Obama's speech

I wasn't able to stay awake during it. I don't think even he wanted to be there.

All he said about Bush was he was a good American and loved his country. No credit for the surge, no credit for the Status of Forces Agreement, no apology for belittling him for the last two years.

Yes, this is how Obama does bipartisanship. Blame the other guy for everything then take credit for the finish, which is a little premature. I think this may turn out to be Obama's "Mission Accomplished' moment.

Does anybody think that all fighting will suddenly end? Iran is drooling, I hope Israel has a nuke ready.

Other than that, his usual smooth delivery.

I agree with JELB87

quote:

Originally posted by b50m:
All he said about Bush was he was a good American and loved his country. No credit for the surge, no credit for the Status of Forces Agreement, no apology for belittling him for the last two years.

Yes, this is how Obama does bipartisanship. Blame the other guy for everything then take credit for the finish, which is a little premature. I think this may turn out to be Obama's "Mission Accomplished' moment.

Does anybody think that all fighting will suddenly end? Iran is drooling, I hope Israel has a nuke ready.

Other than that, his usual smooth delivery.

Where on earth were you during the 8 years of Bush, He nor his father done anything for this nation...They were a joke and now we all are paying for Bush's mistakes. It is known that he has gone down as a bad president...it will be in history books in time to come....

Do you watch anything besides MSNBC, CBS, or NBC?

Bush and his policies got the DOW to 14,000.

We were attacked on 9/11, or do you think Bush planned that.

The housing crash had its seeds in Carter and the CRA.

Clinton had 5 chances to take out UBL.

Now, tell me specifically how Bush was so bad.

CRA loans could not be subprime. I cant explain all that is wrong with that meme, again. i know Rush likes to bloviate that idea, but its not true.

Leverage and derivatives killed the economy and eliminated any economic gains created under BushII. Perhaps $10Trillion of wealth will have been eliminated in total.

On the whole, Bush created almost zero jobes, except for a few million fedgov jobs, he spent an increasing percentage of GDP every year even with a Conservative RepubTeaCon Congress.

And the USA has a long standing policy NOT to assassinate people, foreigners or not, no matter their crime. BushII could have took out Saddam Hinsane with a few tactical nukes and saved us a Trillion dollars.

quote:

Originally posted by b50m:
All he said about Bush was he was a good American and loved his country. No credit for the surge, no credit for the Status of Forces Agreement, no apology for belittling him for the last two years.

Yes, this is how Obama does bipartisanship. Blame the other guy for everything then take credit for the finish, which is a little premature. I think this may turn out to be Obama's "Mission Accomplished' moment.

Does anybody think that all fighting will suddenly end? Iran is drooling, I hope Israel has a nuke ready.

Other than that, his usual smooth delivery.

Your right, b50m, President Obama should have spent more time in the speech giving all the credit to President Bush. I remember all those speeches during the Bush years where the president talked endlessly about how much better off our country was economically under President Clinton (yeah right). President Bush just wouldn't quit talking about how low unemployment was during the Clinton years, how many jobs were created, and about that surplus President Clinton left him. I do wish Obama would remind people as Bush often did how much better off they are/were without him.

Who does that? No president. Your partisan rhetoric is what we could do without. Why can't Republicans salute a Democrat from time to time without taking partisan jabs? Why can't Democrats salute a Republican too? I'm just sick of all the bickering.

Do you watch anything other than FOX News?

quote:

Bush and his policies got the DOW to 14,000.

The DOW is a pretty weak measure of true economic prosperity, but since you want to use it we should consider this:

DOW closing the day Bush took office: 10,587
DOW closing the day Bush left office: 7,949

Bang up job there.

Well, if you put 9/11, two wars, a dot com bubble burst, and a housing crash in there, not too bad.

