General Discussion

 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0

" Greenspan's Warning

The clear gravity of the situation pushed the legislation forward. Some might say the current mess couldn't be foreseen, yet in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie ``continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,'' he said. ``We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.''

What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.

Ron Paul tried to warn us about this housing bubble long before the democraps were voted in by pissed off citizens. Try July 16, 2002.

www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr071602.htm

Wow, title seems to point at a different angle, but I'm glad to see others are not taken in by the utter stupidity of today's politics!

Originally posted by Briansho

Ron Paul tried to warn us about this housing bubble long before the democraps were voted in by pissed off citizens. Try July 16, 2002.

www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr071602.htm

 

unaccountable.

lets hang the ones who actually had a chance to do something before the meltdown began.

Originally posted by bluberryhaze

 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0

 

" Greenspan's Warning

The clear gravity of the situation pushed the legislation forward. Some might say the current mess couldn't be foreseen, yet in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie ``continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,'' he said. ``We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.''

What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.

But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter."

Yup. here's where I reference two other good articles on the subject:

http://fishermage.blogspot.com/2008/09/ibd-confirms-blame-clinton.html

Here I refenece a much earlier article:

http://fishermage.blogspot.com/2008/09/decent-analysis.html

Also we should not that in terms of campaign contributions from fannie mae and freddie mac, Obama is at number 3, with $105K and Hillary Clinton is at 4, with $75K.

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/07/top-senate-recipients-of-fanni.html

McCain isn't even in the top 25.

Neither side is innocent in this, but Democrats have much closer ties to Feddie Mae and Fannie Mac, which is one of the root causes of the issue. They are the ones who allowed a non-capitalist entity run amock in the center of a mostly capitalist system; thus taking advantage of the benefits of the free market, without having to pay the consequences.

Whenever we have a situation like that. the results are not good.

Originally posted by bluberryhaze

Originally posted by Briansho

Ron Paul tried to warn us about this housing bubble long before the democraps were voted in by pissed off citizens. Try July 16, 2002.

www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr071602.htm

 

unaccountable.

lets hang the ones who actually had a chance to do something before the meltdown began.

 

I bought my condo right before the "BOOM" in 2003. I had a strange feeling this would happen when larger property around me was going for insane prices and the banks were giving them out like crazy. All I had to do was show up at the settlement and I could have had a 1.2m house.

IMO the people who are really at fault here are the people who decided to live astronomically outside their means when they accepted these ARM loans for property they could not afford. This just shows how irresponsible people out there can F things up for the rest of us and now the govt has to step in. Those who make bad decisions should be responsible for their actions. If we are ever going to have less govt in this country people need to stand up and take responsibility for their actions and NOT go blindly into a situation expecting something to bail them out if things don't go as planned.

Originally posted by Briansho

Ron Paul tried to warn us about this housing bubble long before the democraps were voted in by pissed off citizens. Try July 16, 2002.

www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr071602.htm

 

Indeed, we libertarians have been talking about these government sponsored nightmares for a long time.

Wait, 2005?

When Republicans controlled the House, the Senate and the Presidency? 

You know, the Republicans blame everything on Democrats meme was getting old during the Clinton administration, but this is pathetic.  If those spineless 'tards are claiming that with the house, the senate, and the presidency they somehow couldn't pass this miraculous bill that would have headed off this crisis, they are seriously expecting their voters to have the intelligence of potted plants.

Unfortunately their voters seem to be supporting this assertion. 

Go ahead and blame both parties, I think its fair to say neither one especially did anything to head this off, but painting this as the noble Republican majority somehow oppressed and persecuted by the Democrat minority is asking me to swallow a whole lot of smelly brown stuff.