awesome soundbite for an ad

Absolutely Disgusting -- People need to go to jail over this. Another example of what happens when the government gets involved in anything outside the military. They completely screw it up and end up costing all of us billions. For God sake, get the federal government out of the financial, retirement, medical, education business and change their pritorites start focusing on the rest off the world by keeping an eye on these radicals that want to kill us.

http://townhall.com/video/TheFivewithAmand...1450_091708Five

Change the spokesperson and clean it up a little and put it on 24 hour rotation.

I can think of a million and one things that the US government deserves to be criticised over before I get to 'Haven't taken enough action against terrorism'

Karl Rove Goes Off... Blames Obama & Libs For Housing Meltdown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv5EIBJbVgw...player_embedded

Here's Rove on the housing meltdown:


"We started in 2001 to try and reign in Fannie and Freddie. We spent four years doing it.

We got a bill through the Senate Finance Committee on a party line vote to reign in Fannie and Freddie in 2005 and one of the first things Barack Obama did when he came in to the United States senate was, because he was the third largest recipient of Fannie and Freddie money he joined a filibuster of every democrat led by Senator Chris Dodd to block that measure from being brought to the floor of the United States Senate.

Three years later in September 2008 President Obama, then candidate Obama, voted for the same bill he could have voted for three years ago after Fannie and Freddie collapsed.

So don't tell me that we didn't try to do something during the Bush years to reign in the housing problem. We were the people who said let us subject Fannie and Freddie to the same kind of scrutiny that we subject banks, savings and loans and credit unions and it was candidate Obama who refused to join that effort, that would have kept this from being an accelerant to a worldwide financial crisis."

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There was no need to get bad incentives in this point. Lots and lots of people warned Congress about this one. It was obvious, because it was the exact same mistakes Congress made to create the S&L crisis.

I agree, there are systemic problems affecting both Dem's and Repub's, and it's the same problem: public choice theory and a disregard for constitutional limitations on power.

But in this case, if you look at the history, the blame falls squarely on the Democrats, led by Dodd and Frank. Blaming Obama is a stretch.

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Therefore . . . let's do it!

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You may want to check youtube.... there are compiled videos of Republicans explaining what was wrong with Freddie and Fannie and calling for an overhaul, and the Democrats refusing to cooperate because it was obviously just a ploy by the Republicans to keep the poor in their place. Frank and Dodd flagrantly defended FM/FM in the face of obvious explanations of the problems.

I hate both branches of the one major party equally, but this one is not even close.

you might want to link to these videos, maybe check the dates, then consult the case-shiller index and tell me what you believe the politicians could have done.

waiting with bated breath here.

Circa 2003 in the NY Times

I know it was a lot to ask you to look it up, it took me a full 17 seconds, but here you go:

Democrats and republicans on pending mortgage crisis


EDIT: You're welcome, and apology accepted.

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Look, if you are just going to bury your head in the sand, there's not a lot of point in coming here, is there? First, you say both parties are to blame. When I point out you are wrong, you say prove it. When I prove it (along with proof from 85suited with the articles from 2003), you change the subject.

Engage, or stop wasting my time. Do you have a video showing the Democrats trying to reform FM/FM? No, because none exists, because it didn't happen. If you criticize the evidence, you need to present some counter evidence for the other side. Calling it drivel because it goes against your ideology is.... well, more than a bit silly. It's a fricking video from Congress! What further evidence do you want about what went on in Congress (which just happens to be the central question we were addressing)?

This crisis was caused by the same moral hazard that created the S&L crisis a couple decades earlier. If you socialize risk and privatize gain, you will ALWAYS get bad results. That's what the Republicans were warning about, and the Democrats were flagrantly denying.

Without the implicit backing (eventually made explicit) by FM/FM for all the twisted and bizarre financial instruments that were created, banks would not have taken on such bad risks. They resisted for a long time, but then under Clinton, they started getting some arm-twisting to loosen their standards a little. And exactly as the Republicans warned, it was a slippery slope. (I'm not blaming Clinton, it just happened in that timeframe.)

And by the way, in the past I've posted articles warning of this crisis back when it was created, over a decade ago, in articles written way back then by the geniuses at CATO.

I'm happy to slam Republicans any chance I can, but the mortgage crisis belongs to the Democrats. The only blame that can be put on the Republicans is that Bush didn't use his bully pulpit to get the public outraged over this before it was too late. I suspect he wasn't up to the job.

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The chart only starts in '88, rises slowly for a decade and really only spikes at the end. What is that supposed to tell me?




Your main complaint seemed to be the font, which is hardly a valid. The context is obviously congressional hearings. So far, no Democrats have produced an equivalent video showing their side. The reason is because there is none -- they blew it.






Let's look at some of the claims:



This is silly. It doesn't need to be required. Let's say the rules of football were all identical except for one change: if you throw a pass longer than 30 yards and complete it, you get the gain, if it's incomplete or intercepted, you get the ball and a first down.

The Democrats would say "it's not our fault that teams took this rule to mean you should throw lots of long passes. We didn't *REQUIRE* them to throw them!"



And why were these loans made? Because of the implicit guarantee by the federal government to catch you if you fall. Socialized risk, privatized gain.



I guess he ran out of ideas and is repeating himself on the third point. LOL.



He just keeps repeating the same couple of points, completely ignoring the regulatory environment in which this occurred. I've seen some articles arguing the side that the feds were not to blame that were well written, and had some valid points. This article you link is pure fail.

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It's hard to tell when it was too late; that graph definitely gave no information on the subject.



So when the Republicans say FM/FM must be reformed and the Democrats say it's fine, you think there is some context in which the Republicans were wrong and the Democrats were right? LOL.



ALL banks had to compete with banks offering the bad loans, and as long as the government is going to cover any failing, why not? Of course the regulatory environment matters. That's where the R's tried to fix it and the D's failed.

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OK, I get the feeling we agree more than it seems. I'm not sure 2003-2004 was too late. Houses started going up at crazy rates around 98-99, and each year after that did more damage, so I'd say about half the damage was done by 2003. I really started seeing the bad mortgages become available around 2003, but I'm sort of the bottom of the food chain. But even if they had acted then, it would've saved half the damage. A 25% drop is a lot easier to swallow than 50%.

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2004 was not too late. Housing prices went up 50% from 2004 to 2007 before they snapped back.

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I can tell you from personal experience that the incentives during 2004-2007 were severely out of whack. I'm a very conservative investor, more of a buy and hold type. Yet I got drawn into the leveraged real estate debacle. I knew the end was near, but the rates and loan deals were so good that under any except the worst scenarios, borrowing more money was a good idea. Unfortunately, the worst scenario is what we got, and that's how so many of us got into trouble. Banks were begging me to take out bad loans at no cost to me. I did the math, if real estate even grew at all, even 1%, it would be a great deal for me.

So yeah, reforming the institutions that created bad incentives could've shut that spigot off overnight. I did it for 3.5% and no money down. I wouldn't have for 6% and 20% down. Whether shutting off that spigot was politically feasible is another question.

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I bought my house with zero down and I'm pretty happy about it too.