An important timeline of events that led to the current financial crisis, and the attendant spin that is causing pedestrian poets to “lament” the potentiality of a revolutionary government overthrow. By way of, say, Larry Gelbart and Mike Farrell conducting commando raids with poisoned “peace darts” on Hummer dealerships or some such. From the WSJ:
Once upon a time, in the land that FDR built, there was the rule of “regulation” and all was right on Wall and Main Streets. Wise 27-year-old bank examiners looked down upon the banks and saw that they were sound. America’s Hobbits lived happily in homes financed by 30-year-mortgages that never left their local banker’s balance sheet, and nary a crisis did we have.
Then, lo, came the evil Reagan marching from Mordor with his horde of Orcs, short for “market fundamentalists.” Reagan’s apprentice, Gramm of Texas and later of McCain, unleashed the scourge of “deregulation,” and thus were “greed,” short-selling, securitization, McMansions, liar loans and other horrors loosed upon the world of men.
Now, however, comes Obama of Illinois, Schumer of New York and others in the fellowship of the Beltway to slay the Orcs and restore the rule of the regulator. So once more will the Hobbits be able to sleep peacefully in the shire.
With apologies to Tolkien, or at least Peter Jackson, something like this tale is now being sold to the American people to explain the financial panic of the past year. It is truly a fable from start to finish. Yet we are likely to hear some version of it often in the coming months as the barons of Congress try to absolve themselves of any responsibility for the housing and mortgage meltdowns.
Yes, greed is ever with us, at least until Washington transforms human nature. The wizards of Wall Street and London became ever more inventive in finding ways to sell mortgages and finance housing. Some of those peddling subprime loans were crooks, as were some of the borrowers who lied about their incomes. This is what happens in a credit bubble that becomes a societal mania.
A Look Back at the Crisis Unfolding
Be It Resolved 09/19/08 – Paulson and Bernanke ask Congress for a resolution agency.
The Fed and AIG 09/18/08 – Nationalizations aren’t stopping the financial panic.
McCain and the Markets 09/17/08 – Denouncing ‘greed’ and Wall Street isn’t a growth agenda.
The Fed’s Epic Day 09/17/08 – It’s only fair to praise the central bank when it does the right thing.
Surviving the Panic 09/16/08 – A resolution agency, steady monetary policy, and a big tax cut.
Wall Street Reckoning 09/15/08 – Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s refusal to blink won’t get any second guessing from us.
But Washington is as deeply implicated in this meltdown as anyone on Wall Street or at Countrywide Financial. Going back decades, but especially in the past 15 or so years, our politicians have promoted housing and easy credit with a variety of subsidies and policies that helped to create and feed the mania. Let us take the roll of political cause and financial effect:– The Federal Reserve. The original sin of this crisis was easy money. For too long this decade, especially from 2003 to 2005, the Fed held interest rates below the level of expected inflation, thus creating a vast subsidy for debt that both households and financial firms exploited. The housing bubble was a result, along with its financial counterparts, the subprime loan and the mortgage SIV.
Fed Chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke prefer to blame “a global savings glut” that began when the Cold War ended. But Communism was dead for more than a decade before the housing mania took off. The savings glut was in large part a creation of the Fed, which flooded the world with too many dollars that often found their way back into housing markets in the U.S., the U.K. and elsewhere.
– Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Created by government, and able to borrow at rates lower than fully private corporations because of the implied backing from taxpayers, these firms turbocharged the credit mania. They channeled far more liquidity into the market than would have been the case otherwise, especially from the Chinese, who thought (rightly) that they were investing in mortgage securities that were as safe as Treasurys but with a higher yield.
These are the firms that bought the increasingly questionable mortgages originated by Angelo Mozilo’s Countrywide and others. Even as the bubble was popping, they dived into pools of subprime and Alt-A (“liar”) loans to meet Congressional demand to finance “affordable” housing. And they were both the cause and beneficiary of the great interest-group army that lobbied for ever more housing subsidies.
Fan and Fred’s patrons on Capitol Hill didn’t care about the risks inherent in their combined trillion-dollar-plus mortgage portfolios, so long as they helped meet political goals on housing. Even after taxpayers have had to pick up a bailout tab that may grow as large as $200 billion, House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank still won’t back a reduction in their mortgage portfolios.
