Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Burning Down The House: What Caused The Mortgage Mess

Time for a refresh ... Both parties are at fault, both parties are playing the American people for suckers, while destroying our financial system. The comments by then Pres Clinton on the final video around the six menite mark are really important.





Fannie and Fredie need half a trillion more to be healthy ... So Obama gives them a blank check, while you were snoozing.
The Treasury announced Thursday it was removing the caps that limited the amount of available capital to the companies to $200 billion each.
Unlimited access to bailout funds through 2012 was "necessary for preserving the continued strength and stability of the mortgage market," the Treasury said. Fannie and Freddie purchase or guarantee most U.S. home mortgages and have run up huge losses stemming from the worst wave of defaults since the 1930s.
"The timing of this executive order giving Fannie and Freddie a blank check is no coincidence," said Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee. He said the Christmas Eve announcement was designed "to prevent the general public from taking note."

And then what happened, how the financial world got stuffed with government backed useless paper. Wall street people tried to unload the crap:

All roads to this crash of the financial system lead through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ...








This all started in the Carter years with the CRA for primarily low income home buyers -- Otherwise known as unqualified buyers. 1977's Community Reinvestment Act(CRA) which required banks and savings institutions to make loans to the lower-income areas in the communities they served. Read that as unqualified buyers, that was the goal, give loans to those who could not afford to repay, it was only fair, don't you know.

Then in the 1990s, the Clinton and Democrat obsession with doing away with the nonexistent process of 'redlining' continued. The sub-prime loans were bundled and shipped off to Fannie and Freddie and others to use as collateral to back up requirements for capital at those institutions.

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
, is the nation's largest community organization of low and moderate income families -- ACORN, who was pushing this practice on all fronts, was street agitator Obama's employer -- Obama was one of the lawyers who represented ACORN in forcing more sub-prime loans. The threats to banks and others who wouldn't take the sub-prime loans on continued. All was fine since FANNIE and FREDDIE were backing up the paper.

In 1999 -- An agreement between the Clinton administration and congressional Republicans, sets the stage for passage of the most sweeping banking deregulation bill in American history, lifting virtually all restraints on the operation of the financial system. The result was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999.

The certain result of repeal of most of the remaining restrictions of Glass-Steagall it was thought there would be a wave of new money pumped into the unqualified buyer home market -- Most saw this as an area of expansion of market. The Wall Street Journal wrote, "With the stroke of the president's pen, investment firms like Merrill Lynch & Co. and banks like Bank of America Corp., are expected to be on the prowl for acquisitions." The financial press predicted that the most likely mergers would come from big banks acquiring insurance brokerage companies, with John Hancock, Prudential and The Hartford all expected to be targeted.
Short history of the Glass-Steagal Act up until it's repeal in 1999. It took $100s of millions in lobbyist payoffs to Congress people before Glass-Steagall was finally repealed.
Then came the American Dream Down payment Initiative(ADDI - 2003), which essentially made loan qualification, credit checks and other standard procedures when lending money for home mortgages, a form of discrimination. It was then off to the races, the rest as they say is history.

Bush tried to reinstate regulations and increase real capital margins in 2003 and McCain tried in 2005 to blow the whistle on this 'ponsie scheme' of home mortgages, but both attempts were blocked by Sen Dodd and Rep Barney Frank banking committee chairs in the respective Houses. In 2008, there were 18 additional instances of President Bush trying to call attention to the looming crisis before the financial system went off the rails -- But it was too late.

In the end it was all about massive liberal social engineering, the massive desire to get rid of financial controls which prevented home loans to unqualified people -- People that would have no chance of paying the loans back. Yep, illegals as well, bought sub-prime mortgage houses, most of which have hightailed it back over the border.

Well it has all came crashing down. And Obama is making it worse with each passing day.





And now over a trillion will have been poured down the Democrat pit ...

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