Political Punch

In September of 2003 the Bush administration recommened that a new agency be formed to take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. One of this new agency's responsibility was to make sure that Fannie and Freddie were "adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios". The Bush administration recognized that Fannie and Freddie were broken. "A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates."

Barney Frank's response was:

"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."

Thank, again, for the Democrats failure to act that we are yet in another mess. Wasn't Bill Clinton's failure, and the attacks of 9-11 as the results, enough?

Twice Warned, Twice Denied. How the Democrats Endanger us All

Come on. What is Barney Frank's role in this financial mes? Why wasn't he screaming, yelling, and calling press conferences to try to bring attention to these problems?

to Paul,
Unfortunately you missed the point - which doesn't surprise me. Let me say it again - businesses drive the economy not the middle class. Without business, there is no middle class. And. Without the middle class, there is no business. Obamas idea of taxing the very people who put their life savings on the line to start a business and who are now reaping the benefit of that sacrifice is fundamentally un-American. Did you sacrifice your time and money to start a business that now employs 35 tax paying people? I pay 100% of our employees health benefits with no tax incentive so you are right, I could eliminate this benefit to pay obamas higher tax bracket. Why should I have to reduce my ROI when I'm the one who sacrificed everything to get to where I am today financially. Why? What incentive do I have to continue to invest in any business -mine or the stock market - when I know the risk, due to higher taxes - is now not worth it? I challenge you Paul - start your own business, succeed at it, and then have an overzealous politician take the reward away from you. You will understand my position. I assure you, every small business owner feels this way. They generate 80% of the new jobs in this country so there can be a middle class. I already have a huge tax burden - with employee FICA, unemployment, health premiums, FEderal, State, Sales, and many other municipal taxes, my tax burden is around 73%...and obama wants more??? I am disgusted. I may take your advice and sell out. With obamas higher tax burden, it's just not worth the risk anymore. Let obama create high paying jobs for the 35 that work for me now...

Well, I personally know of a couple who were not finacially sound. Shakey jobs for both, and no savings. They got a hughe loan on a brand new house. As soon as they moved in the woman kicked out the guy and moved in her mother,sister and boyfriend,there were 3 kids total also. They never made 1 payment and forecloser followed a year later. Stupid Bank if you ask me. And with the conspiracy of corp's sending American jobs out of country.... tisk,tisk,tisk. Now they are ALL So Suprised as to this hughe problem. Yeah Right!! And we are suppose to be this stupid?

Who cares what Barney Frank says about anything. In 2007 he though Fannie?Freddie would be a good investment in the future. He will be in jail soon anyway and that will be the only housing he should concern himself with. He has done quite enough damage!

Paulson and Cox need to go to jail! All wall street salaries should be taxed at 80% to get back the money they stole from our retirement accounts.

Obama/Biden 08!

The policy itself doesn't bother me. Trying to help more poor people establish a base to pull themselves up through home ownership is a noble goal. Less poor equals less crime, a bigger work force and more tax income. Good for everyone.

What angers me to no end is that Frank and others were apparently told time and time again that the policy wasn't working, and was in fact potentially catastrophic, yet he/they did absolutely nothing. Jail is too good for this swine. Yet not only won't he be tried, I'll be shocked if he isn't re-elected. Pitiful.

Corporate America is in this situation because the mortgages they paid a hefty sum to collect interest on suddenly become virtually worthless as people walked away from their devalued homes. They didn't know the risk because they didn't properly investigate the risk since they were loaning the capital to themselves so they could provide the loans in the first place. Even if they had investigated the risk, they may have decided to take a gamble on earning a huge gain versus a HUGE loss because they knew if a huge loss occurred that the government would use taxpayer money to bail-out the Corporations to save the investments of their constituents.

When the Republicans repealed parts of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1998, allowing investment banks and commercial banks to merge, they removed the checks and balances that having separate commercial and investment banks offered. Before, if a commercial bank wanted to provide a loan, they would go through an investment bank to get the money for the loan. At this point, the investment bank would evaluate the risk of loaning the money to commercial bank. After, investment banks were essentially loaning the money to themselves, since they were also commercial banks. Would you consider a loan to yourself a risky one? Of course not!

