Democrats are terrified of people who care about anything beyond self and moment. This is why Barack Obama's affiliations with hatemongers, terrorists and mobsters doesn't bother them. He was just doing what he had to do to get rich and powerful and to promote himself.
John McCain, on the other hand, joined the military and, when he was offered for propaganda value the chance for early release, he turned it down because it wouldn't be right. When Sarah Palin had the chance to make her life easier by killing her baby with Down Syndrome, the Democrat thinks she should have done it. Self and moment trumps all other things to the left.
The fact that McCain and Palin sacrifice for others terrifies the Democrat who believes that if no one ever cared about anything then there'd be nothing to fight for. They believe that by inducing a "culture of narcissism" then nothing will ever be more valuable than self and therefore no one would ever again war as war risks the most important thing to the Democrat -- self and moment.
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lol...personally, I hate them because when they aren't writing stupid drivel like this, they're thinking stupid drivel like this.
For the party of greed and, "let's all fuck the planet and its creatures for our personal, short term benefit," to be spewifying this nonsense is a truly grotesque joke.
Short sightedness and self interest are the very heart and soul of the soulless GOP.
Obama Claps Back With Keating Five
The Washington Independent
By Ari Melber
When the McCain campaign announced this weekend that it would start attacking Sen. Barack Obama via guilt by association, peddling smears about people he barely knows, I thought the tack would lead to the Keating Five. But I didn’t know it would happen this quickly.
The Obama campaign swung into action immediately. By the time the Sunday news shows were taping, Democratic surrogates were hitting McCain with opposition research on his associations with extremist, racist groups (Begala) and the Keating Five (Emanuel). Today, of course, camp Obama is pushing a new Keating Economics website, which begins streaming a documentary about McCain’s Keating problem at noon.
Obama’s campaign has never pushed the Keating button before, so this attack carries an original punch–and is clearly salient given the current financial crisis. Because the scandal involved McCain’s actions in public service, it is more likely to arise during the remaining two debates.
McCain’s dredging up of Bill Ayers, in contrast, is not only old news but has no link to anything Obama has done in public life. Patrick Ruffini, a Republican operative who worked on Bush’s reelection campaign, said today that McCain’s Ayers attacks are so old that airing them now “appears desperate.”
Desperate and risky — given the corrupt skeletons in McCain’s closet.
For more on what The Keating Five says about McCain’s candidacy, check out “Did McCain Learn From the S&L Crisis,” a September TWI article by John Dougherty.
McCain Corrupt Skeletons:
Keating 5
G.Gordon Liddy
John Singlaud
The Mob Boss
Sara Palin - trooper gate, affairs,
Rick Davis - Fannie Mae
Vote record Against Vets
Votes Against Womens Issues
Votes Against Education
Votes For the War in Iraq
Adultry/Gambling
reply
"When Sarah Palin had the chance to make her life easier by killing her baby with Down Syndrome, the Democrat thinks she should have done it. Self and moment trumps all other things to the left."
I'm a Democrat and I don't think she should have done it. In fact, I don't care. It's none of my business whether she carried the baby to term or not. It was her choice. I neither admire or condemn her for it.
Do you seriously believe what you're saying, or are you just exaggerating the point because you think it'll have better impact?
hi, dan. i was going to call evan out on this very item. democrats are not interested in interfering with any woman's choice. it's, um, the republicans who are big into that.
evan, there is no way you believe this bullshit. you are merely scheming (and failing--witness your few stupid proponents) to become rich yourself. you are pathetic.
I think they hate all Republican's because we're not muslim terrorists, black panther sympathizers, or Pseudostinian lapdogs like most members of their party.
So, instead of working to prevent the economic meltdown, the House Reform and Oversight Committee was busy with what MUCH more important matters...
Here is a list of the key issues of the Committee: (from their website):
Key Issues
Environment
Iraq Reconstruction
Administration Oversight
Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
White House E-mails
Only now is the Oversight and Government Reform Committee of the House of Representatives grilling financial company executives as part of an investigation of financial industry practices. Seems investigating Bush was much more interesting...