– A credit-rating oligopoly. Thanks to federal and state regulation, a small handful of credit rating agencies pass judgment on the risk for all debt securities in our markets. Many of these judgments turned out to be wrong, and this goes to the root of the credit crisis: Assets officially deemed rock-solid by the government’s favored risk experts have lately been recognized as nothing of the kind.
When debt instruments are downgraded, banks must then recognize a paper loss on these assets. In a bitter irony, the losses cause the same credit raters whose judgments allowed the banks to hold these dodgy assets to then lower their ratings on the banks, requiring the banks to raise more money, and pay more to raise it. The major government-anointed credit raters — S&P, Moody’s and Fitch — were as asleep on mortgages as they were on Enron. Senator Richard Shelby (R., Ala.) tried to weaken this government-created oligopoly, but his reforms didn’t begin to take effect until 2007, too late to stop the mania.
– Banking regulators. In the Beltway fable, bank supervision all but vanished in recent years. But the great irony is that the banks that made some of the worst mortgage investments are the most highly regulated. The Fed’s regulators blessed, or overlooked, Citigroup’s off-balance-sheet SIVs, while the SEC tolerated leverage of 30 or 40 to 1 by Lehman and Bear Stearns.
The New York Sun reports that an SEC rule change that allowed more leverage was made in 2004 under then Chairman William Donaldson, one of the most aggressive regulators in SEC history. Of course the SEC’s task was only to protect the investor assets at the broker-dealers, not the holding companies themselves, which everyone thought were not too big to fail. Now we know differently (see Bear Stearns below).
Meanwhile, the least regulated firms — hedge funds and private-equity companies — have had the fewest problems, or have folded up their mistakes with the least amount of trauma. All of this reaffirms the historical truth that regulators almost always discover financial excesses only after the fact.
– The Bear Stearns rescue. In retrospect, the Fed-Treasury intervention only delayed a necessary day of reckoning for Wall Street. While Bear was punished for its sins, the Fed opened its discount window to the other big investment banks and thus sent a signal that they would provide a creditor safety net for bad debt.
Morgan Stanley, Lehman and Goldman Sachs all concluded that they could ride out the panic without changing their business models or reducing their leverage. John Thain at Merrill Lynch was the only CEO willing to sell his bad mortgage paper — at 22 cents on the dollar. Treasury and the Fed should have followed the Bear trauma with more than additional liquidity. Once they were on the taxpayer dime, the banks needed a thorough scrubbing that might have avoided last week’s stampede.
– The Community Reinvestment Act. This 1977 law compels banks to make loans to poor borrowers who often cannot repay them. Banks that failed to make enough of these loans were often held hostage by activists when they next sought some regulatory approval.
Robert Litan, an economist at the Brookings Institution, told the Washington Post this year that banks “had to show they were making a conscious effort to make loans to subprime borrowers.” The much-maligned Phil Gramm fought to limit these CRA requirements in the 1990s, albeit to little effect and much political jeering.
We could cite other Washington policies, including the political agitation for “mark-to-market” accounting that has forced firms to record losses after ratings downgrades even if the assets haven’t been sold. But these are some of the main lowlights.
Our point here isn’t to absolve Wall Street or pretend there weren’t private excesses. But the investment mistakes would surely have been less extreme, and ultimately their damage more containable, if not for the enormous political support and subsidy for mortgage credit. Beware politicians who peddle fables that cast themselves as the heroes.
Much blame to go around, but the idea that deregulation is responsible for the financial crisis — and that the return of regulation in the Democrat mold is the way forward — is particularly galling.
To borrow from Oliver Stone’s X: “Well that’s the real question, isn’t it? Why? The how and the who is just scenery for the public. […] Keeps ’em guessing like some kind of parlor game, prevents ’em from asking the most important question, why? […] Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?”
I’d like to know. And I want to know the names of everybody who benefited. Everybody.
After all, greed is good.
(h/t Terry H)
Jeff, That’s a really nice post there, with all your “facts” and how you cite all those “examples” in your “timeline”.