Had these banks properly managed or self-regulated their risk, this panic would not have happened. Had the Republicans included some kind of regulation of risk, this would not have happened. Had the separation of commercial and investment banks not been repealed by Republicans, this would not have happened.

If banks of any kind have such a large influence on our economy, the amount of risk they take on should be regulated.

Also, any person of retirement age should have moved their savings from high risk stocks to low risk bonds and money markets. I'm not of retirement age, so this bailout did little to help me now and most likely will leave me with the unimaginable debt that this will create.

Soros?

Wow. What a lovely combination: racism ánd anti-semitism in one thread

okay, i'll say it again and maybe abc won't pull it from the comments too quickly...

SANDLER and SOROS...hummm

it's the same old story - people who can operate the bank and finance systems with no intent of adding any value to our economy, only seeing ways to make money off of a shell-game at someone elses expense. every time the fed. govt. lets these people play this way, the taxpayer ends up footing the bill and our general economy suffers.

SNL had a really funny skit about the Race Card.

Can't you see that both the democrates and republicans, except for a few, are just in it for themselves and to line their own pockets. That's why you don't hear them talking about any real differences and about the differences we used to think were between them. You won't hear any real substance about basic differences in the debate tonight - beacuse the traditional differences are not there any more. They are both just competing to get into the president seat and make many $$$$$$ for themselves and their sponsors. Vote them all out. Ron Paul or Bob Barr for President!

Barney franks is race-baiting and should be ashamed of him self.

You don't need to rely on Barney Frank's take on this. Watch the McCain/Palin commercial about Frannie and Freddie. Ominous music...dark backgrounds...unflattering closeups of two black guys...ending with a frightened white woman.

If there's anything dumber than racism, it's pretending that racism is something other than racism and then yowling about how someone's "played the race card."

The "race card" does get played. Republicans have been dealing it regularly since LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act of 1964...the year that the "solid Democratic South" turned into the "solid Republican South."

jcf: "Democrats pushing for affordable mortgages for everyone is certainly a piece of that pie."

And we have another one misrepresenting what the CRA was and is about.

CRA did not cause this financial crisis. Even Federal Board Chairman Bernanke -- no liberal he -- noted that CRA has helped institutions discover and enter new markets that may have been previously under-served and ignored by insured depositories.

He lauds it.

I agree:

Allow wages to increase with the rate of inflation, and many of the economical woes would have been solved.
However, the inherit pitfall of human nature is to hoard for #1,
close the mind to the needs of others, then point the finger when we all find ourselves in the same boat.

Puppet:

Dow is at 9447.11 right now. And Futures are down another 426 ...

Thanks to 6 years of Reps controlling all three branches of Government; 8 years of Republicans controlling the Executive; 12 years of controlling Congress (14 when you count the recent 2 years of filibusters and vetoes).

When Clinton was President, the Republicans in Congress shut down Government in 1995 and threatened to do so in '98 in order to ram through their Contract On America.

You want to know one of the reasons for shutting down Congress in 95? With the support of John McCain?

Deregulation of Financial Businesses...

What a coward this guy is. There is plenty of blame to go around here. Democrats pushing for affordable mortgages for everyone is certainly a piece of that pie. They deserve a portion of the blame. Deflecting that blame by playing the 'republicans are racist' card is cowardly and disgusting.

BTW, "American business, typically a reliable Republican cheerleader, is decidedly lukewarm about Senator John McCain’s proposal to overhaul the health care system by revamping the tax treatment of health benefits, officials with leading trade groups say.

The officials, with organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the National Federation of Independent Business, predicted in recent interviews that the McCain plan, which eliminates the exclusion of health benefits from income taxes, would accelerate the erosion of employer-sponsored health insurance and do little to reduce the number of uninsured from 45 million."

@jpv who is the real john mccain? He's the guy who supported Bush's policies 90% of the time, refuses to lose the "War on Terror" which has cost us hundreds of billions and will give the wealthiest Americans which make up 1% of the population HUGE tax cuts while giving the hard working middle class meager tax cuts. The middle class make up more than 50% of this country. Under his new tax proposal, the middle class will have to cut back on spending as debts increase and prices rise on everything from food to heat. For you mccain supporters; think about this for a minute. The middle class are responsible for the pay check of the entire country - not the Govt. If the Govt is hostile to the middle class, the middle class will not be able to spend money on products/services from businesses or on trying to create a new business themselves. The middle class is where money is spent which creates demand which allows businesses to exist in the first place - not business owners who only care about their bottom line.