ANOTHER reason we hate them is because they're such dumb mofos:
The War on Intellectualism
Filed by: Waymon Hudson
October 3
It seems there is a new threat to our country- an insidious danger that is seeping into our homes and everyday lives that must be stopped at any cost. That threat is intellectualism.
We have heard the some of the buzzwords of this political season- Folksy, Joe Six-pack, Elitist, and Arugula Eating. It seems the new "culture war" or wedge issue is intelligence. The Vice-Presidential debate only solidified the lines in this war. On one side, you had Palin- full of "folksy charm" and "you betcha" language. Then you had Biden, who had a command of the issues, but was called "boring" and (gasp!) "professorial" by the pundits.
Is this the point we have come to in our country? Do we really think that having knowledge about an issue is a liability? Have we learned nothing from the past eight years about voting for the person you "want to have a beer with"? Is being smart or intellectually curious a bad thing?
It seems the war is on and the Republicans have launched another surge strategy.
I have been absolutely dumbfounded as I have watched the level of discourse (and the ensuing media coverage) in this political season. There has always been a level of "east coast intellectual" bashing from the right, but this cycle it has been raised to a completely new level.
We have seen McCain release vapid attack ad after attack ad about "celebrity", all the while being devoid of any facts or issues. We have seen Palin stumble through interviews, to the point of not even being able to name any newspapers she reads (very reminiscent of George W Bush, who famously said he doesn't read). The media even praised Palin in the debate for being "down to earth" and a "breath of fresh air."
How is dumbing down our country a breath of fresh air? Lowering the discourse to these levels (Paris Hilton, hockey moms, and lipstick- oh my!) has been staggering and disheartening to watch.
The war has not only been waged by promoting the "Joe Six-pack" quality (a term that makes my skin crawl and sounds incredibly offensive) of McCain and Palin, however. They GOP has taken to throwing around charges of elitism, arugula eating, latte and martini drinking to show how Obama and Biden- and by extension all Democrats- are "out of touch" with "real" Americans. It's an amazing argument- by being too smart and thoughtful on issues, they just don't understand anything. Want proof? They eat fancy salad and drink coffee.
It is also constantly being said that both Obama and Biden are too "professorial", as if being an intelligent leader is a weakness. Professors are people who KNOW THINGS and can lead and teach others. How is that an insult? They simply know too much to be the leaders of the free world? All those pesky details floating around in their heads makes it impossible for them to lead? Huh?
How did we get here? I certainly don't want just any old Average Joe to lead our country. I want someone who knows facts and issues. And if they don't know something, I want someone with the intellectual curiosity to learn and find out! Pick up a newspaper, get online, and surround yourself with other intelligent people. Yet McCain can't use the internet and Palin can't name a paper she reads. Where is the intellectualism to be a true leader in this time of trouble in our country?
Let me be clear- I don't care if politicians don't seem "fun" or "folksy"- I don't want to have a beer with them. I want them to lead. "Going with your gut" is not a viable option for this level of leadership. Quick sound bites or catch phrases don't make you a good leader. I don't care if you can hunt, were in the PTA, or wink at me- I want you to be educated about the issues facing our country.
Intellectualism is a quality we want in a leader. I would rather have someone who might be a bit dry and heavy on the facts than someone who is folksy and dead wrong any day.
But hey, what do I know? Maybe I'll just stick to eating my elitist arugula salad and reading.
See what I mean, Shit-for-brains?
AP: Democrats Have A "Realistic Shot" At 60 In The Senate
by Todd Beeton, Sun Aug 17, 2008
While most senate and house projections at this point err on the side of caution, a new AP article signals what may be an emerging conventional wisdom: that getting to 60 is absolutely within reach.
With President Bush's ratings at rock-bottom, fewer Republicans signing up to vote, and voters nationally gravitating toward Democrats in public polls, the GOP is bracing for defeats in November that will expand Democrats' now razor-thin 51-49 majority in the Senate.