But I have been assured by those that care about people that this is all Bush’s fault. His, and of course, capitalism.
O!in 08′!
The idea that the CRA had anything to do with the credit crises was nicely debunked by this article in the American Prospect:
Tell
There was no tap on the shoulder, no calling of your name, no knock on the door. Two shots behind the ear, the brain hemorrhaged, the knees gave way and it collapsed to the floor. That’s what I’m here for. That’s why I came all the way from downtown. That’s what brought me here today.
I am Greed capitalized! Unregulated. Trusted in the name of God!
You’ve known I was stalking you since time began. Though it may seem primitive, your Faith felt no pain before I assassinated her.
I’m a professional. I exist in silence, fully and completely in every temptation. Thanks for playing.
Who benefits when a quasi-private entity, that is regulated by the legislature, and has its leaders appointed by the executive and the legislature, sits upon oodles and oodles of dollars? When the entity sets up a trust to return some of its profits to the community? When the money being returned to the community goes to groups that support certain legislators and/or have friends and family of those legislators on their boards?
Who benefits indeed?
Sad, lonely little boy.
I believe Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) is an expert at sending earmark money in this fashion. wouldn’t surprise me if that is what Fannie and Freddie were used for – giant money wells that could be tapped and tapped and tapped because there was so much there how could it ever run dry?
And yet, Rep. Frank, Sen. Dodd – it did run dry. And on your watch, too.
all true.
unfortunately for your side, your target audience will be unable to grasp this elegant delineation.
cant expect the yeoman farmers who are conviently scammed by McCain’s crude Palin shell game to grasp Econ 101.
that is (shockant!)an elitist position!
that the proles might be expected to understand rudimentary economics?
lol
My previous was aimed at thor, Mikey, not you. Just wanted to make that clear.
Sad, lonely little girl.
Poor, dumb sucker, he’s still looking for the face of blame and a lollipop.
Did I remove the shrouds, tilt your clouds, make you squeak aloud?
Your America is going down, boy!
I don’t think I have ever seen someone with a more fucked up view of the demographics of the American political system than nishfong. Kind of fascinating.
#2.
Here are a couple of tells for you.
That is a demonstrably false statement. Fair minded people might disagree on the extent of CRA’s effect, but they would all agree that the CRA played a role in opening up the market to these loans. CRA set the frame for the stain that Fannie and Freddie called beautiful art.
Secondly, it should be made clear to you that part of your reference, bolded even, contradicts your main assertion that the CRA ties are bunk.
It’s a tell of sorts that you would re-imagine the word “less” as meaning none, nadda, or zero, and then bold that for everyone to see.
CRA took a brick wall and made a gateway, just because there is a big giant hole where a gate once stood doesn’t mean you get to claim that the gate wasn’t the point of entry.
Somebody give that creature a towel.
Please, Victor. The American Prospect has “debunked.” How dare you counter with reason.
Oh, and everyone should take note of where thor stands. When the going gets tough and words really matter, what does he do????
Nothing less than openly cheerlead for the collapse of America.
Admit it thor, all those social issues were just bullshit, you’ve been of single purpose the whole time.
Fucking Hypocrite.
Yeah, I’m not even sure thor knows who he’s talking to anymore. Just looking for excuses to dazzle us with wordplay.
Which, in my case, isn’t working. Too strained. Too needy.
#8 SBP:
I knew that.
I’m sure this is pointless – but here it goes:
…“unfortunately for your side“…
You have no clue of the magnitude of this issue, do you? Ms. Eugenicist Gibberish Grrrl?
Life isn’t a game or a patois or a turn of phrase. You should be terrified. Right now, right this second, the only difference between the psychological state of a coalition infantryman in the middle of an ambush in Afghanistan and a sitting congressmen, senator, or the president, and all the heads of state of the developed world, is that the grunt knows if he doesn’t actually get killed the medevac is only thirty minutes away, and he’ll have someplace clean and safe to recover.
Oh, and if the grunt dies… he understands that is part of the duty. The “representatives of the people” haven’t thought much about duty. Not much until this last week. They have created this disaster and they don’t want to own it.
