Did you know?

[GreyGeek]

Here is a video which describes who and how the house bubble collapse was created. Obama said "the original idea was to spread the risk of giving housing loans to low income people by spreading it across the financial sector". He did the same thing with the health insurance industry with ObamaCare.

And how the Democrats caused it but still blame the Republicans, who tried to warn about the pending collapse

[NickStone]

Well I think we all know which side of the political spectrum your on. It's all very well blaming Obama and the Democrats for the 2008 financial crash but at the end of the day it was the banks that learnt the money to people who would struggle to repay it back and it was the banks that failed to check the financial background of the people applying for mortgages and other loans. To cover the banks tracks they then sold the bad debt to other banks around the world.

It is the financial industry that caused the problem due to greed on their part.

[oshunluvr]

...and last time I checked, most bankers are Republican.

[MoonRise]

Let's be honest here. They are all guilty. They are all to blame.

[GreyGeek]

Well I think we all know which side of the political spectrum your on. It's all very well blaming Obama and the Democrats for the 2008 financial crash but at the end of the day it was the banks that learnt the money to people who would struggle to repay it back and it was the banks that failed to check the financial background of the people applying for mortgages and other loans. To cover the banks tracks they then sold the bad debt to other banks around the world.

It is the financial industry that caused the problem due to greed on their part.

Ya, I'm conservative. Your point?

Your scenario, which is commonly repeated in Socialist echo chambers, leaves out a few very important details: The banks were NOT making NIJA loans (No Income, No Job, No Assets) because it was unsound financially, but ACORN called it discrimination and protested against that bank policy in Chicago, even picketing bank employees homes and threatening family members, who gave in out of fear of personal injury. ACORN, with Obama's help as a civil rights lawyer, took their protest to Washington. At about the same time NY AG Andrew Cumo sued NY banks for discrimination because they did not make NIJA loans and fined them over $1 Billion. The political pressure for banks to give loans to folks who couldn't afford them ended in the Community Restoration Act, which Carter signed but it didn't have any enforcement teeth until Clinton signed an E.O. which required that any banks which didn't make NIJA loans couldn't do business with the government. That still didn't do it because when, not IF, the loans would fail the banks would be on the hook for the losses. What made the CRA effective was Clinton making Freddie Mac and Fannie May financially responsible for backing the risky loans. That took the risk off of the bankers and put it onto the American tax payers. THEN the bankers and Wall street went hog wild, with the blessing of the Democrats, who beat down two attempts by Republicans in the early 2000's to reign in the risky loans, calling the attempts racism. IF you had watched the video clips of CSPAN coverage you would have heard and seen with your eyes and ears those committee meetings where the Democrats beat down all attempts to prevent the bubble and its collapse. After the collapse the Left has been busy echoing the mantra that it was the Right which caused the bubble collapse.

An MIT mathematician worked out a formula which shuffled class A financial documents with the toxic NIJA loan stuff so that the risk was spread out all over the entire stock market. Most of it was sold over seas to foreign governments, localities and not so sophisticated brokers, making walls street brokers the culprits as well. The rest is history.

Actually, it all was one big attempt at redistributing the wealth, dialectical materialism. Exactly what Obama's "affordable" health care was doing, which is why the health insurance industry is in such a mess right now.

In the 1968 two sociologists, Cloward & Piven thought of a plan for force the US government into Socialist welfare state by flooding the welfare system:

that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a national system of "a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty

New York City tried it in the early 1970's and on Oct 17, 1975 was filing bankruptcy papers when NY State agreed to bail them out after the Feds refused to do so. New York City’s finances were under stress as the city tried to maintain its extensive local welfare state, despite the pressures of the recession of the early 1970s and the underlying economic problems it faced of industrial decline and middle-class flight. The open borders created by Obama's refusal to enforce immigration laws, and his willful interference with border patrol agencies, and ICE, has led to a flood of illegal aliens. The Mexican government even published pamplets and gave them to its poor, encouraging them to leave Mexico and go to the US, but sending back money, of course. Meanwhile, Mexico enforces their southern borders and guards the train loads of people riding through toward the USA. Obama's border policy is just another version of the Cloward & Piven plan.

For the first time in history the election this November gives the American people a clear choice as to the direction the country will take. The Democrats are offering two pure socialists as candidates for President. Bernie is honest about his political leanings, even frequently using the raised fist of the Communist Power Salute, while Hillary is sneaky about it. But they both agree on general principles. The Republicans are fighting against Trump, a pure capitalist, while aiding Cruz who, in early campaigning cast himself as an outsider to insider Washington politics, but when he ran up a string of loses he took their money and help, making a lie of what he claimed to be.

It doesn't matter who is elected. The outcome will be the same. The only question is how long it will take to get there. The outcome? See Venezuela.

[NickStone]

Ya, I'm conservative. Your point?

My point being is that Republicans (Conservatives) will always blame the Democrats (Socialists) for everything wrong with society and Democrats (Socialists) will always blame the Republicans. It's called politics.

At the end of the day, it was the banks who failed to carry out financial background checks on everyone who applied for loans / mortgages for the pursuit of profit.

[claydoh]

I snerked at Clinton being labeled a socialist then I rofl'd and lmfao'd

[vtpoet]

"Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee in February, University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr reported that only about 20 percent of subprime mortgages were issued by banks regulated by the CRA. The other 80 percent of predatory and high-interest subprime loans were offered by financial institutions not covered by the CRA and not subject to routine examination or supervision. “The worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight,” Barr told Congress."

