Breitbart.tv

Go figure,dems protecting their own ,ripping off the entire nation.All because it wasn’t fair that minorities could not afford homes.It didn’t matter that they were unemployed or not even legal citizens,it only mattered that they purchased their votes at my expense.I lived in an apt. until I could scrape together a down payment in a pittly little house in a bad neighborhood.Under the dem plan,being on welfare qualiifies as income for purchasing homes.I actually was required to have a job to qualify for my first loan.We had to get night jobs to pay off student loans in order to qualify.Its pretty obvious that covering up embezzlement and felony theft is what the dem party has become all about.This is not for the GOOD of the country,it’s for the GOOD of the democratic party..just say no..now and in November.

The Dumbarats think this is AYSO soccer, everyone must play and don’t keep score. They brought this on us and now try to shift the blame. ALL HAIL LORD OBAMA!!!!!!

The smoking gun has been found – the Democrats created this entire mess for our country. Every Democrat should be thrown out of office as they blocked the Republicans from taking action! Thanks to the Democrats the American people have been screwed by these crooks! And Obama is now a big part of this entire mess as he has the same crooks in leadership positions on his campaign. Wake up America – Vote McCain to reform Congress!!!

And these are the slimy, filthy SOB’s that want to correct their problem? NO WAY THIS SHOULD PASS. Stop them now and later.

WHAT exactly does a “community organizer” do? Barack Obama’s rise has left many Americans asking themselves that question. Here’s a big part of the answer: Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit.

In the name of fairness to minorities, community organizers occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes – and thereby force financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers.

In other words, community organizers help to undermine the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans. And Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it.

THE seeds of today’s financial meltdown lie in the Commu nity Reinvestment Act – a law passed in 1977 and made riskier by unwise amendments and regulatory rulings in later decades.

CRA was meant to encourage banks to make loans to high-risk borrowers, often minorities living in unstable neighborhoods. That has provided an opening to radical groups like ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to abuse the law by forcing banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in “subprime” loans to often uncreditworthy poor and minority customers.

Any bank that wants to expand or merge with another has to show it has complied with CRA – and approval can be held up by complaints filed by groups like ACORN.

In fact, intimidation tactics, public charges of racism and threats to use CRA to block business expansion have enabled ACORN to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and contributions from America’s financial institutions.

Banks already overexposed by these shaky loans were pushed still further in the wrong direction when government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began buying up their bad loans and offering them for sale on world markets.

Fannie and Freddie acted in response to Clinton administration pressure to boost homeownership rates among minorities and the poor. However compassionate the motive, the result of this systematic disregard for normal credit standards has been financial disaster.

ONE key pioneer of ACORN’s subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott – an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama. She was also in on the ground floor of the disastrous turn in Fannie Mae’s mortgage policies.

Long the director of Chicago ACORN, Talbott is a specialist in “direct action” – organizers’ term for their militant tactics of intimidation and disruption. Perhaps her most famous stunt was leading a group of ACORN protesters breaking into a meeting of the Chicago City Council to push for a “living wage” law, shouting in defiance as she was arrested for mob action and disorderly conduct. But her real legacy may be her drive to push banks into making risky mortgage loans.

In February 1990, Illinois regulators held what was believed to be the first-ever state hearing to consider blocking a thrift merger for lack of compliance with CRA. The challenge was filed by ACORN, led by Talbott. Officials of Bell Federal Savings and Loan Association, her target, complained that ACORN pressure was undermining its ability to meet strict financial requirements it was obligated to uphold and protested being boxed into an “affirmative-action lending policy.” The following years saw Talbott featured in dozens of news stories about pressuring banks into higher-risk minority loans.

IN April 1992, Talbott filed an other precedent-setting com plaint using the “community support requirements” of the 1989 savings-and-loan bailout, this time against Avondale Federal Bank for Savings. Within a month, Chicago ACORN had organized its first “bank fair” at Malcolm X College and found 16 Chicago-area financial institutions willing to participate.

Two months later, aided by ACORN organizer Sandra Maxwell, Talbott announced plans to conduct demonstrations in the lobbies of area banks that refused to attend an ACORN-sponsored national bank “summit” in New York. She insisted that banks show a commitment to minority lending by lowering their standards on downpayments and underwriting – for example, by overlooking bad credit histories.