Tell me dole, compare the GDP under Bush to the GDP under Obama.

http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=6861

quote:

The latest numbers from the Depart of Commerce yesterday indicate that GDP growth is much lower than expected. The first three months pointed to a brisk year with annual growth rate of 3.7%. But the new data from the second quarter shows signs that the U.S. economy has ground to a halt. After the 2Q numbers the adjusted annual GDP growth now stands at 2.4%. A minimum of 3% is considered needed just to sustain job growth.
But in America, the Obama Administration continues to cling to discredited Keynesian economic theories. The Obama policy is to raise taxes and spend more. In 2009, Obama increased discretionary spending by 34% and overall Federal spending by 17%. This year the pace is still a brisk one with a 9% increase. Obama continues to expand the size of the Federal government while the private sector, and most state and municipal governments are shrinking.

While some point to increases in exports as a sign of recovery, they deliberately ignore the growth in imports, which is outpacing exports by more than three-to-one. Another key indicator in the slow down is the size of oil stockpiles. Demand for petroleum is still very low, which explains why oil and gasoline prices have remained stable this summer. But at the heart of it is a lack of demand due to a lack of need. The economy is slowing down so it requires less.

quote:

Well, if you put 9/11, two wars, a dot com bubble burst, and a housing crash in there, not too bad.

Other than the housing crash, those events all occured before the DOW passed 14,000. They're not relevant to the conversation. As for the housing crash, there's ample evidence that the Bush administration was asleep at the wheel, but those with a narrow world view can't see past Barney Frank. I've given up trying to convince them of what is plainly obvious.

quote:

Tell me dole, compare the GDP under Bush to the GDP under Obama.

I was talking about Bush, who was a terrible president. Obama is too, but I don't see how his inability to lead the country makes GWB any better.

BushII was supposed to be a conservative RepubTeaCon, just like those which will be elected in November. OBama is, and has always demonstrated himself to be a semi-socialist, liberal Democrat. I give OBama credit for being true to his beliefs.

quote:

Originally posted by JuanHunt:
.... a semi-socialist, liberal Democrat......

Is that like being "sorta" pregnant????

quote:

CRA loans could not be subprime. I cant explain all that is wrong with that meme, again. i know Rush likes to bloviate that idea, but its not true.

quote:

Gordon is incensed that a few "analysts," including myself and Professor Stan Liebowitz of the University of Dallas, have argued that the bursting of the housing bubble has caused the chickens to come home to roost, so to speak, after thirty years of government policy pressuring banks to make tens of billions of dollars in bad loans to people with low (or nonexistent) credit ratings. Neither Liebowitz nor I have argued that every last bad loan out there is a CRA loan, but Gordon implies that we do in a rather feeble attempt to construct a straw-man argument.

Gordon cites Fed bureaucrat Janet Yellen as the source of a "killer statistic" that absolves the government of all guilt: "Independent mortgage companies" which are not covered by the CRA made many more "high-priced loans" to borrowers with bad credit than did CRA-regulated banks, she says. Well, so what? Even if Yellen is correct, that does not mean that CRA-regulated loans have not caused tens of billions of dollars in defaults.

Moreover, Yellen and Gordon don't seem to understand what an "independent mortgage company" is. Many of these companies are like the one in which my next-door neighbor is employed: they are middlemen who arrange mortgage loans for borrowers — including "subprime" borrowers — with banks, including CRA-regulated banks. Some killer statistic.

By ignoring the role of the Fed in creating the whole housing-market mess, Gordon's pronouncement that it is entirely a result of "market failure" is laughable on its face. He also flatly denies that CRA lending has had anything to do with why so many uncreditworthy borrowers have defaulted now that the Fed-generated housing bubble has burst. This, too, is an untenable position.

When the CRA was created during the Carter administration, the administration also funded with tax dollars numerous "community groups" that have helped the Fed, the Comptroller of the Currency, and other federal regulatory agencies to enforce the act. Under the CRA, if a bank wants to make virtually any change in its business operations — merging, opening up a new branch, getting into a new line of business — it must first prove to regulators that it has made "enough" loans to the government's preferred borrowers. The (partially) tax-funded "community groups" like ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) can file petitions with regulators that stop the bank's activities in their tracks, perhaps defeating them altogether. The banks routinely buy off ACORN and other "community groups" by giving them millions of dollars as well as promising to make even more dubious loans.

http://mises.org/daily/2963

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Leverage and derivatives killed the economy and eliminated any economic gains created under BushII. Perhaps $10Trillion of wealth will have been eliminated in total.