If the middle class stopped spending its money completely, the economy would collapse. If the middle class did a run on the banks and pulled out all their money, the economy would collapse.

If you as a business decide to fire employees instead of finding other areas to cut back or taking a pay cut yourself from that $250,000 a year you are earning, then you will be hurting the economy in the short term but the economy will survive in the long term. If you punish your own business so that you can continue to pay yourself $250,000 a year, then most likely your products and customer service will reduce in quality and a competitor who's willing to sacrifice more of his profits to beat you will put you out of business and takeover your market, which will hurt the economy in the short term but the economy will survive in the long term.

Don't like it? Well then stop running your business, I'm sure there's someone else out there who is more than happy to take your place.

@jpv who is the real john mccain? He's the guy who supported Bush's policies 90% of the time, refuses to lose the "War on Terror" which has cost us hundreds of billions and will give the wealthiest Americans which make up 1% of the population HUGE tax cuts while giving the hard working middle class meager tax cuts. The middle class make up more than 50% of this country. Under his new tax proposal, the middle class will have to cut back on spending as debts increase and prices rise on everything from food to heat. For you mccain supporters; think about this for a minute. The middle class are responsible for the pay check of the entire country - not the Govt. If the Govt is hostile to the middle class, the middle class will not be able to spend money on products/services from businesses or on trying to create a new business themselves. The middle class is where money is spent which creates demand which allows businesses to exist in the first place - not business owners who only care about their bottom line.

If the middle class stopped spending its money completely, the economy would collapse. If the middle class did a run on the banks and pulled out all their money, the economy would collapse.

If you as a business decide to fire employees instead of finding other areas to cut back or taking a pay cut yourself from that $250,000 a year you are earning, then you will be hurting the economy in the short term but the economy will survive in the long term. If you punish your own business so that you can continue to pay yourself $250,000 a year, then most likely your products and customer service will reduce in quality and a competitor who's willing to sacrifice more of his profits to beat you will put you out of business and takeover your market, which will hurt the economy in the short term but the economy will survive in the long term.

Don't like it? Well then stop running your business, I'm sure there's someone else out there who is more than happy to take your place.

Economist support Obamoron. Huh?

I wonder if these are the same "economists that support dims in general?

Shall we see what a GREAT job our democrat leadership has done for us since they took control of congress during the midterm?

GAS Prices 11/06 $2.22/gallon
GAS Prices September 29, 2008: $3.89/Gallon

DOW 10/06 11,900
DOW September 29, 2008: 10,365.45

NASDAQ 11/06 2,550
NASDAQ September 29, 2008: 1983.73

Consumer Price Index, 11/06 197.6
Consumer Price Index, September 29, 2008: 219

Dollar exchange with Euro Nov - 06 8.823
Dollar exchange with Euro, Sept. 29, 2008: .695
Two important foot notes here –
1) Each of these indicators was at record highs when the libs took over.
2) Note mentioned here are
a. Unemployment skyrocketing upward at the same time when it had average better than under St. Clinton
b. Foreclosures nearly tripling in the same period
c. Inflation up 20-30%

YEAH BABY THAT’S CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah folks, that's right - these ignorant clowns have virtually destroyed every segment of our financial markets single handedly so let's show how smart we are an elect one of the a-holes president.

WHO SAYS THE AVERAGE IQ IN AMERICA IS 100 -
(Well, if you factor in the avg IQ of a liberal is about 60, then it makes sense.)

From that last article:

Eighty per cent of respondents [=members of the prestigious National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)] and no fewer than 71% of those who do not cleave to either main party say Mr Obama has a better grasp of economics. Even among Republicans Mr Obama has the edge: 46% versus 23% say Mr Obama has the better grasp of the subject. “I take McCain’s word on this one,” comments James Harrigan at the University of Virginia, a reference to Mr McCain’s infamous confession that he does not know as much about economics as he should. In fairness, Mr McCain’s lower grade may in part reflect greater candour about his weaknesses. Mr Obama’s more tightly managed image leaves fewer opportunities for such unvarnished introspection.

