bush did try a few times and he was blocked by barney frank et al. Originally Posted by nevergaveitathoughtApparently you did not read between the lines. In simpler terms, I asked the CPT to defend his remarks, which is something he is trying desperately not to do. In other words if you are going to take the time to make a statement, be prepared to defend it. Assuming you are correct, if Bush made it a priority to "right the wrong," when did he do so? What legislation did GW try to initiate it with. When did the Bush Administration initiate the legislation?. Who overruled the Bush Administration? Did the Bush Administration threaten whomever with a veto? If so, when? If GW was such a powerful President, why was he overruled? In and of itself, isn't being "overruled" a sign of weakness on GW's part?
- Guest040616
- 08-22-2011, 07:24 AM
- nevergaveitathought
- 08-22-2011, 07:31 AM
Apparently you got your panties in a wad because I asked the CPT to defend his remarks, which is something he is trying desperately not to do. If merely asked that if he is going to make a statement be prepared to defend it. Bush made it a priority to "right the wrong" I merely inquired when did he do so? What legislation did GW try to initiate it with. When did the Bush Administration initiate the legislation?. Who overruled the Bush Administration? Did the Bush Administration threaten whomever with a veto? If so, when? If GW was such a powerful President, why was he overruled? In and of itself, isn't being "overruled" a sign of weakness on GW's part? Originally Posted by bigtexnot at all..quite calm here.
congress initiates legislation. thats how it works.
the pres can propose and he did.
i don't understand your questions. if a law was already passed before bush, and signed by clinton, what veto? and frannie and freddie are autonomous btw.
if you are powerful you should have done this or that or else you are weak? thats sort of a silly assessment. there is no king. we have divided government and it was divided. there was warning and there was intransgience. simple as that. and the housing bubble ball did get rolling under clinton. could bush have done more, sure, probably. go to the american people, make speeches about it maybe. thats total crystal ball stuff.
- Guest040616
- 08-22-2011, 08:54 AM
not at all..quite calm here.My point was that if the possibility of a housing crisis was a priority item for the Bush Administration they would have surely initiated legislation to minimize the effects of the law. You are truly naive if you do not believe the Administration does not initiate legislation. Truthfully, I am not even certain if such of a law was passed during the Clinton years. And quite frankly, I do not have the time, will, want or inclination to double check. To say that the Congress initiates legislation is a weak argument on your part. If that is the case, then the Republican House and Senate should have been blamed for the law, not Clinton. Silly me, you won't make that claim because the Republicans controlled both houses during the last 6 years of the Clinton Administration.
congress initiates legislation. thats how it works.
the pres can propose and he did.
i don't understand your questions. if a law was already passed before bush, and signed by clinton, what veto? and frannie and freddie are autonomous btw.
if you are powerful you should have done this or that or else you are weak? thats sort of a silly assessment. there is no king. we have divided government and it was divided. there was warning and there was intransgience. simple as that. and the housing bubble ball did get rolling under clinton. could bush have done more, sure, probably. go to the american people, make speeches about it maybe. thats total crystal ball stuff. Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought
At the end of the day, it is a very weak argument to exclusively place the housing bubble crisis on Clinton's shoulders when GW had two full terms to correct the problem and he failed to do so. That would be no different than blaming Clinton for Hurricane Katrina. Oh yeah, I forgot that the Republicans blamed Katrina on Clinton, as well.
Some things just never change, do they?
- nevergaveitathought
- 08-22-2011, 09:03 AM
My point was that if it was a priority of the Bush Administration they should have initiated legislation to minimize the effects of the law, assuming there was even one passed during the Clinton years. To say that the Congress initiates legislation is a weak argument on your part. If that is the case, then blame the Clinton Congress for the law, not Clinton. If I am not mistaken the Republicans controlled the Congress during those years.i agree that if it was focused on more, then maybe, just maybe, the american people could have been mobilized to do something but i doubt it. the mean ole gwb trying to keep poor people from housing, ya know.
At the end of the day, it is a very weak argument to exclusively place the housing bubble crisis on Clinton's shoulders when GW had two full terms to correct the problem and he failed to do so. That would be mp different than blaming Clinton for Hurricane Katrina. Oh yeah, I forgot that the Republicans blamed that on him as well. Some things just never change, do they? Originally Posted by bigtex
the repubs controlled after '94, i think, not before, when it was passed. after that it was back to divided government.
look no one has a crystal ball, and hindsight being what it is, is perfect. but some people sway one way and some another. who sways toward that sort of thing? barney et al. who passed the bill? the dem congress signed by clinton. who refused to do anything after bush's warning? the dem congress. thats all. maybe they would have tempered it somewhat if they only realized the impact, but still and all, there are those who really dont care what happened because we need "change".
if one really considers the whole scenario the whole thing seems to be a tranfer of wealth downward and we the people are stuck with an increased debt which is just a backdoor tax. some people are ok with that.
this is the first time i heard clinton was blamed for katrina, always thought it was gwb, who hated black people, caused katrina.
