There is a considerable fraction of lower income Americans facing these institutional and structural price inflators who will be voting against their own economic interests by supporting the elitist Republican ticket in November. So long as they can afford to pay their cable or satellite bill to stay glued to Fox News, I suppose they’ll be able to elevate their serotonin levels to be able to remain reasonably content with their misery.
This is my life in a nutshell. Going from six figures to the same amount I was making 20 years ago in 4 short years. I WILL NOT be voting for the elitist Republican ticket, because these are the greedy swine that got me into this mess in the first place. Gobama 2012!
Even the article states how much things have declined under Obama: 39 million living in poverty in 2009 and now it is 46,000,000 almost a 20% gain; NJ unemployment rate is 9.9%. Obama has shown nothing in the past 4 years that makes you think it will get better with 4 more years. And now he runs commercials and debates that he has a plan while attacking Romney. If he has such a good plan, why doesn’t he implement it and get us to recovery already? And don’t say he can’t because of the Republicans. He closed the door and voted Obamacare through; he can surely do the same if he had a plan. Vote for a real change with Romney, nobama!
The recession is not Obama’s fault. And I will blame the Republicans, as they have made it their number one mission (as they have proudly stated) to make him a one-term president. They are doing that by blocking anything he proposes so people like you will then point and say “he hasn’t done anything”. Well, good luck with Romney. If you’re rich, you’ll definitely get richer. If you aren’t, like most of us, expect to become poorer still.
Nonsense. First off, when would the Republicans work to help a democrat get elected? Of course it is their mission to get obama out of office. Second, several times during the past 4 years obama got behind closed doors and passed bills through without a vote.
If he truly had a plan that would work, he would have implemented it, we would be seeing signs of improvement, and he would be a lock for re-election. Paul Ryan said it during his debate with the laughing moronic Biden “if you don’t have a record to run, then you attack the opposition.” Unfortunately for all of us, neither party is letting us in on their plan details, so we should look at the past 4 years to make our decision. Gas, food, insurance, and other necessities are up in cost. Jobs are NOT coming back. Obama is lost and he showed us bewilderment in the first debate.
It is their mission to represent the American people and work in our best interests, NOT the best interests of their party.
That is what they have done by opposing him at every turn and it is not what they were hired to do. Let the lobbyists and campaign managers handle that, NOT Congress.
October 15, 2012 at 5:36 pm
Marcus says:
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Moronic is not a term of civil discourse but a rather inflammatory smear.
October 19, 2012 at 2:58 pm
TX Agent Lady says:
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to Marcus – your reference to “moronic”. Did Joe Biden and Harry Reid not prove their lack of intelligence this week when Joe asked who knew someone that had served in the wars in Iran and Iraq. He said it twice and Harry raised his hand. If he wasn’t VP it wouldn’t be such a big deal.
October 18, 2012 at 4:04 pm
Bob says:
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Obama triggered CRA regulations in his suit in the 90’s to cite Citibank was “red lining” against low income borrowers.
Leahman Brothers was given high CRA ratings for giving a median $212,000 loan, and about 15% of their loans to people at poverty level.
Countrywide Financial. Same thing.
Bank of America nearly failed. Same thing. Look at their CRA ratings.
WAMU. Same thing.
You tell me how the housing bubble was not Obama’s fault, considering he started a suit that triggered CRA regulations as a method for suing big corporations who “red lined” against low income/credit borrowers. Dont take my word for it, look at the ground for the suit online, and who the attorney is that signed it.
Are you telling me Citibank going bankrupt for giving those loans was just because we “deregulated”? Bull%@. I’m sorry Libby, the republicans did not cause this crises. And contrary to the Obama debate implications he made, taxing more from the rich will not give more to the poor.
Low government revenues, and bad government spending cannot be the sole source of our recession. If it is, well then it IS Obama’s fault we are still in recession. He has spent more, and the revenues he wants to bring in would leave a larger deficit still than the time period which supposdely ruined us even if he got his tax increases.
Not all subprime loans, or even a majority of them, were made for CRA-related reasons. The combination of cheap money and imprudent borrowers clearly made for the tremendous bubble.
“Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, said that “we were setting up this bonfire years ago — the deregulation, the inordinate amount of liquidity given to the system all set the stage for the bubble and the bust.”
The repeal of important portions of the Glass-Steagall Act allowed banks to seek high returns by investing money from checking and savings accounts into “creative” and “innovative” financial instruments such as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) and credit default swaps (CDSs). These risky investments led to the collapse of the financial markets in 2008 and the resulting global financial crisis.
