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The Mortgage Bubble Was The Democrat's Fault

Lending standards were " dramatically lowered " long before 2004 VERN...

Fenton, instead of your usual spamming of the thread with your random blurts of questionable veracity, please explain the connection to anything you've ever posted to the documented start of the Bush Mortgage Bubble. Don't flail at me. Don't flail at Bush's Working Group. Explain your "theory" and how it proves Bush's working group wrong.

the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets October 2008

The Presidents Working Group’s March policy statement acknowledged that 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.
 
ObamaCare promised everything and is now imploding.

150 million covered through employer-based insurance. They're not effected by the increases, but they do benefit from other elements of the legislation — pre-existing conditions, dependents on parents' plan until age 26, cost controls, free annual checkups, etc.

55 million covered by Medicare. All effects of the Act positive.

70 million covered by Medicaid, which would be more if not for some asshole GOP governors. Not affected by increases.

Eleven million covered through the exchanges, with about 85% receiving subsidies that will increase to match the premium increases.

That leaves about 1.65 million. These are the people Bill Clinton was referring to the other day. We need to address that issue. How will the GOP react? "Socialised medicine! Repeal and replace!"
 
You offer nothing to respond to. You link to an article, pick a thread title meant to anger people, and offer not one shred of your own commentary. You are an empty vessel.

You obviously wanted a response, and you got one. If you don't like getting insulted, then post something meaningful to respond to, for once.

You once accused me of being an anti-John poster and yet here you are going out of your way to make your only posts in the thread anti-MR posts when you could have simply avoided the thread altogether. I love the fact that you find me so much of a threat that you have to go out of your way to insult me. It shows everyone how little you have to offer. Same with MMI.
 
We should be sure to not leave out frankly, the largest culprits...the individual that jumped into high risk loans that they couldnt afford in the first damn place.
 
We should be sure to not leave out frankly, the largest culprits...the individual that jumped into high risk loans that they couldnt afford in the first damn place.

Further to add, the people who treated their houses like ATMs, and people who engaged in 'flipping' real estate speculation, and lastly, the NINJA Mortgage originators who injected the toxic mortgages into the system, as well as all those who passed it along without a word up the food chain.

Yeah, there's a lot of people involved here.
 
1. Regulating derivatives
2. The Fed's easy money policy
3. Regulating bond rating agencies

There were plenty of other problems but they either couldn't be prevented or would have been stopped/lessened with the aforementioned.


All 3 you list is very accurate but there needs to be a specific mention in what kind of derivatives as farming derivatives are heavily regulated. We shouldn't be regulating bond rating agencies but rather banning pay to play schemes they have.
 
you find me so much of a threat

Nah, no threat at all. Just an annoying BSer.

>>you have to go out of your way to insult me … Same with MMI.

You say you Ignore my posts, so how do you know what's in them? And I'll note that you've offered no comment at all on the topic of this thread. Why'd ya start it?
 
So OS, please enlighten us with your explanation of how "dramatically lower lending standards starting late 2004" is anybody but Bush's fault. Repeating "nuh uh, it was a bunch of stuff" over and over is not going to prove I'm the hyper partisan and buffoon.

Because "dramatically lower lending standards starting late 2004" was not the only problem.

As you point out the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999 was passed by a largely Republican 106th Congress and signed by Clinton. It is an important step in this discussion as it removed barriers and allowed the consolidation of commercial banks, investment banking, securities exchange firms, and insurance companies. On top of that the act made the mistake of not giving to the Securities and Exchange Commission the authority to regulate the results of those consolidations. Not long after that the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 was passed by a split controlled 107th Congress and also signed by Clinton. It is another important deregulation step as it "clarified" that most over the counter derivative transactions would not be regulated as futures under the Commodity Exchange Act of 1936 or regulated as "securities" under existing Federal Securities Laws investigated by the SEC. Instead unnamed federal regulators would "supervise" these derivatives against best business practice (that was also not very clearly specified.) Now, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 started its legislative life back in the Republican 106th Congress but ended up in a mess of back and forth before being picked back up by the split controlled 107th Congress. This is important as between all the back and forth what got placed into the final bill was a piece that removed certain swaps and derivatives from regulation by just about anyone. Energy swaps became known as the "Enron Loophole," and we know how that turned out. Financial swaps being removed from most regulation and oversight became the catalyst to see a jump the use and what became private market betting arenas.

While neither one of these Acts was the silver bullet, they are both critically important as to why the meltdown occurred. Just after both of these acts there was noticed uptick in how major organizations aligned themselves in the handling of debt, how debt was structured into investment vehicles from primarily housing debt but also automotive debt, and the use of certain derivatives alarmingly jumped in securities firms & major banks private betting markets. In 1998 we are talking about something in the $300 Billion range globally, to 2008 seeing the market somewhere in the $36 Trillion range globally (and that was down from the write off as institutions began to show troubles.)