By September 1992, The Chicago Tribune was describing Talbott’s program as “affirma- tive-action lending” and ACORN was issuing fact sheets bragging about relaxations of credit standards that it had won on behalf of minorities.

And Talbott continued her effort to, as she put it, drag banks “kicking and screaming” into high-risk loans. A September 1993 story in The Chicago Sun-Times presents her as the leader of an initiative in which five area financial institutions (including two of her former targets, now plainly cowed – Bell Federal Savings and Avondale Federal Savings) were “participating in a $55 million national pilot program with affordable-housing group ACORN to make mortgages for low- and moderate-income people with troubled credit histories.”

What made this program different from others, the paper added, was the participation of Fannie Mae – which had agreed to buy up the loans. “If this pilot program works,” crowed Talbott, “it will send a message to the lending community that it’s OK to make these kind of loans.”

Well, the pilot program “worked,” and Fannie Mae’s message that risky loans to minorities were “OK” was sent. The rest is financial-meltdown history.

IT would be tough to find an “on the ground” community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama.

When Obama was just a budding community organizer in Chicago, Talbott was so impressed that she asked him to train her personal staff.

He returned to Chicago in the early ’90s, just as Talbott was starting her pressure campaign on local banks. Chicago ACORN sought out Obama’s legal services for a “motor voter” case and partnered with him on his 1992 “Project VOTE” registration drive.

In those years, he also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN’s up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott’s drive against Chicago’s banks.

More than that, Obama was funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago’s Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation’s board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers – and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift.

That committee’s report on strategies for funding groups like ACORN features all the key names in Obama’s organizer network. The report quotes Talbott more than any other figure; Sandra Maxwell, Talbott’s ACORN ally in the bank battle, was also among the organizers consulted.

MORE, the Obama-supervised Woods Fund report ac knowledges the problem of getting donors and foundations to contribute to radical groups like ACORN – whose confrontational tactics often scare off even liberal donors and foundations.

Indeed, the report brags about pulling the wool over the public’s eye. The Woods Fund’s claim to be “nonideological,” it says, has “enabled the Trustees to make grants to organizations that use confrontational tactics against the business and government ‘establishments’ without undue risk of being criticized for partisanship.”

Hmm. Radicalism disguised by a claim to be postideological. Sound familiar?

The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN’s Madeline Talbott in her pioneering efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. He trained her personal staff and other aspiring ACORN leaders, he consulted with her extensively, and he arranged a major boost in foundation funding for her efforts.

And, as the leader of another charity, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama channeled more funding Talbott’s way – ostensibly for education projects but surely supportive of ACORN’s overall efforts.

In return, Talbott proudly announced her support of Obama’s first campaign for state Senate, saying, “We accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer.”

IN short, to understand the roots of the subprime-mort gage crisis, look to ACORN’s Madeline Talbott. And to see how Talbott was able to work her mischief, look to Barack Obama.

Then you’ll truly know what community organizers do.

AWESOME VIDEO!! BREITBART ROCKS! This blatantly exposes the scumsucking side of the liberal elites, and the utter arrogance they have when it comes to being scrutinized or even questioned as to what they have done.

Thank you for putting this video up on Breibart. It’s time more Americans become familiarized with the truth about all of those that led to this financial nightmare we are now facing.

Nothing else needs to be said. This video speaks for itself.

Perhaps if we do what that landlord did to get rid of unwanted tenants… he put dead cats around the house… oh wait, that won’t work because our congress is so used to the stench up there they wouldn’t even notice.

Truth doesn’t matter to liberals and/or Democrats, they’ll find a way to blame Republicans and the sheelp will follow.

Rush Limbaugh had this on his program today. Now everyone knows who wanted regulation. I wonder if Obama’s “Truth-Squads” will now arrest Barack?

As you know the bailout bill failed. Wouldn’t you know the liberal news media is already beginning the partisan spin.

ABC is saying “At one point, the Dow slid as much as 700 points as Republicans rebuffed the bailout.” Notice the blame is directed squarely on the Republicans. What they fail to mention that if the Democrats were so united and that the Democrats were so much behind this bill then why did many Democrats also vote against the bailout? They do hold a majority in the house all under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi. If they garnered more support then it would have passed for better or for worse.

The ABC quote is from Jake Tapper no less.

Indeed the American public will only see this as it is fed to them by the Democratically controlled news media.

Nancy smells like a …

CHECKMATE! Game over, The democrats caused this mess and obamas a puppet without a clue.