It’s pretty clear to me that giving the green light to Wall Street ultimately led to the housing crises and subsequent economic crises in the U.S.
October 18, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Bob says:
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I meant to say that 4.53 trillion of normal CRA loans in comparison to $1 trillion bad ones.
Not every bank loan is a CRA loan, but every firm is held to CRA rules regarding red lining.
See my comment on credit default swaps. Those are a risk, but on capital which is already at risk.
This is like saying we are juggling flaming knives. If you have 10 flaming knives you will explode.
So we do a credit default swap to get rid of our flaming knives.
Is the problem that the credit default swap eventually lead to firms holding too many flaming knives, or is the problem that we had flaming knives to begin with?
Don’t play with fire, don’t play with knives. You don’t give someone a bad loan they don’t have to do a credit default swap to ensure they don’t lose capital.
Credit default swaps are not risky if you are using them to back entire loan portfolios you know are going to collapse. You get the money up front by originating the loans, sell the risk by securitizing it, and then bet against by purchasing a CDS. Sounds pretty smart to me. Too bad it’s one big ponzy scheme.
They should all be put in jail and their assets confiscated.
October 22, 2012 at 4:10 pm
FFA says:
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No, its not. Its the people that attacked us on our soil. Thats was not Bushs fault either.
If Billy boy would have gave the order to shoot, someone else would have popped up. For every nut job they kill off, another is waiting to take his place.
The recession is OBamasa to fix. He has not. Obama should get crushed in tonights debate. This fiasco in Libbya – denying extra security then throwing Billary under the buss – man on man.
I wont be watching this debate. I’ll be watching another debate – Bears V Lions! Gotta luve Luvie! Another fina example of the opportunity that exists.
Not many loans have to fail when you have crap loans to fail the whole system.
Debt to net capital ratios are usually required to be 1 to 15. Are you aware why? Because loans fail. We put in those measuremnets in order to attempt to offset the losses experienced by expanding low income low credit loans.
They didn’t offset it. It turns out having even 1 in 15 loans fail causes a huge capital issue. The buying and selling of loans was another way to attempt and not lose capital. And arguably it works. You put together a package of bad and good loans, maybe 2 bad 20 good, and you sell the bad debt to make sure someone with enough capital may be able to handle the loan if it fails. Those credit swaps are good things, when we have less low income less low credit loans.
The threshold though, as even agreed by Obama, is larger than we thought where everything fails. He proposed to change the debt to net capital, and to regulate derivatives. That’s not solving the problem. The low income low credit borrowing is the problem.
I can refinance my loan with no proof of income. That’s due to Obama. Even the banks tell me it.
Obama said he was re-opening banks to give loans to low income borrowers, because as he said it, if that college student can get a loan to buy a computer, or a business owner can buy a truck, he can build America. Only problem is, low credit low income people remain a large risk, and he opened us up for part two of this later.
We need a high amount of good loans in that debt to net capital ratio. Not bad. And even a few bad ones crash the market.
If you think 4.53 trillion in bad loans, didn’t include at least 1 trillion failed loans you clearly didn’t read the news. That 1 trillion that failed messed over the 4.53 in the CRA, and also the trillions more that were not CRA loans.
Let me put this clear: No one bets against a loan in credit default swaps.
They try to profit off the profit, building more capital. If they invest and non of the loans fail they make the most money.
This is not an opinion, this is a fact.
Default swaps are swaps of defaults that happen to begin with, because bad loans are in the swap.
They exist because some bad loans will always exist. With a default swap if the market switches, you can get rid of bad debt, to improve your debt to net capital ratio.
Now again: They must exist, they are good.
The only point at which they turn bad, is when you lower requirements on loans, and give to low credit low income borrowers.
I’ve noticed you can’t make the argument that democrats didn’t give low income low credit loans. I’ve noticed you can’t make the argument that republicans gave them.
If the only argument you can make is they deregulated the credit default swaps (which you haven’t shown me that they did with one law yet) then your argument is still null and void.
You clearly aren’t in business, or you’d understand why credit default swaps exist. I only explained it because you clearly don’t.
Credit default swaps are good, until you juggle too much bad credit. You only juggle too much bad credit when you give bad loans to start with. We need credit default swaps for a firm to keep a solid debt to net capital ratio.
Am I wrong in anything I put above? No. Are you? No. Again: Methodology. You are correct in concept, incorrect in application.