And they are finding themselves unfit to deal with their mistake, unfit by any measure.
Dodd and Frank should quietly resign right now. Yesterday. Instead, the wire news this last hour is that Hillary and Obama are both making sure that the populist tropes are honored via targetting CEO’s earnings and urging that overlord provisions relating to micro managing markets are written into the package.
But no look back. No honest acknowledgement of how we got here. Which I fully understand – this mess is a Democratic feature, allowed by Republican bugs. But quite big enough to swallow both parties for an appetizer on the way to devouring the nation, and quite a few other nations down the road, besides.
The more I hear about the proposals floating about, the more certain that I am that we have to stop anything from being signed before the facts are out there.
Okay. That’s my yearly acknowledgment of Nish. Somebody sign my ticket? I’ll shut up now.
Yeah, I figured so, but wanted it to be clear.
I’m quite sure, Victor and Jeff, that the abundance of freshly build condos sitting empty all around me, just reduced to $400K for a one bedroom and $600K for two bedrooms, weren’t built for community redevelopment. Hell, oceanfronts are never designed for the budgets of those people! They don’t even needs them a tan!
You peoples opinions dunts even begins to makes sense when I look out my window.
Just yesterday I began to consider buying a two-bedroom at Boca Bayou. Bank’s gonna start the auction at $110K, and the place is sweet! Especially if you have a boat!
Sad, sad, lonely little boy.
When the Nazis found the Leningrad museum was empty and dark, they knew the deal. Cold calculations had been made!
Truth be told, art lives a long, long time, much longer than artists. Greed and it’s cold calculations protects art. Down at the beach, one could see a disappointed and defanged Nazi destroyer limping away in a sea of blood. Over a million artist-citizens would be starved to death, but their art still breathed beneath the tundra.
I learned a long time ago when a man tells me that he doesn’t understand something, I should accept him at his word.
Well put, tmjUtah. The ground beneath Washington needs to open up and swallow everyone, they can get to hell first. Nothing can stop this. The light at the end of the tunnel is a train, as they say.
Another well-intended social program,bites us in the azz again.
Tony
South Haven,MI
For more Middle Earth meme. In a call to arms kind of way…
You fag, named Victor, don’t begin to make sense. You’re not capable of the wattage required, I assume.
Retire to Florida! Truth doesn’t often interrupt the enemas at the retirement village.
O!
Why are the Obamanauts so damned determined to derail conversations?
cynn looked at the pictures and prices then bit her lip, “I don’t know,” she said, “so beautiful and so close to the beach, but how are the schools?”
Come cynn! These old shriveled white people are collapsing under the financial weight of those second mortgages they took out on their beachfront condos. The sand in your toes, the blue water, excellent fishing and free parking when you have a unit owner’s decal on your windshield.
Weee!
My theory of why thor has to act out his impotent rage on strangers:
It’s the stress of that humiliating monthly phone call he has to endure before getting his “allowance” from daddy. Lots of “Yes, sir” and “I’m sorry, sir” in that conversation, you can bet.
Quite simply, thor is not a man, nor will he ever be one. He’s a dependent child. To his credit, he resents that status (or non-status, I should say) but not enough to actually take any responsibility for his situation or do anything to change it. He’ll continue sucking daddy’s combination dick/teat as long as he possibly can, lashing out with blind rage all the while.
Thus, the parenting sins of thor’s daddy are visited on us. By molding thor’s personality to be the way it is, daddy has ensured that the rest of the world will continue heaping abuse on his son long after he’s dead and gone.
Sad, sad, lonely little boy.
In case it’s not clear from the above: thor needs to get help. Now.
I don’t know about the rest of the country.
But,the housing that is allowed in the loan
program,in Michigan,are 2-3 bedroom single story houses,about as long as a trailer,but twice as wide.With a small front and backyard.But,no condo’s or beach-front properties.
Im not sure if it’s the same program,or just a Michigan thing.
Tony
South Haven,MI
Holy schmackers, the Euro is trading $148.31.
Glad I shifted a bag full of dollars into them Euro coins. Did I tell you about the monster fish I caught yesterday? Huge!