Without either one of those acts there would not be the market capability by the major players involved to do what they did with all that risk leading up to 2008.

Those two pieces of legislation right there kills your theory that this was all Bush 43's fault and bad mortgages that only showed up post 2004.

And I did not even get into the political interests of influencing lending from our more left leaning friends even though you rather foolishly blame our right leaning friends, Bush 43, for their influence into lending standards. But I'll give you a hint, the whole idea of subprime and lending institutions dumping bad debt into risky investment vehicles did not magically show up in 2004. Those roots go back decades with a series of legislative efforts long before Gramm, or Leach, or Bliley ran around showing how little they were concerned with risk.
 
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Those two pieces of legislation right there kills your theory that this was all Bush 43's fault and bad mortgages that only showed up post 2004.

Sorry OS, posting what you learned at Wikipedia only kills your “expertise” claim. I do have to chuckle that you think your history lesson on the repeal of Glass Steagall proves anything. What Wikipedia didn’t tell you is that Glass Stegall existed in name only and had nothing to do with mortgages. And here’s the best part, it actually helped mitigate the Bush Financial Crisis. Yep, that’s right, when two investment banks collapsed, banks with money were able to buy them up and mitigate the fallout. I just cant believe that you didn’t come across any of this during your “research”.

Speaking of investment banks collapsing, in all your “research “ did you ever come across Bush reducing the capital requirements of investment banks? In 2004 (there’s that year again) Bush allowed investment banks to increase their leverage and that newfound borrowed money went into the mortgage market. That helped fuel demand for mortgages. Now if Bush hadn’t preempted all state laws against predatory lending and Bush’s regulators did their job instead of encouraging the banks, the investment banks wouldn’t have been buying toxic mortgages with borrowed money. But they did. Yet another Bush policy that helped create the Bush Mortgage Bubble and made the Bush Financial Crisis worse. Again, no bad mortgages, no Bush Mortgage Bubble, no Bush Financial Crisis. It really is that simple.

Again OS, I’m not looking for you to post “nuh uh, it was a bunch of stuff” with a lot of words. I’m asking you to explain the connection to the documented timeframe and cause of the Bush Mortgage Bubble : “dramatically lower lending standards starting late 2004”. So far you haven’t. Hey I’ll make this easy for you. See this bubble. That's what a bubble looks like. That’s exactly what you get when you flood the mortgage market with borrowed money and unqualified buyers. “something something Glass Stegall” doesn’t explain it.Nevada.jpg
 
Sorry OS, posting what you learned at Wikipedia only kills your “expertise” claim. I do have to chuckle that you think your history lesson on the repeal of Glass Steagall proves anything. What Wikipedia didn’t tell you is that Glass Stegall existed in name only and had nothing to do with mortgages. And here’s the best part, it actually helped mitigate the Bush Financial Crisis. Yep, that’s right, when two investment banks collapsed, banks with money were able to buy them up and mitigate the fallout. I just cant believe that you didn’t come across any of this during your “research”.

Speaking of investment banks collapsing, in all your “research “ did you ever come across Bush reducing the capital requirements of investment banks? In 2004 (there’s that year again) Bush allowed investment banks to increase their leverage and that newfound borrowed money went into the mortgage market. That helped fuel demand for mortgages. Now if Bush hadn’t preempted all state laws against predatory lending and Bush’s regulators did their job instead of encouraging the banks, the investment banks wouldn’t have been buying toxic mortgages with borrowed money. But they did. Yet another Bush policy that helped create the Bush Mortgage Bubble and made the Bush Financial Crisis worse. Again, no bad mortgages, no Bush Mortgage Bubble, no Bush Financial Crisis. It really is that simple.

Again OS, I’m not looking for you to post “nuh uh, it was a bunch of stuff” with a lot of words. I’m asking you to explain the connection to the documented timeframe and cause of the Bush Mortgage Bubble : “dramatically lower lending standards starting late 2004”. So far you haven’t. Hey I’ll make this easy for you. See this bubble. That's what a bubble looks like. That’s exactly what you get when you flood the mortgage market with borrowed money and unqualified buyers. “something something Glass Stegall” doesn’t explain it.View attachment 67209109

You missed the point... predictably, entirely, and right along partisan lines. And I get it, all hands on deck to blame Bush 43 and absolve everyone else by cherry picking stats.

There would have been little reason for conditions between 2004 and 2008 without the passing of Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999 and Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. All of the actions during the Bush 43 administration (and associated Congresses) would not have been asked for without these prerequisites. And you are also totally ignoring interest rate controls by the Fed at the time. And you are also totally ignoring that turning risk into investment predates all of this going back to the original passing of Community Reinvestment Act (and all of the changes to it leading right up to the collapse.)