Democrats have solid chances of winning five seats, according to strategists in both parties and public polls, and realistic shots at picking off another three to five Republican senators.
Has a pick-up of 10 seats, and with it a true Lieberman-less 60 vote majority, ever been described as "realistic" before?
This new boldness, which I suspect we'll see replicated elsewhere as CW solidifies, is no doubt a function of the recent indictment of Ted Stevens, which instantaneously made Mark Begich the favorite for the seat and Democrats on track to win 5 virtually at the starting gate. Those "solid" 5 are:
Mark Warner in Virginia
Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire
Tom Udall in New Mexico
Mark Udall in Colorado
Road to 60 candidate Mark Begich in Alaska
The 3-5 "realistic shots" according to USA Today (and general CW):
Jeff Merkley in Oregon
Road to 60 candidate Ronnie Musgrove in Mississippi
Al Franken in Minnesota
Road to 60 candidate Kay Hagan in North Carolina
Tom Allen in Maine
And these lists don't even take into account our two other Road to 60 candidates: Rick Noriega in Texas and Jim Slattery in Kansas, or netroots favorite Scott Kleeb in Nebraska.
Obama sure knows how to get the vote out:
"CLEVELAND - Volunteers supporting Barack Obama picked up hundreds of people at homeless shelters, soup kitchens and drug-rehab centers and drove them to a polling place yesterday on the last day that Ohioans could register and vote on the same day, almost no questions asked.
The huge effort by a pro-Obama group, Vote Today Ohio, takes advantage of a quirk in the state's elections laws that allows people to register and cast ballots at the same time without having to prove residency."
according to the urban dictionary, the definition of joe sixpack is:
Joe Sixpack
Average American moron, IQ 60, drinking beer, watching baseball and CNN, and believe everything his President says.
This is so simple, even a Joe Sixpack can understand.
this is something that evan and his crowd of cretins are proud of...amazing.
from dictionary.com:
Main Entry: Joe Sixpack
Part of Speech: n
Definition: a lower-middle-class or blue-collar male; also written [Joe Six-Pack]
Etymology: from average 'Joe' watching TV with a six-pack of beer
Usage: derogatory slang
It looks like our unevolved, conservative cousins have finally been hit with so much reality that they've given up on their evil and vile movement.
I am willing to hear your confessions right here whenever you are ready for your first moment of honesty in years.
For more hilarity, check out the psychos earlier take on the economy...this moron can't count the change in his pocket and he wants to talk economy...with ludicrously uproarious results:
That the overall fundamentals of the economy remain strong -- just as the statesman John McCain said in what was a factually true but perhaps politically unwise statement -- was proved when the markets responded with historic gains upon the announcement that the problem was recognized and was being addressed.
The stock market is the professionals' assessment of the short-to-midterm of American business. If the knot in the credit pipeline is dealt with, America remains the best place to invest ones money. If that knot is not dealt with, then American business is in big trouble.
In a national poll by CNN/Opinion Research Corporation, Obama leads McCain 53 percent to 45 percent among likely voters. The 8-point lead is twice what it was in the last CNN/Opinion Research Corporation, taken in mid-September.
A Fox News/Ramusssen Reports poll of five battleground states finds little good news for McCain. Obama has widened his lead in Colorado, Florida and Missouri, and little has changed in two other key states, Ohio and Virginia, where Obama has the edge.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll, however, shows that Obama now has the advantage in Ohio because more voters believe he would be a better steward of the economy. McCain still has the edge on leading the U.S. fight against terrorism and the Iraq war, but fewer voters identify those as top issues.
Other polls of battleground states, these by CNN/Time magazine/Opinion Research Corp., underscore the challenge for McCain in Indiana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin. The only one of those states where McCain enjoys a lead is Indiana, where 51 percent of likely voters say they back him compared to 46 percent for Obama. But that's a slim margin, especially when you consider that Bush carried the state by 21 percentage points four years ago.
Finally, a CBS News poll shows the Democratic ticket leading the Republican ticket 47 to 43 percent among registered voters.
Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/06/poll.of.polls/index.html
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/06/pub-fox-newsrasmussen-poll-obama-widens-lead-battleground-states/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/06/AR2008100602373.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/07/battleground.poll/index.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/06/opinion/polls/main4504633.shtml
heh
ff: I am willing to hear your confessions right here whenever you are ready for your first moment of honesty in years.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
hon·es·ty –noun, plural -ties.
1.the quality or fact of being honest; uprightness and fairness.
2.truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness.
3.freedom from deceit or fraud.
4.Botany. a plant, Lunaria annua, of the mustard family, having clusters of purple flowers and semitransparent, satiny pods.
5.Obsolete. chastity.
[Origin: 1300–50; ME honeste < MF < L honestās. See honest, -ty2]
—Synonyms 1. integrity, probity, rectitude. See honor. 2. candor, veracity.
—Antonyms 1. dishonesty.
the last two are not applicable.
It's about time, Johnny. Let 'er rip:
"Whatever the question, whatever the issues, there's always a back story with Senator Obama . . . Our current economic crisis is a good case in point. The crisis started in our housing market in the form of subprime loans that were pushed on people who could not afford them.
"Bad mortgages were being backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it was only a matter of time before a contagion of unsustainable debt began to spread," McCain said during an event in Albuquerque, NM.
"This corruption was encouraged by Democrats in Congress, and abetted by Senator Obama."
McCain said he raised the alarm and called for tighter borrowing rules on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago, which could have helped stem the crisis.
By comparison, he said, Obama was "silent" while congressional Democrats fought efforts to rein in the mortgage giants.
"As recently as September of last year, [Obama] said that subprime loans had been, quote, 'a good idea.' Well, Senator Obama, that 'good idea' has now plunged this country into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression," McCain said.
(By CARL CAMPANILE, AP)
lol... it appears the simple minded wingnut is having a classic reaction formation in response to the frightening invitation to confront his own dishonesty.
As we see from the polls, even many GOPs are now finally ready to face the fact that their naive dereg philosophy has been a disaster, but these poor guys can' bring themselves to face the truth.
Not that they matter...the country has turned against them at long last.
Still, it's interesting that some are still so ashamed of their own professed philosophy re the "free market," and try to tell us, laughably, how they've been so eager all these years to be the regulators.
McCain pals with right wing terrorists...
McCain Link to Private Group in Iran-Contra Case
Pete Yost, The Associated Press: "John McCain's campaign is criticizing Barack Obama for his ties to a former radical who engaged in violent acts four decades ago, but McCain himself was closely connected to a private group that supplied aid to rebels trying to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua during the Iran-Contra affair. The U.S. Council for World Freedom was part of an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America."
Aha! I will put my agents on the job forthwith.
M-hm:
"Nevada state authorities seized records and computers Tuesday from the Las Vegas office of an organization that tries to get low-income people registered to vote, after fielding complaints of voter fraud.
Bob Walsh, spokesman for the Nevada secretary of state's office, told FOXNews.com the raid was prompted by ongoing complaints about "erroneous" registration information being submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also called ACORN."
Now, me...I hate the assholes because they're palling around with terrorists:
Salon: The Confirmed Anti-American Associations of the Palins. Sarah Palin is on You-Tube Sending Greetings and Support to This Rabid, Anti U.S. Seccessionist Party. Of the Former Leader of the Palin's AIP, "Vogler's greatest moment of glory was to be his 1993 appearance before the United Nations to denounce United States "tyranny" before the entire world and to demand Alaska's freedom. The Alaska secessionist had persuaded the government of Iran to sponsor his anti-American harangue."
ACORN!! lol...try to focus, wingbat...it's the ECONOMY, stupid.
Yes it is, smarty. And you can blame Fannie Mae and outfits like ACORN for it.
Well. It turns out that one of Barney Frank's boyfriends was a chief executive at Fannie Mae.