As for some of those "killer" derivatives, the corporation of a boyfriend of Barney Frank might also have helped. From the above Mises link:

quote:

In order to try to diversify the risk of these loans, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Company ("Freddie Mac") pioneered the "securitization" of bundles of these high-risk loans so that they could be sold on secondary markets. Such "securitization" exploded during the 1990s as a result of government regulation. As Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke himself stated in a March 30, 2007 speech entitled "The Community Reinvestment Act: Its Evolution and New Challenges" (published online by the Fed),
http://www.federalreserve.gov/...ernanke20070330a.htm

Securitization of affordable housing loans expanded, as did the secondary market for these loans, in part reflecting a 1992 law that required the government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to devote a large percentage of their activities to meeting affordable housing goals. (p. 3)

How else can I say it??? For a loan to be part of a banks CRA compliance, it cannot be subprime. An independant broker might originate a CRA loan, but it will not be a subprime loan.
While one can argue about the precise timing of the start of what ultimately became the sub-prime bubble, as late as 2001, 24 years after CRA was enacted, only about 9.7 percent of mortgage originations (about $200 billion) were sub-prime or Alt-A loans (Alt-A loans have weak or no documentation of income or credit records, and also not CRA eligible); by 2006, sub-prime and Alt-A loans were 33.5 percent of loans made and had quintupled to $1 trillion.

In 2006, the height of the sub-prime boom, almost two-thirds of the high-cost loans made were for purposes other than the purchase of a home by an owner-occupant -- they were mostly refinancings to extract equity. But even this overstates the case against homeownership. As the Center for Responsible Lending has demonstrated, between 1998 and 2006, only about 9 percent of sub-prime loans went to first-time homebuyers.

quote:

DOW closing the day Bush took office: 10,587
DOW closing the day Bush left office: 7,949

Here is what you left out.

DOW closing the day Dems took control of Congress.

quote:

Originally posted by Jelb87:
RE: http://www.timesdaily.com/arti...00831/APW/1008310581

I thought the speech was very classy. I liked the bipartisan tone, especially the nice salute he gave to President Bush. We need more of this type of rhetoric in Washington rather than the partisan, extremist rhetoric that we've come to expect.

Were we listening to the same speech? I thought it was a typical Obama speech. It sucked.

Me too. I opted for reruns of Meerkat Manor. The meerkats had the same look on their faces, but at least they were not saying anything such as advocating for more redistribution of wealth, apologizing for past actions in our country, or calling for more taxes on the rich. I love those meerkats.......

quote:

How else can I say it??? For a loan to be part of a banks CRA compliance, it cannot be subprime. An independant broker might originate a CRA loan, but it will not be a subprime loan.
While one can argue about the precise timing of the start of what ultimately became the sub-prime bubble, as late as 2001, 24 years after CRA was enacted, only about 9.7 percent of mortgage originations (about $200 billion) were sub-prime or Alt-A loans (Alt-A loans have weak or no documentation of income or credit records, and also not CRA eligible); by 2006, sub-prime and Alt-A loans were 33.5 percent of loans made and had quintupled to $1 trillion.

You might need to tell the Federal Reserve that there is no such thing as a subprime CRA loan. I guess they are as stupid as I am.

quote:

Second, we asked how CRA-related subprime loans performed relative to other loans. Once again, the potential role of the CRA could be large or small, depending on the answer to this question. We found that delinquency rates were high in all neighborhood income groups, and that CRA-related subprime loans performed in a comparable manner to other subprime loans; as such, differences in performance between CRA-related subprime lending and other subprime lending cannot lie at the root of recent market turmoil.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/...roszner20081203a.htm

Again as the article from the Mises Daily points out, many of the originators of those bad loans might not have had CRA connections, the banks and GSE's who bought them did. Also community organizations like ACORN used their muscle to extort large banks into making bad loans and paying extortion money by invoking the CRA.

Do you watch anything other than FOX News?

Yes, I do, but I usually skip TV all together and got to the net.

quote:

Second, we asked how CRA-related subprime loans performed relative to other loans.