JPV, also this one:

Top Economists Overwhelmingly Favor Obama Plan: 80% Say He Has Better Grasp of Economics

@Fed Up: "Barney Frank is playing the race card."

No Fed Up, this is called Straight Talk. Blaming the CRA is not only false, it is racist because the benefactors of the CRA were primarily blacks and latinos. We all know who you are blaming here.

CRA worked perfect for more than 3 decades. Predatory lenders discovered subprimes could be turned into a very profitable market by securitizing the risks. They added ARM's to this volatile mix which allowed people to treat their own house as a virtual ATM-machine and now everybody has to bail these lenders out.

to Polderboy:

First, I don't believe your % quote and you didn't give me anything to go on to prove your point. Second, I don't care how many economists support obama - - I'm warning you that obama's tax plan will hurt my small business. I'm also warning you that you may lose your job over it. It's not a threat - it's a fact. His plan is exactly like the 1929 tax plan...look it up. I got my tax numbers straight from obama's website and compared it to my current tax burden. I will be forced to lay off 2 people if he get's to the WH and that pisses me off. Unemployment will go to an all time high with obama in office.

Yeah, Experience.

Abraham Lincoln did such a lousy job as President.
George W. Bush at least had a wealth of experience.

Thank you for the laughs.

Mccain gonna git r dun tonight

Mccain gonna git r dun tonight

In the Ring: "McCain is far from perfect and most Republicans can a least admit this."

Bwahahahahaha

JPV: 66% of Economists support Obama

Barney & Friends Starring:

Nancy Pelosi-she's really good at making friends
Harry Reid-he's learning how to share
Barack Obama-he's learning how to tell the truth
Chris Dodd-he's learning how to count money
Barney-he's learning how to take responsiblity for his own actions.

Next episode--They all learn how to fill out job applications using crayons!

Barney Frank is the smartest in Congress concerning financial policies. When you you wake up and realize that????

Or is it just that that the business policies of your benefactors could not possibly have caused any problems!

McCain is far from perfect and most Republicans can a least admit this. There is no question that these are trying times for all of us. But to say that Obama can jump in and solve these nations problems without any real level of experience is pretty frightening. You democrats keep drawing lines in the sand. Be careful how deep you draw that line. This divisiveness resembles 1861 when the south secedes. Listen to others and get off your soap box. 2 ears 1 mouth.

who is the real barack obama?? He's the guy who's proposing to bring the US economy to its knees by taxing the crap out of the hard working small businesses like me. I have 35 people working with me today. Under his new tax proposal, I will have to lay off 2 people just to pay for his irresponsible spending habits. For you obama supporters; think about this for a minute. Businesses are responsible for your pay check - not the Govt. If the Govt is hostile to businesses, businesses will not be able to reinvest in their business and hire people. Business is where jobs are created - not fancy talking politicians.

Frank the Robber is attempting to deflect attention from his conflict of interest problems when he and his boyfriend hampered efforts to increase regulation on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.....the boyfriend was making too much money and Frank had the power to protect him.

The gist of this is that Democrats in power actually CREATED and ENCOURAGED irresponsible and unregulated subprime lending and they now want to pass blame onto the GOP and bury it in race-coated blame....how SLIMY and RACIST is that?

Franks is a mentally challenged weasel. He has the mental capacity of an 8 year old. I think it's really nice that Massachusetts did not discriminate against his mental deficiency, but play time is over and we are actually in an economic crisis now and they need to send Barney back to the Fernald State school in Mass. and elect someone that is honest and knows what they are doing.

Which legislative office does "Cindy" hold?

Sandy: *Everybody* with a High Credit Rating gets "sweetheart deals" from mortgage lenders.

The higher the Credit Rating, the lesser the risk of that person not living up to his or her obligations.

Financial institutions LOVE doing business with people with High Credit Ratings.

Want to guess the sweetheart deals Cindy is getting from such institutions?

Hey, the Republicans never said "low-income" or "poor" or "black". That was Barney Frank. The Republicans said part of the problem was the "expansion of affordable housing", i.e., sub-prime mortgages.
Sheesh guys, take off the bias glasses and just read.

And James,

Fannie Mae was active in the SECONDARY Mortgage Market.

Predatory Lending is a disease in the PRIMARY Mortgage Market.

No, but Countrywide DID make "sweetheart deals" on mortgages to their legislative buddies.