To correct your logic, no Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999 and no Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000... no "Bush housing bubble." But worse, you are making the terrible assumption that post all of these changes that the collapse would have never occurred if Bush 43 did not do what he did. All you proved is Bush 43 accelerate when the crash would happen.

But that is okay, go back to partisan foolishness if you must. The rest of us realized a long way back there is plenty of blame to go around.
 
no Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999 and no Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000... no "Bush housing bubble."

This strikes me as questionable logic. Are the Wright brothers responsible for plane crashes? For the firebombing deaths in Dresden 1945?
 
This strikes me as questionable logic. Are the Wright brothers responsible for plane crashes? For the firebombing deaths in Dresden 1945?

The argument has been made that Bush did not stop predatory lending and was the sole cause of the crash, my argument is predatory lending would not have looked for protection in the first place without prerequisites. Set by the market, influenced by economic and monetary policy, and of course influenced by conditions. Some of those prerequisites were the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. If neither one was passed there would still have been regulation on financial organization separations and the regulation on swaps and derivatives in use. The fuel for predatory lending was offloading that risk into investments.

Usually, when someone wants to put forth the argument that there are no prerequisites to the time frame of 2004 to 2008 the real effort is to engage in hyper-partisanship.
 
The argument has been made that Bush did not stop predatory lending and was the sole cause of the crash

Sole cause? I dunno about that. I'd say he didn't do enough.

>>my argument is predatory lending would not have looked for protection in the first place without prerequisites.

And planes wouldn't crash if they hadn't been invented.
 
Sole cause? I dunno about that. I'd say he didn't do enough.

>>my argument is predatory lending would not have looked for protection in the first place without prerequisites.

And planes wouldn't crash if they hadn't been invented.

Failed analogy, there is no reason to assume that one source influence did everything for a nation's economic conditions and all prior actions had no impact.

Why are you harping on that as if the economics of a nation boils down to single actions?
 
there is no reason to assume that one source influence did everything for a nation's economic conditions and all prior actions had no impact.

I agree.

>>Why are you harping on that as if the economics of a nation boils down to single actions?

I'm not. Yer simply saying that I am.
 
Just when you thought the debate was settling down on this... :doh

Anyway, it would be foolish of us all to say the Mortgage Bubble or Financial Collapse was the exclusive fault of Republicans, or Democrats, or CRM, or Deregulation, or any other single factor. It was a perfect storm of many faults, caused by many people with 'D and 'R behind their name, for all sorts of nonsensical reasons, and across a very long period of time. To suggest that it is all or nothing on either party or some piece of legislation is hyper-partisan buffoonery.

I am probably well north of 50 books, studies, and detailed analysis pieces of all the implications of all the elements that lead up to the crash and it is beyond obvious that there is no single silver bullet we can recover and say that is the one that killed it all.

Exactly. Reps. setting the precedent of interest rates that were far too low which encouraged excessive borrowing. Dems. who passed back-door laws that pushed banks in to making high risk loans. The banks which went ahead made the loans, knowing full well that the gov't would take the hit when they defaulted. Just to name a few...
 
You missed the point... predictably, entirely, and right along partisan lines. And I get it, all hands on deck to blame Bush 43 and absolve everyone else by cherry picking stats.
OS, you are simply "listing" things that are convenient to your narrative. You've not explained how anything you've posted is relevant to the Bush Mortgage Bubble. I posted Bush’s Working Group telling you it started late 2004 because of dramatically lower lending standards. But the good news is I understand your confusion, you don't know what the mortgage bubble was. It was unqualified buyers bidding on and buying houses they could not afford. When they started quickly defaulting it caused a panic that caused a credit crunch. That caused the Bush Recession. Nothing on your "list" explains unqualified buyers buying homes they couldn't afford. Nothing. Bush’s preemption of all state laws against predatory lending and Bush’s regulation does explain it. And fyi OS, me posting the data of exactly what a bubble looks like is not cherry picking. Its me backing up my point. "wah wah cherry picking" is the oldest conservative dodge there is. It allows you to ignore the facts I’ve posted as you accuse me of ignoring what you posted.

And good job mentioning the CRA. Do you get double “con points” for that?
But that is okay, go back to partisan foolishness if you must.
Sorry OS, until you can explain how anything you "listed" led to unqualified buyers to bid on and buy homes they couldn't afford you should ease up on calling anything “partisan foolishness” comments.
 
