Who’s to blame for the current financial and mortgage industry meltdown?
President Bush saw the coming problem in 2003 and tried to address the problem but guess who stopped him?
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - New York Times
The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.
Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.
The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.
Here is what the DEMOCRATS said about reform of the Mortgage industry in 2003:
At the time, the companies and their allies beat back efforts for tougher oversight by the Treasury Department, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the Federal Reserve. Supporters of the companies said efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under those agencies might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower-income families. This year, however, the chances of passing legislation to tighten the oversight are better than in the past.
Al Hubbard and Noam Neusner - Where Was Sen. Dodd? - washingtonpost.com
Taxpayers face a tab of as much as $200 billion for a government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the formerly semi-autonomous mortgage finance clearinghouses. And Sen. Christopher Dodd, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has the gall to ask in a Bloomberg Television interview: “I have a lot of questions about where was the administration over the last eight years.”
—- clip —-
During this period, Sen. Richard Shelby led a small group of legislators favoring reform, including fellow Republican Sens. John Sununu, Chuck Hagel and Elizabeth Dole. Meanwhile, Dodd — who along with Democratic Sens. John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the top four recipients of Fannie and Freddie campaign contributions from 1988 to 2008 — actively opposed such measures and further weakened existing regulation.
OpenSecrets | Update: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Invest in Lawmakers - Capital Eye
On Sunday the government completely took over the two government-sponsored enterprises, and we’ve returned to our data to bring you the updates, this time providing a list of all 354 lawmakers who have gotten money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (in July we posted the top 25). These totals are based on data released electronically from the FEC on Sept. 2 and include contributions to lawmakers’ leadership PACs and candidate committees from the floundering companies’ PACs and employees.
Top 3 receipts of Fannie and Freddie money:
| Dodd, Christopher J |
S |
CT |
D |
$165,400 |
$48,500 |
$116,900 |
| Obama, Barack |
S |
IL |
D |
$126,349 |
$6,000 |
$120,349 |
| Kerry, John |
S |
MA |
D |
$111,000 |
$2,000 |
$109,000 |
The Real Cause of the Subprime Mess: Government Regulation « Freedom * Prosperity * Peace
No
one ever seems to mention legislation like the Community Reinvestment
Act (CRA) which made it mandatory for lenders to issue loans to
subprime borrowers. Tom DiLorenzo has written an excellent article on
the effects of the CRA here.
Some links and information to chew on from Free Republic.
The Goldilocks Economy Unmasked by Anne Williamson, An Imperial President’s Moneybags by Anne Williamson, Russian fundamentals, and Risky business ; by Anne Williamson, October 06 thru 09, 1998;Bad Breaks by ANN CRITTENDEN, November 18, 1992;
Soak the Rich, Not the Elderly by JIM SASSER,February 2, 1993;
New Momentum for the Race to Refinance by JONATHAN FUERBRINGER,February 25, 1993;
U.S. to Use Agents to Detect Mortgage Bias by JOHN H. CUSHMAN JR.,,May 6, 1993;
Banks’ Minority Loans Up,August 19, 1993;
Fannie Mae Seeks to Ease Home Buying by KEITH BRADSHER,, March 10, 1994;
Rebound in Interest Rates May Hinder the Recovery by LOUIS UCHITELLE, March 14, 1994;
FED AGAIN RAISES SHORT-TERM RATE ON LOANS, TO 3.75% by KEITH BRADSHER, April 19, 1994;
Home Loan Expansion, July 6, 1994;
Wider Attack on Loan Bias Seen in Accord With S.& L. by ROBERT D. HERSHEY JR.,, August 23, 1994;
Clinton Is Reported Set to Seek Revolution in Mortgage Agency by ROBERT PEAR, December 14, 1994;
Home Ownership At 15-Year High, July 23, 1996;
Slamming the Door by JASON DEPARLE, October 20, 1996;
Lawmaker Questions Plans Of Mortgage Enterprises, April 25, 1997;
Mortgage Rejections Stay Higher for Blacks, August 5, 1997;
Homebuyers Who Need Help, January 23, 1998;
U.S. May Sell Ginnie Mae to Raise Money, January 6, 1999;
At Event on King Day, a Mix Of Goals Met and Hoped For by JAMES BENNET, January 19, 1999;
Crunching a Few Numbers For Clintons’ Dream House by DON VAN NATTA JR., August 17, 1999;
Financial Engineering in the Clinton House Deal by ROBERT D. HERSHEY JR., September 4, 1999;
Essay; Clemency for Clintons by WILLIAM SAFIRE, September 13, 1999;
Giuliani Challenges Financial Arrangements of Clinton Mortgage by ADAM NAGOURNEY, September 18, 1999;
The Nation; Looking a Gift House in the Mouth by DON VAN NATTA JR., September 19, 1999;
Home Financing for the Clintons, September 28, 1999 ;
Clintons Obtain New Loan for House, Without Friend’s Help by DAVID STOUT, October 15, 1999;
THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: NEW MEXICO; Taking Aid and a Message to a Swing State by MICHAEL JANOFSKY, October 14, 2000;
Lenders Try to Fend Off Laws on Subprime Loans by RICHARD A. OPPEL JR. and PATRICK MCGEEHAN, April 4, 2001;
Top Regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to Depart by STEPHEN LABATON, April 6, 2005;
Playing the Housing Blame Game by DAVID LEONHARDT, April 2, 2008;
Hot Air hit on this a few days ago.
And yet with all this history staring the left right in the face the morons still blame Bush even though they were warned.
Investor’s Business Daily — Congress Lies Low To Avoid Bailout Blame
To
hear today’s Democrats, you’d think all this started in the last couple
years. But the crisis began much earlier. The Carter-era Community
Reinvestment Act forced banks to lend to uncreditworthy borrowers,
mostly in minority areas.
Age-old standards of banking prudence
got thrown out the window. In their place came harsh new regulations
requiring banks not only to lend to uncreditworthy borrowers, but to do
so on the basis of race.
These well-intended rules were
supercharged in the early 1990s by President Clinton. Despite warnings
from GOP members of Congress in 1992, Clinton pushed extensive changes
to the rules requiring lenders to make questionable loans.
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