Face it...everyone hates them:
The best part of the post-debate spin cycle this year is that the snap
polls will tell us who won this debate. We don't need the bloviators to
do our thinking for us. Another gate crashed thanks to the big media
companies themselves and their awesome snap polls. And the biggest
beneficiaries of this dramatic change are progressives, who no longer
need to suffer the conventional wisdom-setting power of the Right Wing
Noise Machine pretending to speak for the American people. Today, the
American people can speak for themselves.
That said, there's no doubt what the public will think. Anyone watching
CNN on a hi-def TV could see the dial focus group of a bunch of Ohio
undecided voters. And throughout the night, it often seemed that Obama
would break the darn meter, his ratings going through the roof. McCain,
on the other hand, was the king of the flatline. I swear, you could see
the downticks every time McCain said "my friends" -- a tell to the
audience that he was about to serve another heaping dish of b.s. It was
painful. According to the Republican pre-debate spin, McCain was
supposed to use "humor" to soften the blow of his mighty attacks, but
1) did any of his attacks connect? and 2) can anyone say, in all
seriousness, that McCain delivered a single effective laugh line? And
earmarks? Does McCain still think anyone outside of the wingnutosphere
give a damn about "earmarks"?
For all the pre-debate stuff about the townhall benefitting McCain,
Obama looked far better here. He is at his best when he can speechify,
and that's what he was able to do here. And really, Obama is the
picture of "cool". The side-by-side comparison isn't kind. But even on
substance, it wasn't close.
But what was most striking about the debate was the way the focus group
handled the attacks. When McCain attacked, his numbers would tank. When
Obama attacked, his numbers would go up. It was a striking difference,
and one that can be explained by this:
People don't like McCain, don't trust him, and when the guy no one
likes attacks, they like him less.
It won't be long now before the snap polls confirm all of this.
Why should I blame them, peabrain...no one else does, though the GOPigs are desperately trying to sell that pathetic crap.
See, simpdick, the very simple and crucial factor is that Fannie Mae and all the other entities would not have been able to get so careless if we hadn't had all that deregulaton you dingbats USED TO love so much.
It's looking like the critics -- in this case, the people -- are liking McCorpse's debate performance about as well as the movie critics like Zucker's pathetic cinematic efforts.
The right is just so ponderous, backward and clunky in everything it does.
Thought for the day:
“Stock markets are the best barometer of the health, wealth and security of a nation”
Larry Kudlow
LOL: McCain LOSES Free Republic!
by noweasels
Tue Oct 07, 2008 at 09:01:04 PM PDT
WOW!
John McCain has pissed off the Freepers with his debate performance tonight! Could life get better?
From the thread. (Knitting? I don't know what they call it over there.)
He is going to lose by 15% points and may lose by 200 EVs. This man is a conservative?
noweasels's diary :: ::
Everytime I think McCain might start making a run at this thing, he pulls something dumb out of his butt. For someone to prattle on about big government spending and then say something like that takes a lot of something, and it ain’t good.
That’s about where I threw my remote at the TV and turned it off.
Got an absentee ballot sitting on my desk right now and half tempted to go down the capital steps tomorrow and burn it instead of voting.
The Republican candidate suggesting bailing out individual home owners. The REPUBLICAN.
I need a drink...
Well, okay NOW. I'll have one with ya!
And some, um, haiku?
Obama; McCain
ketchup; catsup
stupid; dumb
communism; socialism
oh well!
Well, here's an (ungrammatical) idea:
Let he and Cindy refinance bad loans and take the hit.
And this:
I was hesitant to put the McCain yard signs up in the first place. I guess I’ll take them down.
We all need a drink, my FRiend.
McCain is no conservative and he is no republican.
He is a disgrace.
Oh, well.
Arriving at least one election cycle too late, David Zucker's "An American Carol" uses the less-than-original
tack of using Dickens' Yuletide classic to spoof left-wing politics and Michael Moore in particular.
"Carol" squanders its comedic potential with a near-total absence of laughs. Audiences will be mostly stone-faced,
though it's a pretty good bet that Moore will be laughing his ass off. Actually, even those who find Moore's politics
anathema will have some sympathy for the main character, none too imaginatively dubbed "Michael Malone"
and played appealingly by Kevin Farley.
