah." Yet in Bush's final State of the Union address, the once-ubiquitous phrase was conspicuously absent. And little wonder: rather than its proud father, Bush has turned out to be the ownership society's undertaker.

Well before the ownership society had a neat label, its creation was central to the success of the right-wing economic revolution around the world. The idea was simple: if working-class people owned a small piece of the market--a home mortgage, a stock portfolio, a private pension--they would cease to identify as workers and start to see themselves as owners, with the same interests as their bosses. That meant they could vote for politicians promising to improve stock performance rather than job conditions. Class consciousness would be a relic.

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Bush came to office determined to take these trends even further, to deliver Social Security accounts to Wall Street and target minority communities--traditionally out of the Republican Party's reach--for easy homeownership. "Under 50 percent of African Americans and Hispanic Americans own a home," Bush observed in 2002. "That's just too few." He called on Fannie Mae and the private sector "to unlock millions of dollars, to make it available for the purchase of a home"--an important reminder that subprime lenders were taking their cue straight from the top.

Today, the basic promises of the ownership society have been broken. First the dot-com bubble burst; then employees watched their stock-heavy pensions melt away with Enron and WorldCom. Now we have the subprime mortgage crisis, with more than 2 million homeowners facing foreclosure on their homes. Many are raiding their 401(k)s--their piece of the stock market--to pay their mortgage. Wall Street, meanwhile, has fallen out of love with Main Street. To avoid regulatory scrutiny, the new trend is away from publicly traded stocks and toward private equity. In November Nasdaq joined forces with several private banks, including Goldman Sachs, to form Portal Alliance, a private equity stock market open only to investors with assets upward of $100 million. In short order yesterday's ownership society has morphed into today's members-only society.

Source

BroncoBilly · #5 (**permalink**) 09-20-2008, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alice

No, liberals didn't cause our mortgage meltdown:

Perhaps you didn't read the 3rd link, 1998 and 99 were the formative years.

Diuretic · #6 (**permalink**) 09-20-2008, 04:46 PM

Look for the thieves stuffing their pockets on Wall Street then work back.

Try as you might BB you won't be able to pin this one on the Democrats, which is what you are trying to do. This meltdown is a direct result of removal of regulations on the finance industry. Unfettered capitalism will bite you on the arse every time. Perhaps this disaster will remind people of the need to ensure capitalism is restrained at all times.

rodog · #7 (**permalink**) 09-20-2008, 05:00 PM

No it wasn't caused by liberals. It was caused by banks who thought that people making less then $2000 a month could afford paying $1500 mortgages. Simple math equations that Fannie Mae and friends failed to comprehend.

Guy Fawkes · #8 (**permalink**) 09-20-2008, 05:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mack

Is there any evidence in any of the links you posted that suggests the problem was caused by liberals? The second link doesn't even work.

I'll have a go...Is John McCain the antichrist?

Yeah here ya go!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Steagall_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act

then read up on Robert Rubin and see where Bill Clinton changed the rules by passing the second link.

Guy Fawkes · #9 (**permalink**) 09-20-2008, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodog

No it wasn't caused by liberals. It was caused by banks who thought that people making less then $2000 a month could afford paying $1500 mortgages. Simple math equations that Fannie Mae and friends failed to comprehend.

Stupid people that make less than $2000 a month applied for loans? Why'd they do that? Must be that public education that teaches fuzzy math. What a bunch of idiots.

Next time I go to the movies I'll pay a dollar and see if they let me in.

rodog · #10 (**permalink**) 09-20-2008, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guy Fawkes

Stupid people that make less than $2000 a month applied for loans? Why'd they do that?

Must be that public education that teaches fuzzy math. What a bunch of idiots.

Next time I go to the movies I'll pay a dollar and see if they let me in.

So are you saying the banks didn't make stupid decisions or did you just feel the need to rant because you didn't like what I said?

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