I’m going to Walmart in a bit to buy me some more lures. All my money making has me greedy for more fish. Just steps away is a ocean full of ’em swimmers. I wonder if I re-set my router if I can’t take my laptop out there so I can post from the water front.
Life is a bitch. Any snow out your way yet, Jeff?
Sad, sad, sad little boy.
1.4590
EUR/USD is blinking $148.04 on the ask. When you open a forex account you get the software for free.
Testimony following Federal Reserve’s Second Monetary Policy Report for 2005
Zounds Jeff,
That meme you cite is a Fractured Fairy Tale indeed…
Too bad the MSM will be desperately trying to push it-hard-this fall…
Yo have cited some excellent facts though, ones that we should all take to the bank for use as argument fodder later; you know, when the devotees of that new kind of politics get in our face !
Here’s an additional brief for any interested folks to chew on; make no mistake, the political left is neck deep in their involvement in this growing crisis…
It’s not like the eeeeeeevil RethugliKKKans are blame free; but they weren’t the ones blocking any reform or regulations at Fannie/Freddie. And they certainly weren’t the ones that pushed those same GSE’s to hold up to 50% of the toxic paper…
And you wanted some names? Here are a few to start:
Chris Dodd…
Barney Frank…
Chuck Schumer…
Bill Clinton…
Hillary Clinton…
Barack “Lightworker” Obama…
For real, we are lucky to have the WSJ. I think it knows getting this story right is very important to maintaining its brand, so I hope it’s up to it. There’s sure not another media vehicle of any note whose reportage I would trust on this until after the election. Bloomberg has already befarced itself this year, and Bloomberg anyway is not a name I trust. That name invokes either scary pompous or pompous scary on any given day I think.
#28 Rob Crawford:
The answer is self-evident: If they shout long enough and loud enough all of those nasty questions will go away. It’s just another form of intimidation, but like astroturfing, it needs to be used against the proper audience to be effective.
It isn’t effective here and they are angry about that, and it seems, a little bit scared. No Plan B to fall back on when that fails, when it is self-evident that getting in someone’s face should be the last shot in the locker, not the first.
Why aren’t the Dems trotting out some Congrssional hearings on this? Like they did with the oil boys.
thor has a little trouble with straight lines.
On Bloomberg, the US dollar is at 1.459 vs the euro; the JAPANESE YEN, from the line above, is trading at 155 yen to the euro.
I guess eyes on the brown acid don’t focus very well…..
I’d like to know. And I want to know the names of everybody who benefited. Everybody.
Some of those names are strangely familiar.
Back awhile ago, the “mob” used the Teamsters Pension Fund as a giant slush fund to use for any project they wanted. They did it by taking control of the top offices, threatening anyone who got in the way, (hello Jimmy Hoffa) and changing the rules so the fund was not of much use for it’s normal purpose so the looting wouldn’t show up.
It seems that the top Democrats and some Republicans have done to the GSE’s what the “mob” did to the pension fund.
Ok, so where is our Las Vegas?
They did manage to build something with all that graft didn’t they? Or are they more incompetent that the “mobsters”.
This is a losing battle. Just reading about what happened makes my head hurt and I can’t really get around all the things that happened. You know what does make sense to people? A big bad guy to point the finger at and blaming them. One enemy to hate is easier to understand and wrap your mind around than the truth, than a detailed explanation of how over the years various people made stupid mistakes, some people were corrupt, and the people themselves were greedy and foolish – including average Joes in America. Easier to just believe that Reagan and Bush ruined everything by letting corporate greed ruin the day. Simple.
We lose this one, simply because the truth is eye-crossing complex and boring.
#41
Because they would have to testify, rather than interrogate.
Why are the Obamanauts so damned determined to derail conversations?
Might have something to do with where the money trail leads. If they can keep the conversation derailed until mid-November, they might not face the electoral wrath of the populace.
Once the paradigm of institutional racism has been correctly assimilated disparities such as this—
— are easily reduced to the obvious underlying truth,
and the answer becomes obvious:
Now that Fannie and Freddie are dying as a result of loans that aren’t being paid off, who should we blame? Well, the answer should be obvious: George Bush.