The half-black, closet muslim messiah and his overly-botoxed VP will save us.

Democracy only works if there is an informed electorate.
Breitbart once again perpetuates the soundbite culture of politics. Let’s see: take some snippets from hours of hearings and weave it into a fake tapestry as if it were News.
Why not report the facts: in 2004 (if that date was even accurate) Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the White House. If they wanted to make reform happen or increase regulation from what they had created in the past, they had the power to do it. It didn’t happen. Instead, they acted consistent with Phil Gramm’s Gramm-Leach-Bliley and Commodity Futures Modernization Acts and tore down regulatory walls that had existed since the 1930s (Glass-Steagal).
If you have any interest in both sides’ take on the last four years of Fannie and Freddie regulation, read Barney Frank’s rebuttal of similar criticisms at USNews: http://www.usnews.com/blogs/sam-dealey/2008/9/12/speaking-frank-ly–barney-frank-fires-back-on-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac.html
To anyone watching the You[idiot]Tube videos here on Breitbart, don’t get caught up in soundbites and edited commentary. Read the substantive details of any item – from an unbiased source – before you make up your mind.

THe truth will set you free…or in the Libertards case. The truth will screw you over…..Man they are so deep their eyeballs are floating. Their day is coming they are going to see their butts. Obama will be up a (fill in the blanks) creek without a paddle if he gets into office…Yeah! What you reap so you will sow. McCain 08

Well of course the Dems fight regulation of Freddie and Fanny. It was the lack of those that enabled the Dems to use Freddie and Fanny as a personal piggy bank for Obummer and the rest of the “everybody needs a house whether they have any money or not” crowd.

THANK GOD the MSM picked up what Rush was talking about today. Like someone above said…here is the smoking gun.

McCain/Palin ‘08

Get Barney Franks 2004 comments out there next.
If this guy made you mad…

The editors who are in charge of the American press are trying to run the country from their un-elected positions as gatekeepers of the truth, thank you to Breitbart for doing there jobs.

SMOKING GUN! This is going out on all mailing lists immediately. Americans need to know!

Wonder if this was the October surprise the Clintons spoke about during the primaries? Good luck B.O., you need it.

Too bad this will never be seen on national television. Oh well, anybody with a braincell knows they are in the tank for democrats and we know where to find the truth. I predict the “media” will be as surprised the day after election as they were in 2000 and 2004.

IMPEACH PELOSI

Is there any way possible to bring charges and or have an actual legal investigation into this?

LOL! You won’t see this on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, NEW YORK TIMES, TELEMUNDO and so on….. I’m surprised it’s on here!

“DEMOCRATS CHICKENS ARE COMING HOME TO ROOST”

PALIN for next president!!!

BUSTED, the Dems are busted and the whole world can watch for themselves. Thank god for Youtube.

This should be played on national media 24/7. But we know that those pieces of slime won’t touch this. These paid-off jerks in the video should be exposed for what they are. Our country could very well go into a depression and these same clowns will be standing around grinning, saying it is George Bush’s and John McCain’s fault. And the slimeball media will be cheerleading it all the way. Our country is going to hell in a handbasket woven by Democratic greed and their lust for power.

I agree.
It’s obviouse this bailout is the result of social engineering by democrats…they should pay, not people working their asses off…

Pelosi stinks as bad as Osama obama does. They are bad for the economy, bad for America.

Go McCain.

WOW!!! THE TAPES BEEN PULLED….SOMEBODY’S TRYING TO COVER IT UP AGAIN……THANKS A LOT DEMS.

I just pasted this URL into Drudgereport.com (bottom right hand corner)… anyone viewing this link should do the same. Let’s see if we can get Drudge to directly link to it. Nancy Pelosi saying the Replicians are against all regulation is plain wrong.

PLEASE, ALL AMERICANS, WATCH THIS. Should we not be at least getting ALL the information? Why is this information not surfacing across all news agencies. 2004: Democrats and Republicans argue whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are out of control. This video highlights repeated arguments from Maxine Waters (D), Barnie Frank (D), Lacy Clay (D) and Frank Raines (linked to Obama) FIGHTING REGULATIONS on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, noting they: DO NOT NEED saving, DO NOT NEED change, DO NOT NEED improvements in REGULATIONS. REPUBLICAN REPS repeatedly point out the issues with both and ask questions why. We should ALL question why we are not getting the WHOLE story on this issue.