I guess the Fed reserve lies.

http://www.the-privateer.com/chart/dow-long.html

A nice breakdown of the DOW from 1974 to present.

quote:

Originally posted by b50m:

quote:

Second, we asked how CRA-related subprime loans performed relative to other loans.

I guess the Fed reserve lies.

You're right, its Carters fault. If only there had been a conservative POTUS since Carter that could have rescind the CRA. Darn the luck.

And your link negates the argument that CRA-related subprime(whatever that is) loans were related to the collapse of the real estate market.

My link goes to the DOW.

quote:

My link goes to the DOW.

I think he meant to respond to my posts. It would help if he would read the article from the Mises Institute and note this paragraph from the report:

quote:

In his April 26 New York Post article on the CRA entitled "The Real Scandal," Professor Liebowitz explains how the government's Fannie Mae Foundation singled out one bank in particular as the role model for all other banks in America in terms of its commitment to CRA lending: Countrywide, the nation's largest mortgage lender, had committed to $600 billion in low-income or "subprime" loans as of 2003. Today, Countrywide is essentially bankrupted and has been merged with Bank of America.

The problem of guv'ment agencies doing studies upon themselves is that they can manipulate the results of the studies by limiting the size of the data sources and the scope of those studies. By only including the originators of loans and not the buyer of those loans who might use them to meet CRA criteria they underestimate the impact of the CRA on creating this recession. As a final note, no one is absolving medium-to-higher income people for living beyond their means. It is possible, perhaps probable, that they used the relaxed lending standards created by the banking "reforms" of the 90's that were instituted to get lower income families into homes they could not afford even more than the lower income borrowers.

The CRA only applies to FDIC member banks and thrifts, so Countrywide has no CRA obligations. And to give Ronnie P a life:

Two key points emerge from all of our analysis of the available data. First, only a small portion of subprime mortgage originations are related to the CRA. Second, CRA- related loans appear to perform comparably to other types of subprime loans. Taken together, as I stated earlier, we believe that the available evidence runs counter to the contention that the CRA contributed in any substantive way to the current mortgage crisis.

taken from your link, which absolves CRA of blame. Go find new links.

quote:

More concretely, there are three very specific ways in which the CRA nudged Countrywide and other mortgage companies to adopt lax lending standards.

1. The Creation Of Artificial Demand For Low-Income Mortgages. Banks that were regulated by the CRA often found it difficult to meet their obligations under the CRA directly. Long standing lending practices by local loan officers were a big problem. But as banks expanded their deposit bases and other businesses, they often found that they were at risk of regulators discovering they had fallen behind in making CRA loans.

One way of addressing this problem was buying the loans in the secondary market. Mortgage companies like Countrywide began to serve this entirely artificial demand for CRA loans. Countrywide marketed its loans directly to banks as a way for them to meet CRA obligations. "The result of these efforts is an enormous pipeline of mortgages to low- and moderate-income buyers. With this pipeline, Countrywide Securities Corporation (CSC) can potentially help you meet your Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) goals by offering both whole loan and mortgage-backed securities that are eligible for CRA credit,” a Countrywide advertisement on its website read.

2. The Threat Of Regulation Is Often As Good As Regulation. It is highly misleading to claim that just because mortgage companies were not technically under the CRA that they were not required by regulators to meet similar tests. In fact, regulators threatened that if the mortgage companies didn’t step up to the plate by relaxing lending standards they would be brought under the CRA umbrella and required to do so.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com...2009-6#ixzz0yNuleFKn

To believe a guv'ment report of an agency whose only reason for creating said report is to cover its buttocks is like believing in the Tooth Faerie or allowing the accountant who cooked-the-books to audit himself. When one can selectively choose to limit the data sources one can always get the result one desires. Again, put down the comic book and read the Mises article.

I can't speak for Ronnie P., but I suspect he would hope you could find a few links on growing a brain.

Your source is a blogger making accusations without any verifiable evidence. So, yes I will accept the opinion of a Fed official in preference to an anonymous blogger. I know you want to believe the CRA meme, with or without evidence, because you "just know" that the fedgov must be responsible.

