Decker you are a stupid man saying stupid things, open your eyes, take the **** out of your ears and pay attention just once before it is too late.
English: G7 finance ministers (front row) and central bank governors (back row) gather for a group picture during meetings at the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington April 11, 2008. Front row (L-R): Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Italy’s Finance Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Japan’s Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling and Jean-Claude Juncker, Chairman of the Eurogroup. Back row (L-R): IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer, Bundesbank President Axel Weber, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Bank of Italy Governor Mario Draghi, Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and World Bank President Robert Zoellick.
Again, since when are pundits considered sources.
Check out real sources like the Wall Street Journal.
Correct a post with fact and get called stupid by the guy who didn’t even know about the Federal Reserve. Claims I an not paying attention.
Typical Pauliac, just like the left.
Sorry to burts everyone’s bubble, with blaming the Repubs and the evil mortgage companies, but here are some facts that everyone can verify for themselves.
"September 19, 2008
The Rest of the Meltdown Story
By Neal Boortz](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/author/neal_boortz/)
What in the world is going on here?
You’ve seen the headlines, and you heard of the failures and buyouts. Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, AIG; all big names and all in big trouble. Then those mysterious quasi-government agencies with names like Freddie and Fannie become wards of the state and you learn that you and your fellow taxpayers are potentially on the hook for tens of billions of dollars. At the end of the week Washington Mutual is looking for a buyer, and you start to wonder about the security of your own bank and your own savings account. Let’s change that ad copy to WaMu – boo hoo.
Somewhere in the back of your mind you understand that this is all tied somehow to bad mortgages. If you start reading a bit further to enhance your understanding you run into terms like Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) and credit-default swaps, whatever in the world those are. Read further and you find out that a combination of falling home prices and mortgage defaults have put many investment banks and other financial institutions in deep puddin’. All this reading, all this watching the talking heads on TV, and you still don’t really know what in the world is going on here.
Fear not. I’m here to help. I know … I’m just another talk show host; but the fact is that when the stage was being set for the problems we’re seeing today I was making most of my money as a real estate lawyer … closing loans for some of the very institutions that are the tank today. This rather unique combination ��" closing lawyer and radio talk show host ��" gave me a front row seat to the politicization of mortgage loans that led us to today’s headlines.
OK … so we all know that a lot of really bad real estate loans were made. The political class would sure love for us to believe that the blame here rests squarely on “greedy” (try to define that word) mortgage brokers and lenders. The truth is that most of the blame rests on political meddling in the credit decisions of these mortgage lenders.
Twenty years ago the buzz-word in the media was “redlining.” Newspapers across the country were filled with hard-hitting investigative reports about evil and racist mortgage lenders refusing to make real estate loans to various minorities and to applicants who lived in lower-income neighborhoods. There I was closing these loans in the afternoons, and in the mornings offering a counter-argument on the radio to these absurd “redlining” claims. Frankly, the claims that evil mortgage lenders were systematically denying loans to blacks and other minorities were a lot sexier on the radio than my claims that when credit histories, job stability, loan-to-value ratios and income levels were considered there was no evident racial discrimination.
Political correctness won the day. Washington made it clear to banks and other lending institutions that if they did not do something … and fast … to bring more minorities and low-income Americans into the world of home ownership there would be a heavy price to pay. Congress set up processes (Research the Community Redevelopment Act) whereby community activist groups and organizers could effectively stop a bank’s efforts to grow if that bank didn’t make loans to unqualified borrowers. Enter, stage left, the “subprime” mortgage. These lenders knew that a very high percentage of these loans would turn to garbage ��" but it was a price that had to be paid if the bank was to expand and grow. We should note that among the community groups browbeating banks into making these bad loans was an outfit called ACORN. There is one certain presidential candidate that did a lot of community organizing for ACORN. I won’t mention his name so as to avoid politicizing this column.
These garbage loans to unqualified borrowers were then bundled up and sold. The expectation was that the loans would be eventually paid off when rising home values led some borrowers to access their equity through re-financing and others to sell and move on up the ladder. Oops.