Shall I name names?

James, there are HUGE differences in subprime lending and predatory lending practices.

All the CRA did was discouraging "red-lining".

The CRA didn't force lenders to make riskier loans than they would have made otherwise: did you ever tried to get a loan in your life? Did you feel you had the power to FORCE the lender to give you a loan?

The CRA required that FDIC-insured banks and thrifts take each applicant on his or her own merits, and give people in poorer neighborhoods the *same* fair chance at a mortgage that everybody else in town was getting. It wasn't about preferential treatment. It was about basic equality.

Barney Frank is playing the race card. The DUMB should get kicked out of congress! Letting people borrow beyond thier means and trying to say everyone should own a house is stupid. I was taught to pay what you owe and not to buy what you can't see a clear way to pay for. Getting people hooked into bad mortages is not a cure for someone who having a hard time. Liberals need to blame someone so it is the Republicans, and the DUMD should be looking a the faults within their party but why would I expect them to have the brains to see the real problem with out cuttent isses in this country, Dobbs, Franks, Dingy Harry and Dumb Dumb Nancy.

Speaking as a progressive, I thought the skit (based on the linked transcript) was really funny. I have not read any of the other comments yet, but I would hope that this is the general sense everyone has.

Satire is like lemmonade- without a bite it is just sugar water.

Polderboy, first you wrote that Rep. Barney Frank is "absolutely right."

Rep. Barney Frank defended the predatory lending practices of Fannie Mae for years. In fact, when the Bush Administration issued their warnings regarding what was taking place within Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and insisted on strict oversight, Rep. Barney Frank condemned the warnings as trying to fix something that was not broken.

Speaking as a progressive, I thought the skit (based on the linked transcript) was really funny. I have not read any of the other comments yet, but I would hope that this is the general sense everyone has.

Satire is like lemmonade- without a bite it is just sugar water.

"ACORN intimidates banks and individual bank executives (showing up at their houses, intimidating their children, etc) to make more subprime loans,"

Don't be ridiculous.

ACORN never showed up at Countrywide for example. Countrywide wasn't a bank and didn't take deposits that required FDIC insurance. Thus, they didn't have any obligation to the CRA. Countrywide therefore was free to set their *own* lending standards, which were often far less cautious than those required of FDIC-insured (and therefore obliged to follow CRA-regulations) banks.

Countrywide had 20% of the marketshare of subprime loans, by far the biggest share of all the other lenders. Countrywide did this because they made HUGE profits in the subprime market. CRA and ACORN had absolutely NOTHING to do with this.

Why would you assume that these "low income" loans were made to Black families?

Believe me, there are plenty of non-Black "low income" families in this country, many of whom I'm sure were part of this mess as well.

Blacks comprise 12% of the total U.S. population. Of that 12%, some much smaller subset are home owners (3%? 4%?). Of that smaller subset, let's say...hmmm...maybe <1% defaulted on their mortgage. Wow - do the math people. It's absurd to think that the magnitude of the economic mess we are in can be attributed to some tiny "irresponsible" minority. So yeah -the conservative argument is racist and it is designed to tap into deep-seated racially motivated anger.

And once again, ACORN is in the news.

Officials of the State of Nevada, armed with a search warrant, raided the Las Vegas offices of ACORN today and carted off all kinds of voter registration paperwork.

The Secretary of State's office had received tips that fraudulent voter registration cards were being filled out, some using names of former Dallas Cowboy players.

No Debt: I'm still renting until I save enough money for a large down-payment and I can pay the house off in 7-10 years. That way I don't pay 3x the amount in interest.

People used to tell me "Stop renting. Buy a house, you get equity. If you get in trouble, you can always sell it. Make a profit." We see how that ended up.
_______________________________

Dear Friend, it will be interesting if your frugality will have been served in the coming global meltdown.

The truth is that you will need a lot more working for you than your desire or success in being without debt...
although it is an extremely admirable quality.

Yes, the Republican McCain has won!!!!
I really hope your proud of yourselves for voting Bush.
You must be proud of the republicans in congress that kisses Bush's butt by voting 90% for the time for anything he wants.(McCain voted 95% for Bushs wants)
Yes you Republican are responsible for all this crap we are in.
Yes the spineless democrats let it happen but the republican caused it.
Your republicans policies have devalued our income our homes, our saving our lifestyle and increased the cost of food and medication, utility, our ability to travel the stock market is all but severely wounded and now 850 billion dollar buy out people age losing their jobs etc etc..