Securitization of MBS caused the bubble. The origination of bad loans by the 400 mortgage brokers that are now bankrupt and gone was most of the problem. The rating of the MBS as AAA by the ratings companies made it all possible. The impact of CRA was negligible.

It is always reassuring when the opposition resorts to calling me stupid, it lets me know I'm on the right track.

http://www.city-journal.org/ht...trillion_dollar.html
The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities Winter 2000
Howard Husock


The Clinton administration has turned the Community Reinvestment Act, a once-obscure and lightly enforced banking regulation law, into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities—and, as Senate Banking Committee chairman Phil Gramm memorably put it, a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks. Under its provisions, U.S. banks have committed nearly $1 trillion for inner-city and low-income mortgages and real estate development projects, most of it funneled through a nationwide network of left-wing community groups, intent, in some cases, on teaching their low-income clients that the financial system is their enemy and, implicitly, that government, rather than their own striving, is the key to their well-being.

The CRA's premise sounds unassailable: helping the poor buy and keep homes will stabilize and rebuild city neighborhoods. As enforced today, though, the law portends just the opposite, threatening to undermine the efforts of the upwardly mobile poor by saddling them with neighbors more than usually likely to depress property values by not maintaining their homes adequately or by losing them to foreclosure. The CRA's logic also helps to ensure that inner-city neighborhoods stay poor by discouraging the kinds of investment that might make them better off.

The Act, which Jimmy Carter signed in 1977, grew out of the complaint that urban banks were "redlining" inner-city neighborhoods, refusing to lend to their residents while using their deposits to finance suburban expansion. CRA decreed that banks have "an affirmative obligation" to meet the credit needs of the communities in which they are chartered, and that federal banking regulators should assess how well they do that when considering their requests to merge or to open branches. Implicit in the bill's rationale was a belief that CRA was needed to counter racial discrimination in lending, an assumption that later seemed to gain support from a widely publicized 1990 Federal Reserve Bank of Boston finding that blacks and Hispanics suffered higher mortgage-denial rates than whites, even at similar income levels.
.....................................................................
The Clinton administration's get-tough regulatory regime mattered so crucially because bank deregulation had set off a wave of mega-mergers, including the acquisition of the Bank of America by NationsBank, BankBoston by Fleet Financial, and Bankers Trust by Deutsche Bank. Regulatory approval of such mergers depended, in part, on positive CRA ratings. "To avoid the possibility of a denied or delayed application," advises the NCRC in its deadpan tone, "lending institutions have an incentive to make formal agreements with community organizations." By intervening—even just threatening to intervene—in the CRA review process, left-wing nonprofit groups have been able to gain control over eye-popping pools of bank capital, which they in turn parcel out to individual low-income mortgage seekers. A radical group called ACORN Housing has a $760 million commitment from the Bank of New York; the Boston-based Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America has a $3-billion agreement with the Bank of America; a coalition of groups headed by New Jersey Citizen Action has a five-year, $13-billion agreement with First Union Corporation. Similar deals operate in almost every major U.S. city. Observes Tom Callahan, executive director of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, which has $220 million in bank mortgage money to parcel out, "CRA is the backbone of everything we do."

quote:

Your source is a blogger making accusations without any verifiable evidence.

My source:

quote:

Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Thomas DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola University Maryland and a member of the senior faculty of the Mises Institute. He is the author of The Real Lincoln; Lincoln Unmasked; How Capitalism Saved America; and Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution — And What It Means for Americans Today.

http://mises.org/daily/2963

Also note the organization, and believe it or not, it's in Alabama:

quote:

The Ludwig von Mises Institute was founded in 1982 as the research and educational center of classical liberalism, libertarian political theory, and the Austrian School of economics. It serves as the world's leading provider of educational materials, conferences, media, and literature in support of the tradition of thought represented by Ludwig von Mises and the school of thought he enlivened and carried forward during the 20th century, which has now blossomed into a massive international movement of students, professors, professionals, and people in all walks of life. It seeks a radical shift in the intellectual climate as the foundation for a renewal of the free and prosperous commonwealth