No, the answer is obvious; why don’t you come out and declare it, asshole. Darkies destroyed this country. If we can’t deport ’em, we should just incarcerate ’em, like the natural order. Creep.
Nice try, cynn.
If you try very, very, very hard, you might come up with a different conclusion.
No, cynn.
That isn’t the answer.
Who changed the rules?
Why did they change the rules the way they did?
Who benefitted higher up if the rules were changed?
Not the ostensible target of the rule change, but what benefit would accrue to those who insisted that the rule be changed? Why would they want to do that?
And if altruism is your first answer, guess again.
It was greed, morons. Pure unadulterated, uncolored greed. I myself got caught up in it, although only for a couple ten thousand. That’s money that’s extending my working years for ten or more. I really, really resent the buzzards circling this mess and their attendant drooling apologists.
Then go and harry them already, cynn.
You aren’t going to find too many people here apologizing for the likes of Raines, and Johnson, and Dodd, and Franks on this mess.
They battened off of it – go harry those who supped deep.
thor is such an expert on the markets; why he could be a real high flyer! Whereas someone ordinary like me just watched my pension lose more than I contributed, if that is possible. How can this happen in the best of all possible worlds?
So I should appeal to the rich black, elderly, and gay boys for redress. Not on.
I really, really resent the buzzards circling this mess and their attendant drooling apologists.
cynn, you’re really doing your best to ignore the fact that those buzzards all seem to be on Obama’s team, and that Obama took the second highest amount of payola from Fannie and Freddie in the ENTIRE FRIGGIN SENATE, aren’t you?
I know it must be hard to have your “Democrats look out for the little guy/Republicans are crooked businessmen” religious faith questioned, but for God’s sake look at the facts for once.
I don’t find that it’s at all a fact that “Obama’s team” has anything to do with this present meltdown. And for you to assume it as a priori truth is stupidly disingenuous.
I don’t find that it’s at all a fact that “Obama’s team†has anything to do with this present meltdown.
Then you’re a moron who is willfully blinding yourself.
Obama’s finance chair. Read the part about how her pet bank essentially invented the subprime mortgage scam.
Former CEO of Fannie Mae. Close enough to Obama to be on his VP committee.
Fannie and Freddie donations to Congress.
Cynn, the Obama team includes a lot of retreads from past (D) administrations, and at least one doddering old (D) Senator, all of whom had a hand in creating this monster.
I think we’ve all learned something new. Don’t mix business and charity. Oh…
How small our fields of vision. How certain that we can rise beyond the realities that define our condition into a remade world either financial or moral.
O.K., I concede your point. So the man is marinated in prevailing policy. Good, bad, or indifferent? I say good, because he’s bound to surface at some point.
So the man is marinated in prevailing policy.
Unbelievable.
I used to wonder how it was that guys like Jim Jones could do what they did.
No more.
What can you mean, Spies, other than we can now begin the nuclear option?
John Gacey might have been a Republican, so I totally get your motivations!!
Cynn @ 49:
Cynn ignores the facts and instead projects a cartoonish racial caricature of her own creation, failing to recognize this illustrates her own prejudice and willfull refusal to engage the facts at hand.
John Gacey might have been a Republican, so I totally get your motivations!!
As it happens, he was a Chicago Democrat, cynn.
And, cynn, “what I mean” is that you are in a cult.
…Blah blah, it’s a projection on a cave wall, blah, blah…harrumph.
Spies, you totally blew me out of the water! What was your premise? Oh, watch what you drink.
What was your premise?
The fact that you’re completely ignoring that Obama’s in this up to his neck.
Enjoy your fantasy, cynn. While it lasts.
He is up to his neck? Maybe in your exhaustively manufactured crap. But I’ll let the record speak for itself. We’ll see how happy the voters are in the next couple months.
Spies, you’re a deluded retard.
Maybe in your exhaustively manufactured crap.
You didn’t even read those links, did you?
Or you’ve already put them down the memory hole.
In either case, enjoy yourself. I suspect the hangover is going to be a nasty one.
Spies, I reflexively avoid links that on immediate inspection, are obvious sops to one’s point. So, sorry.
Refusing to examine evidence that might damage belief = another sign of culthood, cynn.