OS, you are simply "listing" things that are convenient to your narrative. You've not explained how anything you've posted is relevant to the Bush Mortgage Bubble. I posted Bush’s Working Group telling you it started late 2004 because of dramatically lower lending standards. But the good news is I understand your confusion, you don't know what the mortgage bubble was. It was unqualified buyers bidding on and buying houses they could not afford. When they started quickly defaulting it caused a panic that caused a credit crunch. That caused the Bush Recession. Nothing on your "list" explains unqualified buyers buying homes they couldn't afford. Nothing. Bush’s preemption of all state laws against predatory lending and Bush’s regulation does explain it. And fyi OS, me posting the data of exactly what a bubble looks like is not cherry picking. Its me backing up my point. "wah wah cherry picking" is the oldest conservative dodge there is. It allows you to ignore the facts I’ve posted as you accuse me of ignoring what you posted.

And good job mentioning the CRA. Do you get double “con points” for that?

Sorry OS, until you can explain how anything you "listed" led to unqualified buyers to bid on and buy homes they couldn't afford you should ease up on calling anything “partisan foolishness” comments.

I'm not a conservative. Just because you want to place all blame for the financial meltdown on Bush 43, and I see it applied to many over a much longer period, does not mean I am going for "con points" either.

The only thing that stats tells us is the meltdown happened sooner because of Bush 43's actions, what it does not do is remove all other prior action going back years setting the stage for that activity. You can pretend it does all you would like, but it is absent economic reality.
 
I'm not a conservative. Just because you want to place all blame for the financial meltdown on Bush 43, and I see it applied to many over a much longer period, does not mean I am going for "con points" either.

The only thing that stats tells us is the meltdown happened sooner because of Bush 43's actions, what it does not do is remove all other prior action going back years setting the stage for that activity. You can pretend it does all you would like, but it is absent economic reality.

again, you simply repeat an empty factless narrative that you cant even explain. You clinging to your narrative does not make me a hyper partisan and buffoon. Believe whatever you want but your beliefs are no reflection on me. I can make a clear straight forward point and back it up. After all, this is a debate forum.
 
The argument has been made that Bush did not stop predatory lending and was the sole cause of the crash, my argument is predatory lending would not have looked for protection in the first place without prerequisites.
OS, I realize you’ve long since cut and run from repeating your vague and empty rhetoric over and over but I didn’t see this “boo boo” earlier. No one has made a case that “Bush didn’t stop predatory lending”. I made the case that not only did Bush allow predatory lending but he encouraged it. See how you had to “misparaphrase” that to continue to post.

Usually, when someone wants to put forth the argument that there are no prerequisites to the time frame of 2004 to 2008 the real effort is to engage in hyper-partisanship.
As stated numerous times, you can point to “prerequisites” over and over (and you do) but you’ve yet to explain how any of the “prerequisites” led to “dramatically lower lending standards in late 2004” and how they allowed unqualified buyers to bid on and buy homes they could not afford.
 
OS, I realize you’ve long since cut and run from repeating your vague and empty rhetoric over and over but I didn’t see this “boo boo” earlier. No one has made a case that “Bush didn’t stop predatory lending”. I made the case that not only did Bush allow predatory lending but he encouraged it. See how you had to “misparaphrase” that to continue to post.

As stated numerous times, you can point to “prerequisites” over and over (and you do) but you’ve yet to explain how any of the “prerequisites” led to “dramatically lower lending standards in late 2004” and how they allowed unqualified buyers to bid on and buy homes they could not afford.

I never suggested Bush 43 did not have any responsibility, what I said was he was not the only one responsible. It is my fault that you are stuck blaming one person for the financial meltdown.
 
I never suggested Bush 43 did not have any responsibility, what I said was he was not the only one responsible. It is my fault that you are stuck blaming one person for the financial meltdown.

OS, I think you hit reply by mistake because you're not replying to my post. in my post I was correcting your "misparaphrasing" of Bush not only allowing predatory lending but also encouraging it. You "misparaphrased" it as "bush didn't stop predatory lending". and since I've never posted you hold Bush blameless you clearly hit reply by mistake. But since you're here, maybe you could explain how any of your "prerequisites” led to dramatically lower lending standards in late 2004. you don't have to repeat them again. Just explain how they allowed unqualified buyers to bid on and buy homes they could not afford. Bush preempting all state laws against predatory lending and his regulators not only allowing it but encouraging it does explain how unqualified buyers could bid on and buy homes they could not afford.
 
Democrats Were Wrong on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac | Thomas Jefferson Street | US News

Everyone wants to blame the Republicans but the fault belongs to the Democrats. US News and World Report is not Fox News.
At the core, it was the Dem's fault, as they put the foundation for a huge unnatural boom and resulting natural collapse in place, but later the Reps didn't do anything to stop (or slow) the collapse when it should have been obvious what was about to happen. So, it's a shared responsibility.
 
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