"John Sidney McCain III you rich elitist
is responible,
Called us the "bunch of whiner" the people in the 80% bracket not covered McCain’s tax cut are not well off.
You a person that deserted your wife and children for an other woman.
You are so out of touch that you do not realize that desperately we need help and the only party that will help on the horizon is offered by the Democrats and Obama.

I sorry but we 80% all of the people in the United States are hurting badly and will not vote for McSAME!.

So, the Republican party has preached greed for 30 years and now is looking for someone to blame for the policies they have pushed. Democrats are not blameless for sure. But Republicans have been in power for most of those years and are most responsible for the mess we are in. But Republicans would rather deflect that admit culpability. That is what Republicans do.

Hey Q Pulpit,

But even your buddy Barney has admitted not everyone has a right to a home. You claim that Obama's proposal to increase taxes and spending will be a "stimulus" to the economy?

I'm no friend to the Republicans precisely because they are not only unable to rein in spending and appease the ticking welfare time bombs like Fannie/Freddie, they find new things to spend on, like wars and bailouts.

But I'm even less a friend to Democrats, who get elected by promising handouts, playing the race card, fomenting class warfare, demonizing capitalism, and advocate as much wealth transfer, overregulation of industry on irrational fears of environmental doom, and as much wasteful spending as possible on feel-good, unaccountable social programs.

Democrats are PURE parasites, while Republicans are partial parasites.

Vote for libertarian (Bob Barr) to send a message that minimally secured liberty (defense of invasion and protection of property rights) is the only way to prosperity.

"DEPRESSION ERA LAWS" Are you people so very stupid that you don't remember the Republicans getting rid of these for the past 6 years? Come on people!

The Republicans are solely to blame for this entire mess.

There have been Affirmative Action programs for 40 years, the CHANGE was the removal of the Wall Street Regulation!

"They evidently, as you yourself, must have been born into privilege."

Actually, I grew up in a trailer house in KS. I watched my parents declare bankruptcy after my mother developed cancer and they couldn't pay the bills. She was a banker and tried to teach me right.

Companies that take these large loans assume a large amount of risk. They produce goods / product.

There is nothing wrong with borrowing money for a house you can afford. Banks are willing to lend me $300k for a house, but I can really only afford $135k. The smart thing to do is buy the $135k house and start saving money in case I lose my job or get injured.

I'm still renting until I save enough money for a large down-payment and I can pay the house off in 7-10 years. That way I don't pay 3x the amount in interest.

People used to tell me "Stop renting. Buy a house, you get equity. If you get in trouble, you can always sell it. Make a profit." We see how that ended up.

"I remember my parents raised me to not buy something I can't afford. Sit down, do the math. Read the fine print. Never sign something without carefully reading it over and having someone else read it over too."
-----
In your parents' day, all of that worked fine. Nowadays, the "fine print" has been concocted by experts to entrap the poor and near-poor, and anybody who needs credit at the low end can't even find, let alone afford, the services of any of the very few people who can explain what it all really means.

An insidious and evil part of it is that people have been rooked into mortgaging their whole lives, in many cases -- based, alas, on the assumption of continuing to have an income -- on houses that should be eradicated from the earth: huge, hard to heat, palatial energy-hogging spaces where nobody's ever at home, because they're at work or riding around to and fro.

What we need are public-housing people-pods, in gatherings on public lands along the railroad tracks, so that the shelters are moveable and don't have to go through any "permit" processes controlled by wholly-owned local powers.

How STUPID do they think we are to NOT SEE that the current situation was caused by REPUBLICANS who have controlled ALL THREE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMNET for the last EIGHT YEARS. The DEMOCRATS only gained control of the House last year and the Senate is still even with 49 Democrats and 49 Republicans. The FLAK being thrown up by McCain is such a bunch of lies it is astounding. He has been for DEREGULATION his ENTIRE CAREER, McCain's DEREGULATION was at the heart of McCain's KEATING FIVE SCANDAL and McCain's SAVINGS AND LOAN DISASTER of 20 years ago. Now history is repeating itself because McCAIN'S CHIEF FINANCIAL ADVISOR PHIL GRAMM SPEARHEADED THE DEREGULATION THAT HAS CAUSED THE CURRENT CRISIS. Gramm is the same guy who says we are all 'A NATION OF WHINERS' because the economy is doing just fine.