And:

"ACORN’s homeownership counseling program for prospective borrowers was successful in helping families avoid taking out loans they could not afford. In 2006 the foreclosure rate of loans to borrowers who went through ACORN’s homeowner counseling program stood at .032 percent. "

So, in the world of GreyGeekLand, it was that .032 percent who was responsible for one of the largest financial collapses in world history. I mean, makes perfect sense right?

[whatthefunk]

I really dont understand Americans sometimes. Why is it always this extreme, or that extreme? Right or left? Brutal, completely unregulated capitalism, or the worst possible form of Communism? Its stupid. Smart countries take the best bits and pieces from all ways of thinking and incorporate them into their system. America is constantly fighting and pointing fingers and declaring that this will lead to the end of the world and that that will be the end of freedom as we know it and in the end, nothing happens but endless blame. America is screwed in my opinion.

[Qqmike]

@whatthefunk: My opinion, it is two things: (1) Greed (maybe a unique American style), and (2) Extreme misinterpretations of Christianity (impacting politics, sometimes as an excuse to preserve (1)).

Clear as mud.

[GreyGeek]

My point being is that Republicans (Conservatives) will always blame the Democrats (Socialists) for everything wrong with society and Democrats (Socialists) will always blame the Republicans. It's called politics.

Can't disagree with that! American politics have been that way since 1796, when political parties as we know them today first appeared. Before then it was "Administration" and "Opposition". Afterwards the Administration became know as Federalists and the opposition as Republicans. During the 20th Congress, in 1824, Republicans of both houses split, some calling themselves Jackson Republicans and the rest Adams Republicans. The Jackson Republicans became known as the Democratic Republicans and the Adams Republicans the National Republicans, part of whom were generally known as Whigs. Some of the Whigs supported slavery. Those that didn't were called "Conscience Whigs", which joined forces with so-called "Free" Democrats and even denizens of the nativist American (known colloquially as the "Know-Nothing") Party to sow the seeds of a new Major Party: now generally known as the Republicans. Meanwhile, other Whigs (primarily in the South) joined the Democrats to support slavery. Thus the two parties were born.

So, Nick, nothing new, except that political class doesn't engage in gun duels to settle differences or social slights any more. They rely on slander in the MNM. So, "Yellow" journalism is still in its prime.

At the end of the day, it was the banks who failed to carry out financial background checks on everyone who applied for loans / mortgages for the pursuit of profit.

You have it backwards. Before ACORN and the CRA the banks DID carry out financial checks. ACORN considered those financial checks discrimination against the poor, mainly Blacks, and protested them. After their success in Chicago, with the help of Obama, they moved to Washington D.C. and eventually got the Community Restoration Act law passed, but without teeth. There was nothing in the law which forced the banks to give NIJA loans to people who couldn't afford them. New York, on the other hand, sued the NY banks for over $1 Billion to force their banks to do that. The other banks around the country continued doing financial checks until Clinton created an Executive Order which said "no NIJA loans = no government business". Those that did business with the Federal government complied to keep that business. Those that didn't weren't covered by Clinton's E.O. It was when Clinton lured them with the promise that their unbacked housing loans would be backed up by Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae that the rest of the banks jumped in. They could give a house loan to someone who couldn't afford it without worrying about losing money if the borrower defaulted. Uncle Sam would pick up the tab. How nice. Now the problem was "how to you sell those risky negotiable financial instruments to people who know they are risky?" Simple, using complicated math you slice and dice them, mix them in with pieces of grade A instruments and sell the salad by concealing the fact that the salad is contaminated with salmonella. What if the banks refused to sell the salad stocks? They couldn't. When mixed in with good lettuce how could you detect the contaminated leaves? Remember, it was a housing boom. The newly minted home owners diminished the supply of available housing. Lack of supply drove the price up. Builder's began renovating junk homes worth $30K -$50K and selling them for $100K or more, creating a nice profit when the bank gave a loan to a NIJA borrower to buy the remodeled house. There were even competing cable TV shows about "flipping" houses, which glamorized the business. It wasn't banks alone making profits during that time.

Besides, profits is a pejorative only to socialist. In a capitalist society a business which cannot make a profit will go out of business unless the government funds them, and even then there is no guarantee that they will succeed (Solandra anyone?). It is the fiduciary responsibility of stock holders to be sure their board and corporation are financially solvent and profitable.

To answer your next question: How much profit is greed? The market should determine that. The biggest single failure in American politics was the creation of the "corporation". The idea that a company is a person, with the same rights. In practice it has been a dismal failure. Corporations have more rights than real individuals. To be more precise, corporations give inordinate amount of political power to owners and managers of giant corporations, who can buy access and votes with impunity. Rather than reverse that the SCOTUS has made it worse. Large companies and the abuse that arises from them was not new to our founding fathers. The Hudson Company was a classic example. Congress back then realized that and gave folks who want to create a large project, like digging the Erie canal, a Congressional bond, along with exclusive patent rights, for 20 years. When the bond expired so did that company. if they couldn't make their goals within 20 years too bad. Now, corporations are "diversified". They make anything and everything and eat up their competitors until they are alone in the field. For example, when satellite and cable TV first appeared in the 1980s there were over 50 national cable TV companies. Now there are five and they've divided up the country into territories and have colluded not to compete with each other, a blatant violation of the Clayton-Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The DOJ turns a blind eye.