Housing Mess Started With Bill Clinton In 1999

[redsk1]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

I never said Bush is to blame, I just think it's funny that some people keep tossing it back on Clinton. We've been on W's watch for 8 years now, and if you listen to some people 9/11 was Clinton's fault, the current economy crisis was his fault... I mean c'mon, it's just ridiculous.

I think it's funny that the overwhelming majority seems to think this is all Bush's fault...the media, the left wings, Obama, when it's not necessarily true. Like someone else said a little blame deserves to go to everyone. If anything Bush didn't stand up enough for his own belief that Fannie/Freddie were just too big and needed to be scaled back. Everyone fought him on it.

So, I guess I'm taking up for the misinformation and some of the piling on that Bush is taking right now.

[djnemo65]

Anyway First, as someone who worked in the mortgage industry I can tell you that the claims made in that article are idiotic and borderline racist. As tech stocks cooled and September 11th threatened to puncture what had been a roaring American economy, the FED reduced interest rates to encourage investment in real estate, which was already a hot market. Programs like ARMS which had existed for a while exploded in popularity as housing prices began to appreciate at 20 percent or more per year. With equity piling up in homes people began to borrow against the value of their properties, assuming the free ride would go on forever. While they were of course wrong, the reversal of the housing market would have been a contained crisis if it wasn't for the reckless investment of Wall Street firms in collaterilzed debt packages: fantastically profitable, Wall St. kept watching the money come in, assuming the housing market would not regress, as there was no historical precedence for this in America. They were wrong, and what should have been a limited crisis in the US housing market punctured the entire global economy.

This is a complicated thing. It is not any one person's fault. You could of course blame Bush's "Ownership Society" which created tax incentives for buying over renting, further accelerating investment in the over-heated housing market. You could certainly blame the commitment to deregulation which reduced oversights that might have prevented so much Wall St. capital getting tangled up in murky debt packages. But to say that the increased minority homeownership which occurred under Clinton, which removed the racist barriers that had prevented minorities from owning homes at a rate equal to whites for like hundreds of years, was anything other than a good thing, is complete fucking bullshit. Seriously, bullshit. Racist fucking bullshit. I am furious right now that you would post this crap and I want to hear you defend the claims made by your author - with evidence, not partisan sloganeering.

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

I think we can confidently blame the whole mess on just about anyone.

You can say that about so many things in our political world since the days of our founding fathers. But everyone needs someone to blame.

[That Guy]

congress is mainly to blame, and freddie/fannie for paying off so many of the people that were supposed to be watching it (just like the oil lobbies). the introduction of mortgage liquidity (selling bad debt tracts) also turned it into a total monster.

clinton and mccain both tried to get more control over them i believe, but too many people were looking the other way.

there's plenty of blame to go around.

[EternalEnigma21]

Originally Posted by djnemo65

Anyway First, as someone who worked in the mortgage industry I can tell you that the claims made in that article are idiotic and borderline racist. As tech stocks cooled and September 11th threatened to puncture what had been a roaring American economy, the FED reduced interest rates to encourage investment in real estate, which was already a hot market. Programs like ARMS which had existed for a while exploded in popularity as housing prices began to appreciate at 20 percent or more per year. With equity piling up in homes people began to borrow against the value of their properties, assuming the free ride would go on forever. While they were of course wrong, the reversal of the housing market would have been a contained crisis if it wasn't for the reckless investment of Wall Street firms in collaterilzed debt packages: fantastically profitable, Wall St. kept watching the money come in, assuming the housing market would not regress, as there was no historical precedence for this in America. They were wrong, and what should have been a limited crisis in the US housing market punctured the entire global economy.

This is a complicated thing. It is not any one person's fault. You could of course blame Bush's "Ownership Society" which created tax incentives for buying over renting, further accelerating investment in the over-heated housing market. You could certainly blame the commitment to deregulation which reduced oversights that might have prevented so much Wall St. capital getting tangled up in murky debt packages. But to say that the increased minority homeownership which occurred under Clinton, which removed the racist barriers that had prevented minorities from owning homes at a rate equal to whites for like hundreds of years, was anything other than a good thing, is complete fucking bullshit. Seriously, bullshit. Racist fucking bullshit. I am furious right now that you would post this crap and I want to hear you defend the claims made by your author - with evidence, not partisan sloganeering.

perfect. I was going to say the exact same things... except include the bush administration cutting the capital gains tax combined with the practice of like-kind trading allowing the tax to be skirted by savvy investors accross the country.

