🚀 go-pugleaf

Scott wrote:
> On Wed, 08 Oct 2008 06:36:34 -0500, "John A. Weeks III"
> <john@johnweeks.com> wrote:
> 
>> In article 
>> <18fadf86-a474-43f0-9bd7-6cedc9a62df3@n33g2000pri.googlegroups.com>,
>> charlenecofer@excite.com wrote:
>>
>>> If OBAMA gets elected.. the Stock Market will crash
>> Don't you mean that if George W Bush gets elected, the market
>> will take a major dive?  
> 
> Not just the market, but the entire damn economy crumbled under
> Bush and his deregulation cronies.

Sorry, you missed the real causes:

Publication:IBD;  Date:Sep 29, 2008;  Section:Front Page;  Page Number:A1


UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE

Saddest Thing About This Mess: Congress Had Chance To Stop It

Political full-court press by Dems kept reforms of errant banks at bay 
What Caused The Loan Crisis? FIFTH IN A SERIES

BY TERRY JONES INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Could the crisis at Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac and the subprime meltdown 
have been avoided?

     The answer is yes.

     As early as 1992, alarm bells were going off on the threat Fannie 
and Freddie posed to our financial system and our economy. Intervention 
at any point could have staved off today�s crisis. But Democrats in 
Congress stood in the way.

     As the president recently said, Democrats have been �resisting any 
efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me . . . to put some 
standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.�

     No, it wasn�t President Bush who said that; it was President 
Clinton, Democrat, speaking just last week.

     Interesting, because it was his administration�s relentless focus 
on multiculturalism that led to looser lending standards and regulatory 
pressure on banks to make mortgage loans to shaky borrowers.

     Freddie and Fannie, backed by an �implicit� taxpayer guarantee, 
bought hundreds of billions of dollars of those subprime loans.

     The mortgage giants, whose executive suites were top-heavy with 
former Democratic officials (and some Republicans), worked with Wall 
Street to repackage the bad loans and sell them to investors.

     As the housing market continued to fall in 2007, subprime loan 
portfolios suffered major losses. The crisis was on � though it was 15 
years in the making.

Democrats Blocked Reform

     Just as Republicans got blamed for Enron, WorldCom and other 
early-2000s scandals that were actually due to the anything-goes Clinton 
era, the media are now blaming them for the mortgage meltdown.

     But Republicans tried repeatedly to bring fiscal sanity to Fannie 
and Freddie. Democrats opposed them, especially Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. 
Barney Frank, who now run Congress� key banking panels.

     History is utterly clear on this.

     After Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers warned Congress in 1999 
of the �systemic risk� posed by Fannie and Freddie, Congress held 
hearings the next year.

     But nothing was done. Why? Fannie and Freddie had donated millions 
to key congressmen and radical groups, ensuring no meaningful changes 
would take place.

     �We manage our political risk with the same intensity that we 
manage our credit and interest rate risks,� Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, 
a former Clinton official and current Barack Obama adviser, bragged to 
investors in 1999.

     In November 2000, Clinton�s HUD hailed �new regulations to provide 
$2.4 trillion in mortgages for affordable housing for 28.1 million 
families.� It made Fannie and Freddie take part in the biggest federal 
expansion of housing aid ever.

     Soon after taking office, Bush had his hands full with the Clinton 
recession and 9/11. But by 2003, he proposed what the New York Times 
called �the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance 
industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.�

     The plan included a new regulator for Fannie and Freddie, one that 
could boost capital mandates and look at how they managed risk.

     Even after regulators in 2003 uncovered a scheme by Fannie and 
Freddie executives to overstate earnings by $10.6 billion to boost 
bonuses, Democrats killed reform.

     �Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial 
crisis,� said Rep. Frank, then-ranking Democrat on the Financial 
Services Committee.

     North Carolina Democrat Melvin Watt accused the White House of 
�weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to 
get affordable housing.�

     In 2005, then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress: �We are 
placing the total financial system of the future at substantial risk.�

McCain Urged Changes

     That year, Sen. John McCain, one of three sponsors of a 
Fannie-Freddie reform bill, said: �If Congress does not act, American 
taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie 
Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial 
system and the economy as a whole.�

     Sen. Harry Reid � now Majority Leader � accused the GOP of trying 
to �cripple the ability of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to carry out their 
mission of expanding homeownership.�

     The bill went nowhere.

     This year, the media have repeated Democrats� talking points about 
this being a �Republican� disaster. Well, McCain has repeatedly called 
for reforming the mortgage giants. The White House has repeatedly warned 
Congress. This year alone, Bush urged reform 17 times.

     Some GOP members are complicit. But Fannie and Freddie were created 
by Democrats, regulated by Democrats, largely run by Democrats and 
protected by Democrats.

     That�s why taxpayers are now being asked for $700 billion.

>> By the time Mr. Obama gets in office,
>> the market will be so low that he will get the credit for the
>> subsequent 3000 point recovery.
> 
> Exactly...kind of the same way Reagan got credit for the Berlin 
> Wall coming down and the fall of the Russian economy...right place, 
> right time.

Was his SDI program "right place right time" also?

Because that's what broke the Russian Bear's back.



-- 
not too random uselessnet weirdness:

Bill Shatzer wrote:

"And over 4,000 Americans have paid with their lives for that little
adventure. Plus a half a trillion dollars in national treasure

You might compare that with the number of lives lost on 9-11. Or the
economic injury incurred from that event.

It would have been cheaper in both lives and money to just suffer
another 9-11 every six or seven years.

Peace and justice,"


Baxter blurts out a plaintive call for Viagra:

"At my age, I don't need balls.  I'm done with the procreation stuff."


WhorresD gets politically bipolar:

"I like McCain's plain speaking way, to the point,
no punches pulled.

I would trust McCain to do the right thing,
I think that he's a truthful person, with his heart in
the right place."


Dog shit McAfee expresses his Marxism:

"Capitalism has never worked."