What a mistake for Kevin Farley to introduce himself this way.
He looks enough like Chris that he could become another Jim Belushi
but right now nobody thinks a fascist dog is funny - or likeable.
Besides, Michael Moore told the truth, so if you're anti-Moore...
Too bad, Kevin.
You blew your career before it even got started.
Wow Evan, I guess you scored a direct hit with this one. Judging by the invective and total lack of actual rebuttal in the comments, I'd say you've caused a good bit of squirming in these self-righteous masters of tolerance. Well done.
Don't worry Evan. The managerial elites will save us through central planning of the economy... when they're not vacationing at their dachas, that is.
More evidence they've given up. They're not even going to try to tell us how McRage won the debate last night.
And, the polls show another big win for O.
Their only hope, now, is to stage a fake terror attack...or incite one of their sicko constituents to assassinate someone.
They're certainly trying hard enough to do that with an even sicker version of their usual appeal to bigots and vicious, luddite trogs.
lol...the managerial elites.
For once, we agree.
The GW/Bernanke, fascist plan for an even tighter government/corporate collusion passed a spineless and panicked, rubber stamp reichstag, and a great leap forward toward the fascist, corporate state has been made.
"(Kevin Farley) looks enough like Chris that he could become another Jim Belushi."
You get two points for that one. Nah, that's a three-pointer.
Evan: 1,075
Trolls: 3
lol...Evan is too humiliated and dispirited to even post on his own blog. Especially with nothing but ineffectual,little morons like you in support.
Midnite, why should Evan feel dispirited? Look at the campaign a Mccain and Palin are conducting! What's embarrasing about it? And look at the brilliant support Evan gets from ideogical comrades on this blog!
Yes,I suppose you have a point.
If, after all these years with his ass hanging out in public and associating with pinheads like this and having no clue to what reality is, he probably can't be humiliated or demoralized.
I think an Obama landslide might be good shock therapy for him, though...if it doesn't kill the poor, addled goofball and the remaining neocons.
Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis
David Goldstein and Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
October 12, 2008
WASHINGTON — As the economy worsens and Election Day approaches, a conservative campaign that blames the global financial crisis on a government push to make housing more affordable to lower-class Americans has taken off on talk radio and e-mail.
Commentators say that's what triggered the stock market meltdown and the freeze on credit. They've specifically targeted the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the federal government seized on Sept. 6, contending that lending to poor and minority Americans caused Fannie's and Freddie's financial problems.
Federal housing data reveal that the charges aren't true, and that the private sector, not the government or government-backed companies, was behind the soaring subprime lending at the core of the crisis.
Subprime lending offered high-cost loans to the weakest borrowers during the housing boom that lasted from 2001 to 2007. Subprime lending was at its height vrom 2004 to 2006.
Federal Reserve Board data show that:
_ More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
_ Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
_ Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.
The "turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007," the President's Working Group on Financial Markets reported Friday.
Conservative critics claim that the Clinton administration pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make home ownership more available to riskier borrowers with little concern for their ability to pay the mortgages.
"I don't remember a clarion call that said Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster," said Neil Cavuto of Fox News.
Fannie, the Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., don't lend money, to minorities or anyone else, however. They purchase loans from the private lenders who actually underwrite the loans.
It's a process called securitization, and by passing on the loans, banks have more capital on hand so they can lend even more.
This much is true. In an effort to promote affordable home ownership for minorities and rural whites, the Department of Housing and Urban Development set targets for Fannie and Freddie in 1992 to purchase low-income loans for sale into the secondary market that eventually reached this number: 52 percent of loans given to low-to moderate-income families.
To be sure, encouraging lower-income Americans to become homeowners gave unsophisticated borrowers and unscrupulous lenders and mortgage brokers more chances to turn dreams of homeownership in nightmares.
But these loans, and those to low- and moderate-income families represent a small portion of overall lending. And at the height of the housing boom in 2005 and 2006, Republicans and their party's standard bearer, President Bush, didn't criticize any sort of lending, frequently boasting that they were presiding over the highest-ever rates of U.S. homeownership.