[saden1]

Blaming minorities for the housing crises is akin to blaming the Jews for the Holocaust. And that's all I have to say about that.

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by saden1

Blaming minorities for the housing crises is akin to blaming the Jews for the Holocaust. And that's all I have to say about that.

No one was blaming them it seems that you take the easy reponse when you do not have a come back to answer a question. If I went back to allot of our threads a bunch of them end with your non response.

[jsarno]

This is a very good thread, however, was it really needed? No one will admit when Clinton did anything wrong, he's like a cult hero or something.
Let's be clear, while the lending institutions did give out money a little too willingly, there really is no one to blame other than the people themselves. We all like to point blame to others, and make excuses, but the general public asked for money and AGREED IN WRITING to pay it back, they are the ones that should be blamed. Hell, I want a Corvette, BADLY! But you don't see me with one do you???? Of course not, cause I can't afford it. I have excellent credit, I can have it right now if I want it, but I know that will kill me financially. Blame the institutions all you want, but there was a time when a man's word meant something, now it means shit.

[hesscl34]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

I never said Bush is to blame, I just think it's funny that some people keep tossing it back on Clinton. We've been on W's watch for 8 years now, and if you listen to some people 9/11 was Clinton's fault, the current economy crisis was his fault... I mean c'mon, it's just ridiculous.

No, it's really not ridiculous..

[jsarno]

Originally Posted by hesscl34

No, it's really not ridiculous..

see my above post about how he became "a cult hero". You can't say anything bad about Clinton, so what's the point?

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by Sheriff Gonna Getcha

Second, the collapse of the housing market cannot be attributed to minorities becoming home owners. The CRA was designed to benefit low income areas, which includes inner cities and rural areas (predominantly white areas). Moreover, banks were making money hand over fist on those sub-prime loans. As long as home prices kept skyrocketing, the banks were reaping huge rewards and not incurring many risks. The CEOs running those lending institutions knew the market could collapse, but they were far more concerned with making great profits on a quarterly basis.

I would respectfully disagree. Sort of. Minorities owning property has nothing to do with it. Broke people getting loans does. These loans were first decreed by the gov't, insured by the gov't and then banks were sued for not giving them. There is a reason that homes prices tracked closely with inflation for decades. Banks didn't like giving out bad loans...they lost money on them. Once it became polically fashionable (read: buying votes) politicians started talking about "affordable housing" which means broke people buying houses. But banks said no. So the gov't went ahead and passed laws requiring "diversified" portfolios and then out of the other side of their mouths insured the loans so banks could afford to implement this new program. Magically home prices sky rocketed as the demand for homes exploded.

So the gov't makes banks give the loans and then creates a way for the banks to make profits on them and we want to blame the banks when they give out the loans? Sure there are greedy people but last time I checked companies are supposed to make money. When they get put out of business for not following laws they can't make money. When the gov't gives them an easy way to make money and they don't take it then they get fired.

On top of all this the two companies that insured, or bought, these loans were cooking their books to fool as many politicans as possible into thinking everything was great. When some did say that the situation was getting bad many others screamed back with uninformed and intellectually devoid arguments. Unfortunately the people who had an iota of what was actually happening didn't have the guts or the political capital to force some actual oversite.

This whole situation is a damn disaster but the politcs being played with it make me laugh. BO wants to blame this on lack of oversite by Repubs? Are you freaking kidding me? Well no f*cking sh*t there was not enough oversite! It's just not W's fault. In any way. Whatsoever. Let's go back in time an when Clinton and the Repubs wanted to create an oversite group and the Dems blithely dismissed them maybe we can kneecap those dummies so they can't get a vote because they were the ones who stopped it. Not Bush or McCain. The Dems. FACT. I blame the Repubs for not stopping this crap because they were too gutless to force a change. But I blame the basic principles of the Dems for causing it and then letting politics stop them from seeing the reality of the situation.

[saden1]

Banks said no...lol. I must say FRPLG, this is by far the poorest post by you I have ever seen. If you're going to make grandiose claims please cite your references. Specific bills and laws, any article on lobby effort against "affordable housing" by banks from reputable sources (sorry, blogs don't count) will do. Happy hunting!

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by saden1

Banks said no...lol. I must say FRPLG, this is by far the poorest post by you I have ever seen. If you're going to make grandiose claims please cite your references. Specific bills and laws, any article on lobby effort against "affordable housing" by banks from reputable sources (sorry, blogs don't count) will do. Happy hunting!

Baaaaaa!

[saden1]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Baaaaaa!

That's what I thought.

-saden1 a.k.a. Rain Man II