Remember guys. The WSJ reported in 2006 that 60% of subprime loans were by people who actually were eligible for prime loans ...

Mortgage brokers and lenders preferred subprime loans because it was more profitable for them. They went for the quick and easy buck.

CRA-originated loans *still* perform the best in the current financial crisis. One of the reason for that is that CRA-regulated banks and thrifts use their own capital to take risks with, and they engage far less in securitising that risk and SELL it.

Let it all come tumbling down. It will anyway, Lets get it over with. Banks extorted the bailout. Cover our bad debt or we won't loan anyone any money. They still won't unless you have a credit score of 740 or better.
Face it folks, the party is over and all the name calling, finger pointint etc. is not going to help.

"This world has so many variables that we are often so at the mercy of circumstance."

Yes - things happen, we lose our jobs, get injured. This is why we have savings accounts. These "variables" do not account for the current crisis.

I actually have a few friends that payed cash for their house. They lived within their means alongside family / friends until they saved enough money to buy a house they could afford. It works this way in quite a few other countries. We just happen to believe we deserve to own a house as soon as we leave our parents' house.
_____________________________________

In an ideal world, dear friend, saving until you have enough money to buy a home would be divine.
However, GM, Ford, Toyota and other large corporations take out loans to tool, and otherwise keep operations going.
This same applies for all other corporations and businesses that never have put their liquidity into one basket.
Your friends who have paid cash for their homes are quite fortunate, don't you think. They evidently, as you yourself, must have been born into priviledge.

Afterall, many of the priviledged could not possibly understand how someone who may have been denied the things guaranteed to "your" social class, would have the audacity to desire the American Dream.

Some people think it should be available only to them... Are you one of those?

1) ACORN intimidates banks and individual bank executives (showing up at their houses, intimidating their children, etc) to make more subprime loans, while being defended by attorney Barack Hussein Obama.
2) ACORN gets investigated in numerous locations for blatant voter fraud.
3) Democrats try to divert 20% of any profit realized by bailout to ACORN and related groups.

Hypocracy we can believe in.

Seen this one coming as soon as Bush blamed the housing/financial crisis on the public.

Sad..... very sad. They are shameless and will stop at nothing to shift blame to everyone but themselves. Someone needs to do the math and see just how many "poor people" we're talking about instead of allowing them to spread this type of typical garbage....but then again....they are experts at it by now...lying comes as easily as breathing to them.

JCinAZ:
J.C. Watts lost his re-election bid if I recall, and he subsequently worked with several groups to promote reform in Fannie Mae and sundry other housing related programs and agencies. I do not believe that J.C. Watts ever worked at Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Government regulations prevent former legislators from working a lobbyists for some finite period of time after they leave office.

SuperGood: "Without Fannie/Freddie buying up all these crap mortgages banks would not have made them."

Exactly, and that practice was known as.... securitazation! And you can thank Phill Gramm for compounding that practice until it ballooned out of control in this decade.

Mortgage brokers and lenders were able to sell their risks for a good price, they got money - with PROFIT - in return to give out more loans, they sold the risks again, and on and on and on.

This is absurd. What Barney Frank says should not be news. What he DID should be news. He led the fight against making Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac accountable to the same standards as other corporations or government entities. All so that he could siphon off money from them for his personal foundations. He is not a good man. He has contributed mightily to this financial crisis. Why in the world anybody would listen to either Barney Frank or George W. Bush is absolutely beyond me.

Sounds like old Barney is trying to cover his backside, especially since it has now been established that one of his significant others was on the board of Fannie!!! Disgusting!!!

Somewhere, way back up the comments list I heard a reference that Republicans think some Dems. are communists and terrorists if they hold ultra-liberal views. WELL! I give you Ayers. He's both, and Barack Obama will verify.

Barney Frank wants to blame racist Repubs for this?? Of all the unmitigated GALL! Frank has been at the heart of this since the word Go. He, along with Chris Dodd and Mel Watt have killed ALL attempts at reform.