The present economic mess affects us all in a very immediate way and the American public has a right to know how we got to this point.

I urge you to watch the you tube video listed below with an open mind, as an independent thinker. If you feel it has value, please pass it along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5tZc8oH–o

het can’tliveonsoundbites – are you a total retard? you are going to tell others not to watch to a video of people actually saying incriminating words and take that as fact but turn around and post a link to a letter written by barney frank defending himself. explain exactly how defending oneself in a letter in response to criticism is fact and video is just manipulated fodder? idiocy is rampant….

Um excuse me can’tliveonsoundbites, but your fellow socialist brethen are now flat BUSTED!!!

The truth must really be a female dog for you and your exposed Democratic Socialist Party of America!!!

In 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote: “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”

It is time for a 21st century rebellion.

It is obvious to all free-thinking people that Congress has failed in its duty to faithfully represent the interests of the American people.

That’s why we need to “Clean the Slate in 2008″ and vote them ALL out of office on November 4th.
Then, make history by electing an Independent candidate for President.

Read my “Proclamation of Freedom” http://blog.bobmcneilforpresident.com/?p=98

and, my “Economic Freedom Act” http://blog.bobmcneilforpresident.com/?p=105

Then, write-in “Bob McNeil” for President when you vote.

For the sake of our country, it is time to think, and vote, independently.

can’tliveonsoundbites,

Are you kidding? Are you really freakin kidding! It’s the classic, “ignore the man behind the curtain” routine. Don’t listen to what Barney ACTUALLY SAID IN 2004, listen to his spin on those events four years later.

You are a pathetic joke.

If this were the matrix and we lived in a alternative world, CNN – NBC – CBS – ABC would be looping this for 24 hours to be sure everyone understands where this mess originated. BUT, we are living in 2008, 21st century America, where outside of Fox News and blogs we will never hear a disparaging word toward the power hungry dems…

I want this to be on mainstream news. Every person in this country deserves to know who caused this crisis. After the Democrats stand up and admit fault and after Paulson, Pelosi, Barney Frank, and Chris Dodd resign, then maybe we can come together on a solution to the problem, if there is a problem. I am so sick of the lying liars. How do any of us know what to believe?

See what raced based economic policy got us? Note the black dems fiercly attacking anyone who dares threaten to lift the hood on thier housing entitlement programs. Here’s the lesson-when black liberals get in power they are going to cater to race first at the expense of our country. Go ahead call me a racist, but if Obama gets the Whitehouse, he and these bozos will turn it into the Blackhouse and our flag will be turned red, black and brown.
Let’s get Palin and Rice in the Whitehouse in 2016 and show the world what good conservitives of integrity can do for this country.

[...] Take note of who DOESN"T want regulation and WHO is defending Fannie and Freddie….. Breitbart.tv 2004: Dems Fight Regulations on Fannie, Freddie During Illegal Bookkeeping Hearing __________________ LIBERALISM The haunting fear someone, somewhere can help themselves. " I [...]

“Those Who Forget History Are Doomed to Repeat it.”

The Democrats ie Socialists want Socialized Medicine.

Socialized medicine will bankrupt this country while lowering the standard of care.

Wake up Socialism will ruin this country.

These Marxists and liars..Obama and ACORN,along with the Socialist Left,the Athiests,The Gay groups,The Abortion groups…are in the middle of TAKING OVER AMERICA!!!! Wake UP!~Vote McCain-Palin! Stop these racist Marxists NOW!

[...] solutions to this problem. They need more oversight (which the Democrats fought tooth and nail – watch this video from 2004) and accountability. Americans want to see those responsible for this mess investigated [...]

[...] case anyone is wondering who stood in the way of stricter regulation of Fannie and Freddie, perhaps this video will help. While Obama blames John McCain’s policies for causing the current financial [...]

Pelosi has the nerve to give a speech that it was the Bush Administration today and Obama says Mc Cain can’t be trusted because he is for deregulation? This is nuts! Why isn’t the television stations putting this out there?
Why hasn’t the 527c groups putting this out there? Why isn’t the Mc Cain camp not putting this video on the Network News? The networks are paranoid of getting sue by Obama’s pack of lawyers or being labeled racist! It is time for all to step up!!