- Guest040616
- 08-22-2011, 09:13 AM
this is the first time i heard clinton was blamed for katrina, always thought it was gwb, who hated black people, caused katrina. Originally Posted by nevergaveitathoughtAs I recall, Clinton was blamed by the Republicans for Katrina because he did not have the foresight to fix the levee's!
But then, neither did Reagan or GHWB before Clinton. But RR and GHWB did not get any of the blame, only Clinton!
If nothing else, you guys are consistent!
As for GWB specifically hating "black people," I thought Dub hated everyone who wasn't rich, including the "black people" who were not wealthy !
- nevergaveitathought
- 08-22-2011, 09:22 AM
As I recall, Clinton was blamed because he did not have the foresight to fix the levee's!if your point is stupidity is replete, then we agree
But then, neither did Reagan or GHWB before Clinton. But RR and GHWB did not get any of the blame, only Clinton!
If nothing else, you guys are consistent!
As for GWB specifically hating "black people," I thought Dub hated everyone who wasn't rich, including the "black people" who were not wealthy !
- Munchmasterman
- 08-23-2011, 12:50 PM
http://www.businessweek.com/investin...ity_reinv.html
Posted by: Aaron Pressman on September 29, 2008
Fresh off the false and politicized attack on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, today we’re hearing the know-nothings blame the subprime crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act — a 30-year-old law that was actually weakened by the Bush administration just as the worst lending wave began. This is even more ridiculous than blaming Freddie and Fannie.
The Community Reinvestment Act, passed in 1977, requires banks to lend in the low-income neighborhoods where they take deposits. Just the idea that a lending crisis created from 2004 to 2007 was caused by a 1977 law is silly. But it’s even more ridiculous when you consider that most subprime loans were made by firms that aren’t subject to the CRA. University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr testified back in February before the House Committee on Financial Services that 50% of subprime loans were made by mortgage service companies not subject comprehensive federal supervision and another 30% were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts which are not subject to routine supervision or examinations. As former Fed Governor Ned Gramlich said in an August, 2007, speech shortly before he passed away: “In the subprime market where we badly need supervision, a majority of loans are made with very little supervision. It is like a city with a murder law, but no cops on the beat.”
Not surprisingly given the higher degree of supervision, loans made under the CRA program were made in a more responsible way than other subprime loans. CRA loans carried lower rates than other subprime loans and were less likely to end up securitized into the mortgage-backed securities that have caused so many losses, according to a recent study by the law firm Traiger & Hinckley (PDF file here).
Finally, keep in mind that the Bush administration has been weakening CRA enforcement and the law’s reach since the day it took office. The CRA was at its strongest in the 1990s, under the Clinton administration, a period when subprime loans performed quite well. It was only after the Bush administration cut back on CRA enforcement that problems arose, a timing issue which should stop those blaming the law dead in their tracks. The Federal Reserve, too, did nothing but encourage the wild west of lending in recent years. It wasn’t until the middle of 2007 that the Fed decided it was time to crack down on abusive pratices in the subprime lending market. Oops.
Better targets for blame in government circles might be the 2000 law which ensured that credit default swaps would remain unregulated, the SEC’s puzzling 2004 decision to allow the largest brokerage firms to borrow upwards of 30 times their capital and that same agency’s failure to oversee those brokerage firms in subsequent years as many gorged on subprime debt. (Barry Ritholtz had an excellent and more comprehensive survey of how Washington contributed to the crisis in this week’s Barron’s.)
There’s plenty more good reading on the CRA and the subprime crisis out in the blogosphere. Ellen Seidman, who headed the Office of Thrift Supervision in the late 90s, has written several fact-filled posts about the CRA controversey, including one just last week. University of Oregon professor and economist Mark Thoma has also defended the CRA on his blog. I also learned something from a post back in April by Robert Gordon, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, which ends with this ditty:
It’s telling that, amid all the recent recriminations, even lenders have not fingered CRA. That’s because CRA didn’t bring about the reckless lending at the heart of the crisis. Just as sub-prime lending was exploding, CRA was losing force and relevance. And the worst offenders, the independent mortgage companies, were never subject to CRA — or any federal regulator. Law didn’t make them lend. The profit motive did. And that is not political correctness. It is correctness
Posted by: Aaron Pressman on September 29, 2008
Fresh off the false and politicized attack on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, today we’re hearing the know-nothings blame the subprime crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act — a 30-year-old law that was actually weakened by the Bush administration just as the worst lending wave began. This is even more ridiculous than blaming Freddie and Fannie.