Not at all incorrect, Bob. I understand credit default swaps and their INTENDED use. Unfortunately, they were not used as intended and were indeed used by financial institutions to bet against the very loans they either originated or purchased. They knew they were bad, but didn’t care because they could purchase a CDS.
I did not say credit default swaps were good or bad, only that they contributed to the economic crises and were part of a giant ponzy scheme perpetrated on the American people.
A default swap can only be abused and result in a collapse if you swap a bad loan.
And as you just said you don’t disagree that Democrats forced bad loans to be given.
Were there no bad loans, credit default swaps are good.
Therefore: Regulating the trading of bad loans (which avoids collapse by shifting to someone else, you are correct) does not avoid the failing of the loan which caused the collapse and need to shift the loans to someone else.
I don’t know how else I can say this Libby.
No bad loan, nothing bad you can shift to someone else.
No bad loan, CDO’s don’t fail.
No bad loan, you don’t need to trade the loan to begin with.
Every single CDO trader would vastly prefer to trade without bad loans. They were forced to need to trade so many loans, because there were so many bad loans. If there were not so many bad loans no one would have had to make a market of taking other people’s crap loans. If the firms who took those CDO’s had not have taken them Libby, the firms who first made the loan would have failed.
They knew the loans were bad, but they didn’t care because they *knew they would fail no matter what* and were working to pass the debt as much as possible for already toxic loans. It’s a shift as to who would have collapsed Libby, not whether or not someone would have collapsed. If you understood CDO’s you would know what I just put is 100% correct.
Therefore, CDO’S did not cause the collapse. Bad loans failing did, and no one could handle the amount of capital to fill the hole, they all traded it to try to get rid of it before they collapsed.
This means again, to repeat a 4th time, that the giving of bad loans to start was the sole cause of the collapse, which was democrat in origin.
Bob, Libby has drank too much kool aid. I suppose she believed everything Obama said Tuesday night too.
October 19, 2012 at 2:55 pm
Libby says:
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Good God, you are hard-headed, Bob. I did not say CDOs were the cause of the collapse. Bad loans were the reason for the collapse, but that is not the fault of the Democrats. No one forced these banks and IMC’s to give bad loans.
Mortgage brokers were closing loans right and left and making a bundle. They were willy nilly giving loans to anyone with a telephone.
No democrat held a gun to their heads and made them do it. It was greed. On top of that deregulation, which was pushed through by Republicans for Republicans.
Even economists agree with me.
October 19, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Bob says:
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Libby:
Let me simplify it, I have a bad habit of being too long:
CDO’s are a method of passing already existing debt.
They do not increase the size of that debt.
They do not increase the liklihood of the collapse of that debt.
CDO’s determined who collapsed, not how much of loans failed.
You are seriously arguing that bad debt was created because people passed key word *already existing* debt around and took on too much *already existing* debt, but you aren’t blaming the people who gave the loan which became the *already existing* debt.
No matter how much you pass *already existing debt* it will not change how much of that *already existing debt* fails. It will only change who holds it when it fails.
Bob, you don’t make sense because you don’t carefully read what I say, take it, twist it, and make it seem like I said something ridiculous when I didn’t.
What you just said does not in any way resemble what I said.
Once again, I understand what CDOs do. Bad loans were the reason for the collapse. Bad loans were freely given because of greedy bankers. CDOs guaranteed that even though they made bad loans, they would be compensated dollar for dollar on them.
Deregulation caused the collapse. Can I be any clearer than that???
October 19, 2012 at 5:08 pm
Bob says:
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Well then, I’m glad we are clear on a few things:
GLB didn’t cause the collapse.
CDO’s didn’t cause the collapse.
Now on giving bad loans: Wrong. They did.
To branch out you needed a higher CRA rating. To get a higher CRA rating you had to give low credit low income loans to people at poverty level.
Why did that come to pass? That wasn’t CRA’s goal originally. It wasn’t until the 90’s when Obama sued and triggered CRA regulations for “red lining” against low income borrowers that CRA was used for that purpose.
What deregulation from republicans allowed low income low credit loans to go out?
You’ve not provided an answer. I might add you did bring up CDO’s and you did bring say they contributed to the collapse.
You understand that Credit – Default – Swaps, you’re against the swaps part of that, I want (higher) credit, (lower) default Swaps. Democrats want Low credit loans given, more regulations on swaps (thus less swaps) = less swaps + More bad loans.