“How do you know when Barney Fwank is lying”?…..His hair lip moves !!! Also, his limp wrist shakes…

Dear Markg25:

You ask what a comminity organizer does, well, here you go:

Community organizing is a process by which people living in proximity to each other, are brought together to act in their common self-interest. Community organizers act as area-wide coordinators of programs for different agencies in an attempt to meet community needs for various services. Community organizers work actively, as do other types of social workers, in community councils of social agencies and in community-action groups. At times the role of community organizers overlaps that of the social planners.

What have you done for your community lately except gripe on this ridiculous blog.

Something to remember — people often claim that when Republicans controlled Congress they could have implemented whatever laws they wanted. That’s not true. There’s a cloture rule in the Senate that can block any legislation without 60 votes to overcome cloture. So any polarizing piece of legislation never gets out of committee. And it’s not just a Republican phenomenon — it’s a fact of life for both sides of the political spectrum.

[...] voted for Bush. Bushpression! You retarded Democrats can’t even get your facts straight. Breitbart.tv » 2004: Dems Fight Regulations on Fannie, Freddie During Illegal Bookkeeping Hearing here’s a link to your a554ole democrats attacking a regulator for his assessment of Fannie [...]

The Democrats play dirty, dirty politics! They are the most devious of players. They are the cause of this disaster on the American taxpayers. They had their hands deep in the cookie jar of Fannie and Freddie. They didn’t want to upset the apple cart. Instead they knew what was going on…their were constant warnings! But they kept on keeping on like nothing was happening! They were warned what would happen…they were told what would be…they didn’t care…they were like all the people who bought homes they couldn’t afford…they took advantage of a bad situation!

America, it made me sick…I mean sick to watch Pelosi, Frank, Manuel and Reid stand up and blame the Republicans. It made me sick to listen to the poison that the Speaker of the failed Democratic House – Marie Antoinette – Pelosi had to say about the Bush administration. Calling the Republicans unpatriotic…you madame speaker are a disgrace to womanhood…you madame speaker are a disgrace as a leader…you madame speaker are a disgrace as an American…you madame speaker are a disgrace as a human being!

America, we need to vote out these slugs! They are evil…they are devious…and they are liars! They have been in Washington too long. The only thing they do well is play partisan politics over and over again.

I am voting for President Elect McCain, but he needs a Congress to work with him. We need to vote out these Democratic leaders who are useless and lead a do nothing Congress.

VOTER REVOLUTION…HERE AND NOW!

Bill Clinton 1996 On The Issues

Expanding Affordable Housing

“Over the past few years, I have emphasized three basic ideas—community, opportunity and responsibility—that I believe are at the heart of a more dynamic and prosperous America. The priorities of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, from making sure that hardworking Americans realize the dream of home ownership, to addressing the tragedy of homelessness, are outstanding examples of how our government can empower people and institutions.”

—President Bill Clinton

When Republicans tried to stop the coming disaster and Democrats shot it down…

http://www.examiner.com/x-847-Conservative-Politics-Examiner~y2008m9d29-The-Most-Important-8-Minutes-37-Seconds-of-Your-Day

This video needs to be highly circulated. It is beyond me how Maxine Waters gets any votes other than her family members. And then we have the gasbag Pucklosi. Can someone please run against her. If you can breathe, you can win. Sorry folks, but the truth is right here in this video, the Democrats are not getting exposed as they should be. They fought the regulations that would have avoided this mess. I hope they keep voting against the bailout and never give in. The average American is the laughing stock of the dimocrats and the elitists. But the guffawing must be halted. And we don’t need an empty suit looking for OJT…please…not right now! Nobama has never managed anything and he needs to work for a living doing what he got elected to do in his last election. Everything about him is tainted and people striving on their last brain cell are following him around.

I’m a nubie, don’t know the rules but have to speak out. I am also sickened by all the puke that the dims spout, but there is something worring me. There is too much going on to be coincidental. We have a comunist organizer close to being the most powerful person in the world, the russians thumbing their noses at us, setting up a deal with comunist chavez in venezualia for the oil we are currently dependent on in exchange for weapons and nuclear capability! The russians are quite friendly with iran and one of the iranian comanders was quite smug about the west “having no idea of what we have” The dimocrap leadership has been systematicly weakening everything in our great country for as long as anyone can remember.
I remember in the 50’s and 60’s the russians had a place called “Little Chicago” where they trained people to infiltrate America and assume identities and become a mole for their revolution. How much of the dimocratic “leadershi*” is controled by these moles? Sounds paranoid doesen’t it. Ever notice the similarity of harry reid and valkivir pukin?
Did dirty harry spawn a child before boarding a russian sub to sneak into America? The Soviets would highly value those genes to be reproduced. He obviously is very intelligent to con people in a western state to elect him to represent them and then to reach a leadership position with such a rotten personality. Not trying to be mean spirited, just the way it looks to me.What a team! Harry Reid and Vladivir Putin, father and son. Somehow Stupid Nancy got brought along to poison the House of Representatives.