Right now this crisis is being sold to the American public by the left as evidence the failure of the free market and capitalism. Not so. What we’re seeing is the inevitable result of political interference in free market economics. Acme bank didn’t want to loan money to Joe Homebuyer because Joe had a spotty job history, owed too much money on his credit cards, and wasn’t all that good at making payments on time. The politicians told Acme Bank to figure out a way to make that loan, because, after all, Joe is a bona-fide minority-American, or forget about opening that new branch office on the Southside. The loan was made under politicial pressure; the loan, with millions like it, failed ��" and now we are left to enjoy today’s headlines.
So … why aren’t you reading the whole story in the mainstream media? Come on, are you kidding me? Do you really expect the media to blame this mess on deadbeat borrowers and political interference in the free market when it is so easy to put the blame on greedy lenders and evil capitalists? Remember … there’s an election going on. One candidate is decidedly anti-capitalist. Do the math."
Come on, guys. We all know enough about the Real Estate process to see the forest through te trees.
OMG!!!
I am linked to the VPILF!!!
Regardless of what Bortz says now, I know it to be true, because I remember when it happened. That is why I get so frustrated, when the same jerks who set up this failure, are now allowed to blame others for it. Who did it help? The minorities? No, I don’t think so, they are right back where they started, except all of this mess creates unemployment, inflation, it flooded the market with over priced homes, created stress, bad feelings and distrust between the classes of people, and frustration in our leaders. You will never convince me that the ones who caused this, did not understand exactly what and how it would come down, Obama and his likes are not ignorant, I truly believe this crash was engineered and timed perfectly. In other words, “We’ve been Pimped”
Once again Pat nails it!
==============================================
The party’s over
Patrick J. Buchanan
The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people’s wealth, is, like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another.
The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America. The “Omnipower” and “Indispensable Nation” we heard about in all the hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history.
Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of market economics, a failure of conservatism.
This is nonsense. What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon Gecko (“Greed Is Good!”) capitalism. What we are witnessing is what happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history, and forgets and abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great.
A true conservative cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic. He believes in saving for retirement and a rainy day, in deferred gratification, in not buying on credit what you cannot afford, in living within your means.
Is that really what got Wall Street and us into this mess – that we followed too religiously the gospel of Robert Taft and Russell Kirk?
“Government must save us!” cries the left, as ever. Yet, who got us into this mess if not the government – the Fed with its easy money, Bush with his profligate spending, and Congress and the SEC by liberating Wall Street and failing to step in and stop the drunken orgy?
For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt – all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.
Our standard of living is inevitably going to fall. For foreigners will not forever buy our bonds or lend us more money if they rightly fear that they will be paid back, if at all, in cheaper dollars.
We are going to have to learn to live again without our means.
The party’s over.
Up through World War II, we followed the Hamiltonian idea that America must remain economically independent of the world in order to remain politically independent.
But this generation decided that was yesterday’s bromide and we must march bravely forward into a Global Economy, where we all depend on one another. American companies morphed into “global companies” and moved plants and factories to Mexico, Asia, China and India, and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.
As the trade deficits began inexorably to rise to 6 percent of GDP, we began vast borrowing from abroad to continue buying from abroad.
At home, propelled by tax cuts, war in Iraq and an explosion in social spending, surpluses vanished and deficits reappeared and began to rise. The dollar began to sink, and gold began to soar.
Yet, still, the promises of the politicians come. Barack Obama will give us national health insurance and tax cuts for all but that 2 percent of the nation that already carries 50 percent of the federal income tax load.
John McCain is going to cut taxes, expand the military, move NATO into Georgia and Ukraine, confront Russia and force Iran to stop enriching uranium or “bomb, bomb, bomb,” with Joe Lieberman as wartime consigliere.
Who are we kidding?
What we are witnessing today is how empires end.
The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget. Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars.
What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system.
Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.
Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions, putting the U.S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages. They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance giant sink beneath the waves.
An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.
What the Greatest Generation handed down to us – the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved – the baby boomers, oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away.
[quote=“wdecker, post:23, topic:32018”]
Repubs only “ran” Congress for 3 1/2 years. Senate only had a majority of Repubs for 3 1/2 years.quote]
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/usgovernment/l/bl_party_division_2.htm
Year Congress President Senate (100)House (435) 2007 110thR D - 51** D - 233 2005 109thR R - 55 R - 2322003 108thR R - 51R - 2292001 107thR D* R - 2211999 106thD R - 55R - 2231997 105thD R - 55R - 2281995 104thD R - 52 R - 230 1993 103rdD D - 57D - 2581991 102ndR D - 56D - 2671989 101stR D - 55D - 2601987 100thR D - 55D - 2581985 99thR R - 53D - 2531983 98thR R - 54D - 2691981 97thR R - 53D - 2421979 96thD D - 58D - 2771977 95thD D - 61D - 2921975 94thR D - 60D -2911973 93rdR D - 56D - 2421971 92ndR D - 54D - 2551969 91stR D - 57D - 243 1967 90thD D - 64D - 2471965 89thD D - 68D - 2951963 88thD D - 66D - 2591961 87thD D - 64D - 2631959 86thR D - 65D -2831957 85thR D - 49 D - 2321955 84thR D - 48D - 2321953 83rdR R - 48D - 2211951 82ndD D - 49D - 235 1949 81stD D - 54D - 263 1947 80thD R - 51R - 246 1945 79thD D - 57D - 242
Which 3 1/2 years Willl???
Wall Street Journal Hope this helps.
[quote=“bkelly2, post:29, topic:32018”]
Didn’t read the footnotes, did ya 
"* There were 50 Ds and 50 Rs until May 24, 2001, when Sen. James Jeffords (R-VT) switched to Independent status, effective June 6, 2001; he announced that he would caucus with the Democrats, giving the Democrats a one-seat advantage.
** Independent Sen. Bernard Sanders (S - VT) gives the Democrats a one-seat majority"
So, there was a 50/50 split, when Repubs did not “control” Congress, and on June 6, 2001, Dems controlled because Jeffords switched parties.
Bernie Sanders (the only self avowed “socialist” in Congress) also gave the Dems a one seat majority.
So, effectively, there were only 3 1/2 years (remember, each “term” of Congress counts as 2 years) where the Repubs had a “majority”.
Also, consider that even in those 3 1/2 years, the Dems demanded a 60 vote “super majority” for most important votes (modified filabustering).
Hope this helps;
[quote=“bkelly2, post:29, topic:32018”]
Will, which 3 1/2 years was it again???
Was it 95
was it 97
was it 99
was it 01
was it 03
was it 05
was it 07
[quote=“bkelly2, post:32, topic:32018”]
Asked and answered. Check it out for yourself. Read the footnotes and check.
I was speaking of the Bush years (2001 - current) only.
For part of 2003 term and 2005 term the Repubs had “control”, at least on some votes.
If you need more detail, look it up yourself. Me, I lived thorugh it and remember.
[quote=“wdecker, post:33, topic:32018”]
Typical Will Decker bull****, always some caveat or rephrasing, or something to explain your original misstatement.
Will please do your fellow country men a favor and stop voting. :twisted:
IMHO,
Anyone who thinks this is the fault of only the Republicans, Democrates or the President are misguided.
America has a two-party political system… We have the Stupid party and the Evil party. Every once in a while they get together and do something both stupid & evil, thats called bipartisanship.
Bingo we have a winner.
ROTFLMAO Joe…:mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:
I always thought they were both stupid and evil! :shock:
No, that would be the definition of Communism. 
[quote=“bkelly2, post:34, topic:32018”]
You say so, Brian.
I was just trying to answer your misconception that the Republicans have been in “control” of Congress for the last 8 year. You don’t want to read your own link, hey, no skin off of my nose.