What you don’t get is Less swaps + more bad loans = higher debt to net capital ratio for firms that get in over their head.
More swaps + more good loans = If a firm gets too many bad loans they can trade the loans to someone else who can handle.
More swaps + more bad loans = Everyone swapping bad loans, everyone goes under.
We need more swaps + more good loans.
Can I make it any easier? This is what republicans sought to do. Name one law in which they deregulated standard lending practices, so that low income low borrowers were given loans.
Obama’s law suit was triggered specifically and I quote “FOR REDLINING AGAINST LOW INCOME BORROWERS”. That is factually, triggering a loan to force low income loans. That is using CRA to do so. Don’t tell me CRA wasn’t intended for it. The suit happened Libby, or are you going to pretend like it didn’t?
I’m not hot headed. I just know this topic, I’m not going to go in saying “oh you’re right” when I’ve seen your argument and it’s where I STARTED 4 years ago to search into the problem. You’re 4 years behind Libby, like democrats have been for some time.
It’s time to get 4 years ahead.
The republican way: More swaps, less bad loans, more capital growth. They did not cause this collapse.
Well, Bob, you are wrong AGAIN. Obama did not sue Citibank. He was a junior member of an 8 attorney team. And the suit was not to force Citibank to make bad loans, but to discontinue redlining, which is DISCRIMATION.
Deregulation caused this meltdown. Economists and experts alike agree with me. You are NOT that smart, you pompous ass.
And redlining involves discrimination of people in a particular area or zip code, not their economic status or ability to re-pay the loan.
“Redlining is the practice of denying, or charging more for, services such as banking, insurance,[2] access to health care,[3] or even supermarkets[4], or denying access to jobs to residents in particular, often racially determined,[5] areas.”
In addition, you (nor anyone else I have seen) have not produced a scintilla of evidence that then-junior lawyer Barack Obama influenced the Buycks-Roberson case in any significant way. His name was not even mentioned in court papers on the major milestones of the case, such as the three complaints,a lengthy discussion among opposing attorneys and the judge, the motion seeking class action certification, the settlement or the final orders. He was essentially a little-used errand boy. Look into the case file — I have.
The outcome of the case has been grossly misrepresented as well. The bank never agreed in the settlement to make loans to uncreditworthy applicants, but did offer to fashion a way to educate unsuccessful applicants on how to repair their creditworthiness and other problems to qualify for future loans.
Nor has anyone demonstrated that the Buycks-Roberson case had any appreciable effect on the mortgage crisis several years down the road.
Just a lot of right-wing innuendo and hot air.
October 22, 2012 at 1:08 pm
Bob says:
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Libby:
Obama being a part of the team, is his endorsement to the suit.
Being a member of a 8 person team sueing one of the largest financial companies in the world means you’re top of the game, not the bottom.
Further:
Your liberal media kacks do agree with you. That’s not a major talking point.
My facts add up and they are facts.
After that CRA suit, CRA could go after you for red lining against low income low credit borrowers. That case did state that was the reason behind the suit.
You did your homework, and as usual did it completely wrong.
CRA became a culprit and REGULATION which could fine you for not giving out low income low credit loans, which simultaneously GAVE YOU YOUR RATING based on how much of those loans you gave out.
If you didn’t give out enough, you could be fined, sued, and have a lower rating.
When you had a higher CRA rating, you were allowed to expand into more risky capital.
WAMU as a result of making a commitment for $750 billion in loans grew by almost 20 locations in under 10 years. That was CRA endorsed. They collapsed.
Leahman Brothers, they sought that high CRA rating, the CRA rating in 2007 cited they were praised for finding “innovative” ways to give loans with “little to no evidence” of income documentation.
Come on Libby, the government rating, which does FOR A FACT trigger red lining when you don’t give low income low credit loans, gave high ratings and allowed expansion for firms who gave low credt, no documentation loans.
That’s not deregulation. That’s regulation.
Again: Which deregulation encouraged no income documentation? Which deregulation required you to give low credit low income loans?
Are you this retarded?
I’m not a pompous ass. I’m quite the smart cookie. And back off seriously.
This is how the smart cookie crumbles. Redlining is illegal. The CRA does not force any financial institution to make bad loans. That was a matter of expanding credit to people who traditionally had not dealt with banks or financial institutions because of the immense amount of capital available in the market.
The amount of capital was increased by securitizing and selling off debt to investors, opening up more capital to the loan originators. The loan originators no longer had to hold the loans, or they many have underwritten more carefully.
