New study confirms economy was destroyed by Democrat policies

[zulater]

http://www.examiner.com/article/new-...ocrat-policies

A new study from the widely respected National Bureau of Economic Research released this week has confirmed beyond question that the left's race-baiting attacks on the housing market (the Community Reinvestment Act--enacted under Carter, made shockingly more aggressive under Clinton) is directly responsible for imploding the housing market and destroying the economy.

The study painstakingly sorted through failed home loans that caused the housing market collapse and identified an overwhelming connection between them and CRA mortgages.

Again, let's review:

-President Bush went to Congress repeatedly for years warning them that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were going to destroy the economy (17 times in 2008 alone). Democrats continuously ignored him, shut down his proposals along party lines and continued raiding the institutions for campaign contributions on their way down.

-John McCain also co-sponsored urgently critical reforms that would have prevented the housing market collapse, but Democrats shut that down as well, along party lines, and even openly ridiculed anyone who suggested reforms were necessary...to protect their taxpayer-funded campaign contributions as the economy raced uncontrollably toward the cliff.

-No one was making bad loans to unqualified people until Democrats came along and threatened to drag banks into court and have them fined and branded as racists if they didn't go along with the left's Affirmative Action lending policies...all while federally insuring their losses. Even the New York Times warned in the late 1990s that Democrats continuing to force banks into lowering their standards would lead to this exact catastrophe.

-Obama himself is even on the record personally helping sue one lender (Citibank) into lowering its lending standards to include people from extremely poor and unstable areas, which even one of the left's favorite blatantly partisan "fact-checkers," Snopes, admits (while pretending to 'set the record straight').

-Even The New York Times admitted that there is "little evidence" of any connection between the "Republican" deregulation measures Obama blames, like the Gramm-Bleach-Liley Act (signed into law by a Democrat), and the collapse of the housing market.

But non-Fox media have spent years deliberately and relentlessly inoculating people against the facts, training them to mindlessly blame Bush for being in charge when Democrat policies destroyed the economy. So here we sit, to this day, still watching Obama excuse and shrug off endless economic failures, illegal government takeovers and utter national bankruptcy with zero accountability.

[Hindes204]

UMM...DUH

I've been saying the same thing for years...libs have a hard time with facts

[fansince'76]

Yep, generally not a good idea to force lenders to underwrite $300K home loans for people who make about $20K a year.

But it's still all Bush's fault!

[GBMelBlount]

This country is toast and capitalism will STILL be blamed and government seen as the savior.

Who is John Galt?

[Craic]

Do recognized that the article in the OP is quite the biased source, and makes claims that the study didn't really make, from what I can determine. With that said however, there's no doubt that CRA played a major role in the entire sub prime issue.

[SteelerEmpire]

It's the lack of morality that destroyed the economy. All of those bankers & wall streeters knew what they were getting into when "they" tanked the economy. They all knew the difference between right and wrong, but did wrong anyway. "Greed" did it...

[GBMelBlount]

It's the lack of morality that destroyed the economy. "Greed" did it...

Agreed. It is a shame the politicians were too busy lining their pockets to do the one thing they are supposed to do.

PROPERLY regulate business.

[Hindes204]

It's the lack of morality that destroyed the economy. All of those bankers & wall streeters knew what they were getting into when "they" tanked the economy. They all knew the difference between right and wrong, but did wrong anyway. "Greed" did it...

Greed played a role, yes, but not all of it

CRA regulations are at the core of Fannie's and Freddie's so-called affordable housing mission. In the early 1990s, a Democrat Congress gave HUD the authority to set and enforce (through fines) CRA-grade loan quotas at Fannie and Freddie.
It passed a law requiring the government-backed agencies to "assist insured depository institutions to meet their obligations under the (CRA)." The goal was to help banks meet lending quotas by buying their CRA loans.

Housing analysts say the CRA is the central thread running through the subprime scandal — from banks and subprime lenders to Fannie and Freddie to even Wall Street firms that took most of the heat for the crisis.

Banks that didn't meet Clinton's tough new numerical lending targets were denied merger plans, among other penalties. CRA shakedown groups like Acorn held hostage the merger plans of banks like Citibank and Washington Mutual until they pledged more loans to credit-poor minorities

[steeldawg]

Do recognized that the article in the OP is quite the biased source, and makes claims that the study didn't really make, from what I can determine. With that said however, there's no doubt that CRA played a major role in the entire sub prime issue.

This is true the actual study never made such a claim. It would be ridiculous to blame one party because there were many factors for the economy collapsing especially blaming cra as the sole reason which has been in effect since 77. Changes to cra were made many times over the years by dems and repubs, hell dems agreed to support gramm leach bliley act only if repubs strengthened the provisions in the CRA, which they did.

[GoSlash27]

Very certainly, the Democrats were responsible for creating the situation. *But* the Republicans share a large chunk of the blame.
Just like many other policies, the Republicans did not behave like conservatives, so there were no "good guys".
In a representative Democracy, the winning strategy is to 1) use the public funds to buy votes, 2) take credit for the bubble, and 3) blame the other guys when the resultant disaster comes a-knockin'.

[BnG_Hevn]

Greed (on part of lenders) + stupidity (on part of buyers) = mortgage crisis.

[GoSlash27]

Greed (on part of lenders) + stupidity (on part of buyers) = mortgage crisis.

Not that simple. If it was merely that, the lenders would not have fronted loans to people who they knew couldn't pay. The operative phrase here is "moral hazard".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard

[Craic]

This is true the actual study never made such a claim. It would be ridiculous to blame one party because there were many factors for the economy collapsing especially blaming cra as the sole reason which has been in effect since 77. Changes to cra were made many times over the years by dems and repubs, hell dems agreed to support gramm leach bliley act only if repubs strengthened the provisions in the CRA, which they did.

No, CRA was THE MAJOR reason for it. The entire reason the sub-prime market was even pushed, is because the CRA regulators that oversaw the banks virtually demanded that the banks make subprime loans. Either they did it, or got bad CRA reviews, which is dangerous for a bank.

So, in short, what we're seeing now is that the bank were told. "You WILL make these loans!" by the government. Then, when they couldn't be paid back, they were told, "How DARE you make these loans to these helpless people?"

Sorry, this one has the democrat hands all over it. They forced the CRA revisions under Clinton. Countrywide got involved (not CRA regulated), and Chris Dodd, Democrat Senator was intimately tied with them. The heads of the Freddie and Fannie were all Dem operatives who got raises and bonuses while everything was blowing apart. This was through and through a democrat screw up.

Does that mean the GOP doesn't share any of the blame? They definitely do. George Bush should have screamed the problem from the mountain tops. The only problem with that, is by doing so, the economy would have tanked sooner.