Between 2004 and 2006, when subprime lending was exploding, Fannie and Freddie went from holding a high of 48 percent of the subprime loans that were sold into the secondary market to holding about 24 percent, according to data from Inside Mortgage Finance, a specialty publication. One reason is that Fannie and Freddie were subject to tougher standards than many of the unregulated players in the private sector who weakened lending standards, most of whom have gone bankrupt or are now in deep trouble.
During those same explosive three years, private investment banks — not Fannie and Freddie — dominated the mortgage loans that were packaged and sold into the secondary mortgage market. In 2005 and 2006, the private sector securitized almost two thirds of all U.S. mortgages, supplanting Fannie and Freddie, according to a number of specialty publications that track this data.
In 1999, the year many critics charge that the Clinton administration pressured Fannie and Freddie, the private sector sold into the secondary market just 18 percent of all mortgages.
Fueled by low interest rates and cheap credit, home prices between 2001 and 2007 galloped beyond anything ever seen, and that fueled demand for mortgage-backed securities, the technical term for mortgages that are sold to a company, usually an investment bank, which then pools and sells them into the secondary mortgage market.
About 70 percent of all U.S. mortgages are in this secondary mortgage market, according to the Federal Reserve.
Conservative critics also blame the subprime lending mess on the Community Reinvestment Act, a 31-year-old law aimed at freeing credit for underserved neighborhoods.
Congress created the CRA in 1977 to reverse years of redlining and other restrictive banking practices that locked the poor, and especially minorities, out of homeownership and the tax breaks and wealth creation it affords. The CRA requires federally regulated and insured financial institutions to show that they're lending and investing in their communities.
Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote recently that while the goal of the CRA was admirable, "it led to tremendous pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — who in turn pressured banks and other lenders — to extend mortgages to people who were borrowing over their heads. That's called subprime lending. It lies at the root of our current calamity."
Fannie and Freddie, however, didn't pressure lenders to sell them more loans; they struggled to keep pace with their private sector competitors. In fact, their regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, imposed new restrictions in 2006 that led to Fannie and Freddie losing even more market share in the booming subprime market.
What's more, only commercial banks and thrifts must follow CRA rules. The investment banks don't, nor did the now-bankrupt non-bank lenders such as New Century Financial Corp. and Ameriquest that underwrote most of the subprime loans.
These private non-bank lenders enjoyed a regulatory gap, allowing them to be regulated by 50 different state banking supervisors instead of the federal government. And mortgage brokers, who also weren't subject to federal regulation or the CRA, originated most of the subprime loans.
In a speech last March, Janet Yellen, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, debunked the notion that the push for affordable housing created today's problems.
"Most of the loans made by depository institutions examined under the CRA have not been higher-priced loans," she said. "The CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households."
In a book on the sub-prime lending collapse published in June 2007, the late Federal Reserve Governor Ed Gramlich wrote that only one-third of all CRA loans had interest rates high enough to be considered sub-prime and that to the pleasant surprise of commercial banks there were low default rates. Banks that participated in CRA lending had found, he wrote, "that this new lending is good business."
(e-mail: khall )at)mcclatchydc.com)
McClatchy Newspapers 2008
Evan this is directly for you yet posted publicly as you've cut off the discourse we were having. A discourse in which I apparently brought up too many FACTS.
Did you first come up with the term MODERN LIBERAL Evan?
The ML whose attached to all negativity and anything that fails?
Seems to me you fit your own definitions now. That's sad to me, yet either way I put on my uniform and continue to prepare for deployment to Iraq.
Blessings either way,
David
another munkigram, guffaw...
Evan has really taken a turn for the worst, if that's possible.
I couldn't have said it better. I love you. After watching a video the other day of you at the Heritage Foundation I had to look you up. What a shiny piece of copper you are! I read a lot of your blogs and will be back to read more. Thank goodness there's some good people left in LA. Gives me hope....
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