Lack of regulation (SEC oversight, rating agencies, and yes, GLB) allowed this cycle of bad loans and securitization to balloon until it could not possibly be sustained.
This was not a case of banks trying to improve CRA ratings. Try to get that through your hard head.
October 22, 2012 at 1:15 pm
Bob says:
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Libby:
Ok listen Lib,
You cited deregulation regarding CDO’s, not me. If it wasn’t relevant, don’t bring it up.
Quit saying it was deregulation and it’s a fact. It wasn’t. You have not stated how the bad loans went out.
I have. Bad loans is the only way loans fail.
CRA did state you had to give low credit no proof of income poverty level loans to a certain degree to get a good rating. You would get sued if you didn’t meet those requirements (Citi bank).
You really think poverty level loans, with no loan documentation, with low credit, is not a form of “deregulation” in the fact that it lowered the requirements for loans? Come on Libby, admit it.
Further: The debt to net capital ratio was brought up in even the Fannie Mae Freddie Mac debate in 2005. We have youtube videos on it. We have several key democrats saying in their opinion we could make those companies take on even more risky loans than 1 to 15, because they would never fail, and they were succeeding in getting poor people into houses.
They pushed a movement for poor people, low credit people, in houses. Those markets failed. They were risky, and the loan companies did NOT want to take on those loans.
“He was essentially a little-used errand boy”
I think it is racist of libby to call Obama “boy”
October 22, 2012 at 2:26 pm
Libby says:
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Get it through your head. The CRA does not say you have to make bad loans. It says you can not discriminate based on zip code, which usually includes some type of racial or ethnic demographic just because of the nature of how neighborhoods are established.
If a borrower does not qualify, they are not required to make the loan. Period.
CDS’s contributed to the current crises because they provided large financial institutions a means to speculate and turned the entire market into a large casino. And what do we know about casinos? In the end, the house always wins. And the American people always lose.
October 22, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Bob says:
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Libby:
I am at a loss for words. You just used the CDO argument again and you don’t even get that you just did.
They made bad loans that they knew they couldn’t cover because they wouldn’t have to cover the loans, your words. This again implies they took on more than they could borrow because they could give it away.
Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank was “supposedly” for red lining against blacks. But ultimately, it was in a low income neighborhood. CRA looks at the neighborhood you are in, and they check to see that other neighborhoods with low income people have similar amount of black, women, minority loans, and what you fail to realize is that they have equal low income low borrower loans.
The way they make sure you aren’t red lining against african americans is to make sure you have equal amounts of african americans in poverty level across all states.
Here’s the thing: When you have a lot of capital, you’re going to make more loans to people at poverty level. Then it will differ from another location. I don’t doubt that the goal of CRA is to go against red lining. However, in full application what it did was force companies to give loans to people who could not afford them, simply for the sake of Clinton forcing low income loans to begin with. It became a tool. Note in my other comment I said what it was intended for, and what it BECAME. When Clinton forced low income loans onto Fannie and Freddie, those firms ate up black neighborhoods, WAMU made a $750 billion commitment to low income blacks. They targeted low income blacks specifically not to be on the back end of a lawsuit.
This is completely foolish. There was clearly a panic. I might add that subprime loans made up less than 5% of loans in Bush Sr.’s term. It went up to 13% after Clinton’s.
Sub prime loans did cause the collapse, and Clinton and Obama both lead to this. Clinton for giving out low income loans, and Obama for then charging suits for red lining.
What was that link supposed to prove? A headline? If you believe all the headlines you read then you are the fool here, not me. Since when is a junior partner instrumental in an action? That would be like saying a CSR is instrumental in writing a new account when all they did was service it.
You try to make it seem like you are a moderate with no ties to either party, but you are clearly a right-wing Republican that hates Obama – in sheep’s clothing.
So of course we will argue every political point there is since I am a left-wing Democrat. That’s how it works, Bob.
October 22, 2012 at 3:25 pm
Bob says:
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Ok,
Since you have not looked up CRA ratings let me break this down for you with a CRA Rating and how it applies:
CRA did force low income loans through the rating, see the rating for Leahman Brothers that I keep bringing up:
“As permitted by CRA regulations for large retail institutions, the institution can elect a weight percentage for each of the Performance Tests. Lehman bank has assigned the following weight percentages for evaluating its CRA performance:
• Lending Test 65 percent
• Investment Test 25 percent
• Service Test 10 percent”
Those are CRA’s methods of rating.