The Community Reinvestment Act, passed in 1977, requires banks to lend in the low-income neighborhoods where they take deposits. Just the idea that a lending crisis created from 2004 to 2007 was caused by a 1977 law is silly. But it’s even more ridiculous when you consider that most subprime loans were made by firms that aren’t subject to the CRA. University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr testified back in February before the House Committee on Financial Services that 50% of subprime loans were made by mortgage service companies not subject comprehensive federal supervision and another 30% were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts which are not subject to routine supervision or examinations. As former Fed Governor Ned Gramlich said in an August, 2007, speech shortly before he passed away: “In the subprime market where we badly need supervision, a majority of loans are made with very little supervision. It is like a city with a murder law, but no cops on the beat.”
Not surprisingly given the higher degree of supervision, loans made under the CRA program were made in a more responsible way than other subprime loans. CRA loans carried lower rates than other subprime loans and were less likely to end up securitized into the mortgage-backed securities that have caused so many losses, according to a recent study by the law firm Traiger & Hinckley (PDF file here).
Finally, keep in mind that the Bush administration has been weakening CRA enforcement and the law’s reach since the day it took office. The CRA was at its strongest in the 1990s, under the Clinton administration, a period when subprime loans performed quite well. It was only after the Bush administration cut back on CRA enforcement that problems arose, a timing issue which should stop those blaming the law dead in their tracks. The Federal Reserve, too, did nothing but encourage the wild west of lending in recent years. It wasn’t until the middle of 2007 that the Fed decided it was time to crack down on abusive pratices in the subprime lending market. Oops.
Better targets for blame in government circles might be the 2000 law which ensured that credit default swaps would remain unregulated, the SEC’s puzzling 2004 decision to allow the largest brokerage firms to borrow upwards of 30 times their capital and that same agency’s failure to oversee those brokerage firms in subsequent years as many gorged on subprime debt. (Barry Ritholtz had an excellent and more comprehensive survey of how Washington contributed to the crisis in this week’s Barron’s.)
There’s plenty more good reading on the CRA and the subprime crisis out in the blogosphere. Ellen Seidman, who headed the Office of Thrift Supervision in the late 90s, has written several fact-filled posts about the CRA controversey, including one just last week. University of Oregon professor and economist Mark Thoma has also defended the CRA on his blog. I also learned something from a post back in April by Robert Gordon, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, which ends with this ditty:
It’s telling that, amid all the recent recriminations, even lenders have not fingered CRA. That’s because CRA didn’t bring about the reckless lending at the heart of the crisis. Just as sub-prime lending was exploding, CRA was losing force and relevance. And the worst offenders, the independent mortgage companies, were never subject to CRA — or any federal regulator. Law didn’t make them lend. The profit motive did. And that is not political correctness. It is correctness
- Laz
- 08-23-2011, 05:01 PM
This is a good example of how government intervention in a market can cause companies to make stupid decisions. The banks felt the government would back up these mortgages through fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As a result they ignored the rediculous underwriting on the loans. Businesses that make bad decisions should be allowed to fail. That way they know that they must make decisions that are good and no one will bail them out. If these overpaid execs and the stock holders loose maybe they will focus on making good decisions like thousands of banks that are financially sound around the US did.
- WTF
- 08-23-2011, 06:37 PM
This is a good example of how government intervention in a market can cause companies to make stupid decisions. The banks felt the government would back up these mortgages through fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As a result they ignored the rediculous underwriting on the loans. Businesses that make bad decisions should be allowed to fail. That way they know that they must make decisions that are good and no one will bail them out. If these overpaid execs and the stock holders loose maybe they will focus on making good decisions like thousands of banks that are financially sound around the US did. Originally Posted by LazIt sounds like you are arguing for laws where companies do not become to big to fail.
I would agree with you if that is the main jest of your point.
- waverunner234
- 08-23-2011, 08:17 PM
What about a law against PEOPLE who think they are too big to fail?
Oh my god that's funny, where would we go with Whirawayl? (Maybe relocate him to one of the nanny states in Europe?)
Oh my god that's funny, where would we go with Whirawayl? (Maybe relocate him to one of the nanny states in Europe?)