Sounds kind of crazy but what makes any better sense these days?

Sorry this is not very polished like what we are used to hearing from “The anointed one”. I Was not able to go to one of them high falutin universities on the GI Bill i earned in vietnam.
I went to the local Comunity College.

Why not report the facts: in 2004 (if that date was even accurate) Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the White House. If they wanted to make reform happen or increase regulation from what they had created in the past, they had the power to do it. It didn’t happen
************************************************

Facts? How about getting the FACTS straight, liberal. In fact the Republicans DID NOT have the required 60 votes to even bring it to the floor. In FACT every REPUBLICAN DID commit their vote to this bill while every liberal DID NOT. They filibustered it and it died.

THOSE ARE THE FACTS, liberal.

The liberals did the same thing in 2005 when McCain sponsored legislation to tighten up Freddy and Fanny and once again it was defeated by the left on a procedural move.

Democrat6s are up to their eyeballs in this and only the blind and stupid cannot see this. Obama, the “Messiah” although only being about 2 years in the Senate has received the SECOND largest amount of money of all the Senators. In fact THE top four RECIPIENTS OF MONEY FROM FREDDY AND FANNY ARE all DEMOCRATS. They are CHRIS DODD, DEMOCRAT. HUSSEIN OBAMA, DEMOCRAT, JOHN KERRY, DEMOCRAT and BILLARY CLINTON, DEMOCRAT.

See if you can manage to spin that, lib.

I only follow the politics in the US from a distance, but this is very upsetting. But it can be attributed to the partisan way of governing the country. Of course the Republicans noticed something was not quite right, anyone could see that lending to civilians without any means at (even as low as) 2% is a mistake. Not to mention the irregularities. But the Democrats saw it as an attack on the fact that in this way housing became affordable to people who couldn’t afford it. Unfortunately the Republicans were not able to persuade them into thinking otherwise. This hearing was made out in the open, on tv; maybe a meeting behind closed doors might have been more effective…

We are all talking about the problem, not the root of the problem. The Democrats in particular obviously used the vehicle “Fannie and Freddie” to supply housing to the less fortunate. Always popular with the Left. And, as politicians do, making a buck or two on the side. Do they ever buy lunch themselves for example? But why is that? Because of the lack of social housing/social security in the US. If the money that was put into subsidizing Fannie and Freddie, would have been invested in social housing, where the state remains owner of a house or flat, but lets people stay there at an affordable rent, we might not be in this mess. Or is that too simple?

Meanwhile, we’re seeing government intervention measures – part nationalization – in Europe (applauded swift actions have been taken in the UK, Benelux, France, Germany) for several banks with liquidity problems. But Europe itself is not doing too much itself with regard to changing the regulations unfortunately. Fingers crossed.

Hopefully we all weather the storm, and learn from all this. Wall Street and Capitol Hill in particular.

Let’s get this video circulating widely over the internet.

OBAMA=SOCIALISM

HE CAN KEEP THE “CHANGE”

JUST SAY NO!!

The TRUTH is coming out, and I think there will be a backlash like never before. HELL NOBAMA!!!

I’m thrilled that there is finally substantive evidence to dispute the propoganda machine on the Left. I sent this to Sean Hannity yesterday. Thank you Breitbart.com for doing your journalistic homework!!

Johan –

You, a are a self described outsider. By which I infer foreign national.

Your country is, of course, able to design for itself whatever standards for home purchases.

In the US, however, home-ownership has, until recently, been the goal and ideal and not some “right.” By the banks and regulators allowing, and Mom and Pop taking full advantage, home ownership has become something of a “God-given right.”

Now, that right, and the zero-verification and questionable loans are coming back to haunt us.

Gone is the “EARN IT!” philosophy that made this country great. Sadly.

And before you compare whatever Euro nation to ours: Please remember we have different ideals and goals.