"How does a world-class think tank end up in east Alabama?" asked Kyle Wingfield of the Wall Street Journal (8/4/2006). "Having such an outfit so far away from the country's usual hubs is in itself a rejection of the central planning and authority Mises spent his life fighting. He might never have visited Auburn, but something tells me he wouldn't have put this institute any other place.

http://mises.org/about.aspx

Your source is the agency that was too stupid to see the coming economic collapse and was complicit in said collapse. The Ludwig von Mises Institute has no reason to cover its azz; the Federal Reserve has lots of reasons to lie.

quote:

It is always reassuring when the opposition resorts to calling me stupid, it lets me know I'm on the right track.

Or they could just be telling the truth.

quote:

Originally posted by Flatus the Ancient:

quote:

More concretely, there are three very specific ways in which the CRA nudged Countrywide and other mortgage companies to adopt lax lending standards.

1. The Creation Of Artificial Demand For Low-Income Mortgages. Banks that were regulated by the CRA often found it difficult to meet their obligations under the CRA directly. Long standing lending practices by local loan officers were a big problem. But as banks expanded their deposit bases and other businesses, they often found that they were at risk of regulators discovering they had fallen behind in making CRA loans.

One way of addressing this problem was buying the loans in the secondary market. Mortgage companies like Countrywide began to serve this entirely artificial demand for CRA loans. Countrywide marketed its loans directly to banks as a way for them to meet CRA obligations. "The result of these efforts is an enormous pipeline of mortgages to low- and moderate-income buyers. With this pipeline, Countrywide Securities Corporation (CSC) can potentially help you meet your Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) goals by offering both whole loan and mortgage-backed securities that are eligible for CRA credit,” a Countrywide advertisement on its website read.

2. The Threat Of Regulation Is Often As Good As Regulation. It is highly misleading to claim that just because mortgage companies were not technically under the CRA that they were not required by regulators to meet similar tests. In fact, regulators threatened that if the mortgage companies didn’t step up to the plate by relaxing lending standards they would be brought under the CRA umbrella and required to do so.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com...2009-6#ixzz0yNuleFKn

The author is John Carney, formerly a gossip columnist at BusinessInsider, now with CNBC.

quote:

John Carney

Carney has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The New York Sun, Page Six Magazine, Gawker, TheAtlantic.com, The Daily Beast, Time Out New York, Fortune and New York magazine.

Before joining Dealbreaker, Carney practiced corporate law at firms such as Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Latham & Watkins, primarily representing banks, hedge funds and private equity firms. He received his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Carney graduated Summa Cum Laude from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

quote:

The author is John Carney, formerly a gossip columnist at BusinessInsider, now with CNBC.

I posted the original source and not the latter. Any way I would take John Carney's word over those who have need to hide their complicity to the collapse. His particulars can be found here:


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com...carney#ixzz0yOMA7wGW

quote:

Prior to joining ClusterStock, John served as editor in chief of DealBreaker.com, a Wall Street online tabloid.

He received his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and practiced corporate law at law firms such as Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Latham & Watkins. In his corporate practice, he primarily represented banks, hedge funds and private equity firms. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The New York Sun, Page Six Magazine, The New York Post, Time Out New York, Fortune, New York magazine and on blogs such as Gawker.com. He has been a frequent guest on CNBC and public radio’s Marketplace. John was born and raised in New York City. He lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

You posted the Carney op-ed.

I guess its any source in a storm.

You could just post a link to Rush bloviating the culpability of the CRA and proclaim the debate resolved. I enjoy your propensity to ignore facts and logic to arrive at a conclusion that includes a vast left wing conspiracy.

quote:

quote:
In his April 26 New York Post article on the CRA entitled "The Real Scandal," Professor Liebowitz explains how the government's Fannie Mae Foundation singled out one bank in particular as the role model for all other banks in America in terms of its commitment to CRA lending: Countrywide, the nation's largest mortgage lender, had committed to $600 billion in low-income or "subprime" loans as of 2003. Today, Countrywide is essentially bankrupted and has been merged with Bank of America.

This is the first quote from the scholarly Mises Institute that I referenced. When you asked for other links I gave you one.