Thor: still not your daddy. Sorry.
Well, I’ve been curtly dismissed!
Obama is beginning to build a lead in the polls hence the sun stroke type behavior from the milk and Bible boys.
Hey cynn
From JeffG’s other post
Obama is lying and the MSM lets him because, well, he’s The One, and after dragging him across the finish line against Hillary they are tossing off all pretense of “journalist objectivity” to drag him across the line in Nov.
And Obama’s Chicago-style thugs are gettin’ in faces and turning their minions loose.
Obama elected is to have a Jimmy Carter economy presided over a Prez more paranoid than Nixon and more into strong arm politicking than LBJ.
You should vote for Obama because it might help you feel better about yourself as a person.
Well, I’ve been curtly dismissed!
Since you won’t look at any evidence that might damage your prejudices, there’s really no point in arguing with you, is there?
So, yeah, if you want to call it “curt”, feel free. I don’t enjoy wasting my time.
Openly weep elsewhere.
Still not your daddy, thor.
Hint: neither is Obama.
Yeah, Spies, I’ve reviewed all you damning evidence. Obama’s not a saint. Your point?
The Obamas own one car, a Ford hybrid. The McCain’s own 13 cars.
Enough said.
Smart greedy people are drooling at the thought of the feds bringing 800B to the table…
My main concern is that the feds won’t know how to value the assets they’ve agreed to buy. The feds will have to bundle and resell and likely get screwed on both ends of the deal.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/mccains_temperment_fails_again.html
I thought George Will was a right-winger.
, I reflexively avoid links that on immediate inspection, are obvious sops to one’s point.
Did you just admit that you recoil from viewing evidence that would support your opponent’s point?
You should put yourself on Barney
FraudFrank’s mailing list. Nothing you read there will trouble you.The Obamas own one car
Because most of the time, The MSM carries The One around on their shoulders.
hmmmm, it just struck me that maybe this is why Obama was confused about being on the banking committee.
If the gov is going to hold all these notes, why not just have the IRS collect the payments from the mortgagee’s? No one seems to mind that the gov puts people in jail for not paying their taxes. Make the mortgage payment a tax increase for those who get bailed out on their foreclosure.
EUR/USD is blinking $148.04 on the ask.
If that’s true, I’ve got a pocketful of loose change from my last German trip that should buy Florida.
I knew that the Perfesser would find a way to blame it on the leebrulls. It just took him a few days to cook it up. So pathetically true to form.
Hi Lisa!
Hey, but it’s their fault.
You’ll comment to sling mud, but you can’t argue against it.
Interesting.
FDR – SEC
Woodrow Wilson – Federal Reserve
TR – “My belief was that it was not only his right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the Nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws. Under this interpretation of executive power I did and caused to be done many things not previously done by the President and the heads of the departments. I did not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power.”
This President didn’t like that idea we have today – “It is not conceivable how the present stockholders can have any claim to the special favor of the Government. The present corporation has enjoyed its monopoly during the period stipulated in the original contract. If we must have such a corporation, why should not the Government sell out the whole stock and thus secure to the people the full market value of the privileges granted?”
Didn’t need to ‘broaden’ Executive power to do it, either.
I like that America.
Too bad so few want to remember that making progress doesn’t require ‘Progressivism’.
Yup. Every time.
…although the feds never feel the screwing. They always pass it along to you and me.
Because they’re givers.
Lisa has become a bit of a disappointment. Maybe she’ll be back on her game after the election.
And a suitable mourning period.
[…] Sdferr quoted that relevant bit here yesterday) If they were not making mortgages cheaper and were creating risks for the taxpayers and […]
…and 100.
I’m like Monk that way.
By the by, that’s not me blaming it on the “leebruls.” That’s the WSJ. And they cite, like, facts and shit.
— Which evidently doesn’t matter, because the new trope is to sigh, exasperated that something that the Democrats are responsible for is actually being “blamed on the leeebruls” by some crazed wingnut, and that magically makes it not so.
Sorry. I don’t shame easy.
And of course, the post itself notes that there’s plenty of blame to go around. Round ’em up, I say. Just make sure it’s done thoroughly and fairly.