And, those of many European nations come with the pricetag of higher taxes for both individuals and businesses. Not at all surprising then that this ‘upstart’ country (the US) has become the global player while the beurocratic-laden and tax-burdened ‘old players’ of Europs sink into the history books.

Of course, the lesson is valuable and I thank you for pointing it out: Europe can bail out in a weekend their problems by further nationalizing their issues. (Sorry – applauded by those used to being led to water by those at the reigns TBH)

We, on the other hand, even still hope to accomplish things on a more individual level.

Each has its merrits and drawbacks.

But I prefer my liberty to financial security.

Know what the funny thing is? In 2004, Republicans had control of Congress, so if they really wanted to have done something, they could have.

And the comment from Clinton thrown in at the end is from a different era. Bush has been president for eight years and the Republicans had control of Congress for most of that time. It’s silly for them now to pretend they were frustated sideliners for the last eight years.

Frankie…your party took over both houses over two years ago….remember back then? Gas was two twenty a gallon…and the stock market was cruising…your party now leads a congress with the lowest public approval ratings in history….WAY lower than George Bush’s…you know him Frankie?….he’s your favorite whipping boy and excuse for everything…you guys can’t even fess up for the crap of the last two years your party has had the majority… Nancy Pelosi is a complete nitwit. Dingee Harry Reid is a little shrew of a nasty man who whines like a bitch every time he stands before a camera…and lastly to prove that you are truly at a knee jerk “blame bush” place in your treadmill mind…that clip of clinton at the end was from last week you dumb ass. but of course to you…that probably is a different era…the era before you bitter liberals were exposed as the direct contributors to this entire…”lets lend money to people who want something they can’t afford” mess.

Um but correct me if I am wrong, in 2004 who had the Majority in the Senate and House. Was the President a Republican or a Democrat? It is one thing to say the Dems were stupid, but quite another to pretend they are to blame when of course this hearing was held in a time when Republicans controlled every single branch of government and yet NOTHING changed. nice try, but see when you control the government and everything goes to hell you are the ones to blame. Nice try though. It must have been really hard. Incidentally, this does not excuse the Democrats. The biggest sin is that the Democrats do not actually fight back against stupid Republican policies. I see all these comments about social engineering and all this other crap, but again what did the Republicans do to change these things if they are so bad when they controlled every single branch of government? Nothing.
I can’t wait for McCain to win so that this country can finish going down the crapper into which Republicans flushed it.

Revolution? Except for Bob McNeil everyone hearing calling for revolution is pretty dumb since they seem to be pretty conservative and last time I checked it was conservative George W Bush who was president for the last 8 years, Conservative John Boehner who was either Speaker of House of Majority whip for 6 of the 8 years, Conservatives John Roberts and William Rehnquist who were Chief Justices of the Supreme Court for the last 20 years, Ted Stevens who was President Pro Temp for the Senate for 6 of the last 8 years (incidentally on trial for corruption) etc. So is this an admission by conservatives that they need a revolution to throw out those who supposedly represent them? It is soooo funny that Republicans are calling for revolution against a government which has been controlled my members of their party for most of the last 20 years. Wow. Delusional much. Bob McNeil has it right. If we want real change we need to get rid of corrupt Republicans who screwed everything up and cowardly Democrats who stood up for nothing and opposed nothing as this footage clearly shows. They just went along with everything. It is clear that few Republicans are true conservatives of principle but it seems equally true that there are even fewer Democrats who qualify as true liberals if they are busy arguing against government regulation!

Good grief! So many of these posts are ridiculous. You forget Clinton (who I did not support) left a SURPLUS at the end of his term.
The way my GOP party has failed to keep watch and allowed corruption and greed to rape our economy is insane. Additionally, (as a mortgage broker) option arm mortgages were provided to anyone with a pulse (I never sold ONE) which was a huge contributor to our current situation.
We never should have allowed the banks to loosen up guidelines so everything could fall through the cracks. Dems did not twist banks arms to do that.

Banks did it to keep the market rising because of their GREED! People should never purchase with no money down and no savings in the bank. That’s a no brainer.

If all you have in cash is enough to cover your closing costs, you should not be purchasing a home. Most Americans don’t save money. We are a nation of ‘gotta have it now.’ We have ourselves to blame, not just the government. Who in their right mind does not plan and educate themselves when they make the largest purchase of their lives? Typical Americans.
And, deny it all you like, those CEO’s, CFO’s and folks quite a way down the totem pole have made a fortune. They all need to be prosecuted.

