Thank Clinton He Started this mess

[OptionsPlease]

For you people who think George Bush was the creater of the Housing bubble my friends you have it all wrong. It all started in 1987 when Carter decided to start the Community Reinvestment Act now this act made it possible for middle class people to get affordable loans at reasonable interest rates. It wasnt until 1995 when the Decmocratic congress at the time decided along with Bill Clintons Approval to make major provisions to the Community Reinvestment act. This meant taking the red tape off and making if more affordable to lower income class no credit checks and no down payments. This was all approved by Clinton. When this was passed they forced Fannie and Freddie to take on these loans and the word sub prime was formed.... They took on large sub prime loans and passed it onto guess who first Bear Sterns and than through out the banking system. The bomb was activated.

"In July 1993, President Clinton asked regulators to reform the CRA in order to make examinations more consistent, clarify performance standards, and reduce cost and compliance burden.[17] Robert Rubin, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, under President Clinton, explained that this was in line with President Clinton's strategy to "deal with the problems of the inner city and distressed rural communities". Discussing the reasons for the Clinton administration's proposal to strengthen the CRA and further reduce red-lining, Lloyd Bentsen, Secretary of the Treasury at that time, affirmed his belief that availability of credit should not depend on where a person lives, "The only thing that ought to matter on a loan application is whether or not you can pay it back, not where you live." Bentsen said that the proposed changes would "make it easier for lenders to show how they're complying with the Community Reinvestment Act", and "cut back a lot of the paperwork and the cost on small business loans".[15]"

Now George Bush tried to stop this by passing a bill in 2002 to regulate Fannie and Freddie but the democratic congress shot it down. No not done yet in 2005 John Mccain and other Senate members tried to pass the Housing Reform Act and Congress shot it down it would have regulated Fannie and Freddie HINT THE NAME HOUSING REFORM ACT 2005 the STUPID DEMS ROOSTED THE BILL....:d amnmate:

[OptionsPlease]

"In 1995, the CRA regulations were substantially revised to address criticisms that the regulations, and the agencies' implementation of them through the examination process, were too process-oriented, burdensome, and not sufficiently focused on actual results. The agencies also changed the CRA examination process to incorporate these revisions.[17] Information about banking institutions' CRA ratings were made available via web page for public comment.[15] The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) also revised its regulations, allowing lenders subject to the CRA to claim community development loan credits for loans made to help finance the environmental cleanup or redevelopment of industrial sites when it was part of an effort to revitalize the low- and moderate-income community where the site was located.[27]"

[aiki14]

The blame for our current situation rests primarily in the ratings agencies who put AAA ratings on CDS's that were tranches of guano. There are ways to blame every politician of the last century, but if the ratings agencies acted in a responsible way and accurately assessed the risks in these derivatives we would not be in this situation.
I do believe the various politico's, the Treasury, and the FOMC, have been grossly incompetent in many areas, and in myriad ways, but again if the ratings agencies do the right thing, we're talking housing slowdown, not worldwide debacle.

[concrete]

Originally Posted by aiki14

The blame for our current situation rests primarily in the ratings agencies who put AAA ratings on CDS's that were tranches of guano.

Has there been any investigation of how these bonds got rated AAA?

[aiki14]

Originally Posted by concrete

Has there been any investigation of how these bonds got rated AAA?

Not that I am aware of, certainly no sweeping investigation into the matter. Hard to believe isn't it? Like gathering all the evidence except the stuff at the scene of the crime.
If the ratings agencies do their job, there would have been no toxic MBS's to leverage up and tranche out. Nobody would have bought, let alone bought on margin, a bag of dung labeled dung, but a AAA bag of finest guano and they're lining up at your door.

[OptionsPlease]

I could see the banks giving sweetheart loans to Moodys and S&P like they gave to congressman to keep them quite in 1990 and early 2000s while they cooked the books this whole time.

[madcowdisease]

You can all blame yourselves. You the American voter for being so complicit in this mess. You the American voter has put in office persons unsuited for the job. You the American voter has put into office the person that promised you the most gifts from the Treasury. You the American voter who is complacent watching TV on your duff rather than using one of the most powerful organs in the animal kindom located inside your skull to investigate the financial dealings of our government. You continue to believe in your separatist ideologies when things are in bull market mode but when things go bust you want big nanny government to make it better for you.

It is time for us all to live within our means. Credit is the problem with all of this. The past 25 years of profligate deficit spending by our government on everything from education, military "defense", medicare and medicaid, to NASA has left us in a huge hole. We are all culpable and unless you demand change by voting these career politicians out we're going to go deeper in to debt and the dollar is going to be worth less and less a la the Weimar Republic and Zimbabwe.

You can start by writing your existing congressman and senators. You could even take another step and sign the following petition:

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/co.../cr091002b.htm

http://www.petitiononline.com/fedres/petition.html

And when that is all done you can vote these jokers out of office. However, I am not hopeful America has the gumption to exact such drastic change. Like the drug addict it will be very tough for many of us to live without our credit fix. That's fine by me; my money is in gold bullion. Let the dollar fall.

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/feb/...-federal-rese/

[Billionaire Boy]

This mess was started in the 60's, when the government started programs to insure everybody would get a home, no matter what their financial state.

[Stas1976]

All last administrations were appointed by people of special interests. It is not allowed to say who exactly but everybody can find it.

Democracy works in the way that vote of one smart man is equal to the vote for the one stupid person. And unfortunately majority of people are in fact very stupid.

Most people who are poor are stupid, otherwise they would not poor. It is proved in the book Bells Curve. So politicians find it easy to to bring lower-income stupid voters to vote for them by doing promises. So they do and promise what these poor stupid people ask.

Special interest people want more stupid people to come because they easy cheated at the time of election. The goal is to let stupid people outnumber smart people in election time. That why they keep borders open and push amnesty programs.

Smart people will never vote for politicians like Clinton or Bush but once there are bunch of stupid people available to vote it does not create a problem for the special interest people who orchestrate election by brainwashing stupid people trough the TV.

Clinton, Bush, Obama - they do what they are told to do by people who finance their campaign. Presidents by themselves decide very little if something.

[Survivor]

Originally Posted by Stas1976

All last administrations were appointed by people of special interests. It is not allowed to say who exactly but everybody can find it.

Democracy works in the way that vote of one smart man is equal to the vote for the one stupid person. And unfortunately majority of people are in fact very stupid.

Most people who are poor are stupid, otherwise they would not poor. It is proved in the book Bells Curve. So politicians find it easy to to bring lower-income stupid voters to vote for them by doing promises. So they do and promise what these poor stupid people ask.

Special interest people want more stupid people to come because they easy cheated at the time of election. The goal is to let stupid people outnumber smart people in election time. That why they keep borders open and push amnesty programs.

Smart people will never vote for politicians like Clinton or Bush but once there are bunch of stupid people available to vote it does not create a problem for the special interest people who orchestrate election by brainwashing stupid people trough the TV.

Clinton, Bush, Obama - they do what they are told to do by people who finance their campaign. Presidents by themselves decide very little if something.

The President is controlled by a secret society that threaten to kill him if they are exposed, aka John F. Kennedy.
Stupid people are controlled by stock market manipulation. $$$
Raped by commodity pricing, lies and shortages.
Congress, Senate, Supreme court, President, they control everything.
Lack of common sense is the stupidity.
Condescending.