My vote goes to Obama.

This Fannie and Freddie argument is a canard.

First, hese are snippets from long hours of hearings. It’s worth watching the recordings in their entirety. They reveal a very different narrative. What has me scratching my head is this was 2004. Republicans controlled the Congress, the Senate and the White House. If they wanted regulation or reform, the Democrats could not stop them.

Second, and more important, this entire conversation is nonsense. Fannie and Freddie (F&F) did not cause this to happen. Nor would more or less F&F regulation have made a difference. Let me explain:

While F&F are problematic institutions, they aren’t responsible for the mess we’re in. Fannie and Freddie had nothing to do with the explosion of high-risk lending. In fact, Fannie and Freddie, after growing rapidly in the 1990s, largely faded from the scene during the height of the housing bubble. Partly that’s because regulators placed temporary restraints on both Fannie and Freddie that curtailed their lending just as housing prices were really taking off.

F&F now finance most of the home loans being made in America. But while they may finance most of the home loans in America, most of the home loans in America aren’t the problem; the problem is the very substantial slice of home loans that went *outside* the Fannie and Freddie box.

F&F don’t do any subprime lending, because they can’t: the definition of a subprime loan is precisely a loan that doesn’t meet the requirement, imposed by law, that F&F buy only mortgages issued to borrowers who made substantial down payments and carefully documented their income. F&F essentially abandoned the affordable housing and inner-city minority homebuyer markets because the mortgage loans involved were smaller in amount and thus less profitable than loans of higher income populations and loans made in suburban areas. By abandoning these markets they left it to subprime lenders – a market where little is known about borrowers, their default experience, or subprime lenders’ underwriting practices.

Instead, and by law, F&F provide GSEs. A GSE is effectively a bond. The market largely perceives them to have an implicit government guarantee. The GSEs do not make mortgage loans directly to individual borrowers. Instead they perform their “secondary market” function by buying mortgages from banks, savings institutions and other mortgage lenders.

The GSEs did not bother with the subprime market. Yet Congress and HUD wanted to increase minority and lower income homeownership and rightly looked to the GSEs to play a role. So Fannie and Freddie took the easy way out; they conflated minority and low income with subprime. In response to HUD requirements that they increase the percentage loans made to minority and lower income borrowers the GSEs started buying up portfolios of loans made by subprime lenders in the markets that the GSEs themselves had abandoned. That’s is what proved to be F&F undoing.

Economies are complex systems. Complex systems behave differently from simple systems and pose unusual challenges. They are tightly coupled. They are adaptive and self organizing. Hence they are self-stabilizing and resistant to improvement. Their non-linear behaviour overwhelms our ability to understand them. Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand is really a layman’s label for “non-linear dynamics”; where cause and effect are far removed from each other in space and time.

Without understanding non-linear dynamics (which few politicians do), we get lulled into simple event-response ideological types of thinking (i.e. regulation is bad, markets should be free, government should be small, and so on). Seldom are the solutions to complex systems so black and white or inflexible. On the other hand, in complex systems, yesterday’s solution is often today’s problem.

If you want a smoking gun, go back to the “Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act “ and “The Commodity Futures Act”, where Senator Phil gram decimated Depression-era firewalls between commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and securities firms, and where the credit default swap market was created. To Phil Graham, a short-sighted ideological republican, these acts made all the sense in the world. The reality is it sowed the seeds of ruin for the American credit system.

I lay this problem squarely on the shoulders of the Republicans.

[...] the following clip, you can see Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, and other democrats attacking the regulator who exposed [...]

[...] interesting. Especially the Bill Clinton quote at the end. Worth just skipping to last 30 seconds. http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=184743 2008-09-30 01:46:31 · Reply · View cobblesoft: McCain should have picked Hillary [...]

[...] Reply · View JoshBishop: [Follow up pt. 2] Wait for the Bill Clinton clip at the end. http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=184743 Pretty much says it all. 2008-09-29 19:31:47 · Reply · View nsingman: @YatPundit [...]

This video isn’t biased at ALL!

Guess who won president.

IN 2004 REPUBLICANS CONTROLLED THE US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, THE US SENATE, AND THE PRESIDENCY. NO ACT, NO LAW, NO RULE, NO REGULATION COULD BE ENACTED WITHOUT REPUBLICAN APPROVAL!

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