“The above chart shows that the distribution, based on number and dollar amount of loans provided to LMI borrowers for 2005, exceeded the aggregate lenders for the same period. During each calendar period, the distribution of loans to LMI borrowers slightly declined but remained above the aggregate. The LMI borrower distribution during the review period is favorable compared to that of the 2005 aggregate lenders”
LMI is: Low and middle income bracket.
They compared how much you gave to a prior year, and compared to how much other banks gave. This is the “2005” aggregate of lenders. If you didn’t give as much as the next guy, you were “red lining” Libby.
“Based on the number of loans, the bank’s penetration in both low- and moderate-income (LMI) geographies exceeded the 2005 aggregate’s ratio. Based on borrower distribution, the bank equaled the aggregate’s ratio to low-income borrowers but exceeded the ratio to moderate-income borrowers.”
Exceeding the ratio to moderte-income borrowers is good, exceeding the ratio for low income borrowers, again good. This to CRA means you aren’t red lining.
“According to 2000 U.S. Census Data, 40.7 percent of the families in the combined assessment area are classified low- to moderate-income, with 13.3 percent of the families reporting income below the poverty level. Table CA-3 shows the distribution of families in each income range of the assessment area.”
“Under the lending test, the areas reviewed consisted of the institution’s lending activity within its assessment area, the geographic distribution of loans, borrower profile, and evidence that loans were made to all income groups. Additional areas reviewed include the institution’s responsiveness to the credit needs of highly economically disadvantaged geographies and individuals, community development lending activities, and the use of innovative and flexible loan products to serve the assessment area credit needs.”
Again, CRA making sure you made loans to ALL income groups. Making loans that exceeded the aggregate of other financial firms was reason to get a higher rating. Leahman brothers at nearly 15% of their loans at poverty level was a good thing, and meant they were not red lining.
If the CRA was to blame, the housing boom would have been in CRA regions; it would have made places such as Harlem and South Philly and Compton and inner Washington the primary locales of the run up and collapse. Further, the default rates in these areas should have been worse than other regions.
Instead, the suburbs boomed and busted and went into foreclosure in much greater numbers than inner cities. The redlined areas the CRA address missed much of the boom; places that busted had nothing to do with the CRA.
Check the mortgage origination data: The vast majority of subprime mortgages — the loans at the heart of the global crisis — were underwritten by unregulated private firms. These were lenders who sold the bulk of their mortgages to Wall Street, not to Fannie or Freddie. Indeed, these firms had no deposits, so they were not under the jurisdiction of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp or the Office of Thrift Supervision. The relative market share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dropped from a high of 57 percent of all new mortgage originations in 2003, down to 37 percent as the bubble was developing in 2005-06.
I know you will pooh-pooh this argument, but the facts are the facts.
October 22, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Bob says:
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LIBBY:
IT’S NOT THE HEADLINE.
I do NOT just believe what I see. That’s YOU. READ IT.
It specifically states he was one of 3 attorneys that sought to get this case going.
It doesn’t matter if he was junior attorney, again, 8 attorneys handling a case with someone as big as Citibank means he IS a part of it.
By the way: Read a CRA rating for once in your life.
I am a moderate. You’re not. Wolf in sheep’s clothing my ass.
There was nothing to read when I clicked on the link. Only the headline.
October 22, 2012 at 3:36 pm
Bob says:
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Libby:
Now to summarize why that CRA rating screwed things up:
Whether or not you were red lining was determined based on:
How many loans you made to people in geographic locations and income brackets, as compared to other firms and yourself in the past.
Let’s say you had harmed capital, and you cut all loans the next year to low income loans. Let’s say that Chicago has a higher than average amount of people at poverty level. One year you gave them loans, but woah woah, wait now, the next you didn’t. More blacks are in Chicago than say Alaska. But in Alaska, you gave 5% of poverty level loans, to a 1% of black population, and in Chicago you gave let’s say 4.5% of loans to people at poverty, where coincidentally, most people there in poverty are blacks. This means you will end up rejecting a hell of a lot more blakcs percentage wise in Chicago, but not Alaska. In Alaska, as there are less blacks, you rejected the same amount of people at poverty level, but less blacks. It could be due to population, it could be less black people came in for loans. It happened. But the CRA will make the automatic assumption that you red lined.
It can also assume that you red lined against low income borrowers when you bring down the number from let’s say 10% to 5%. Woah woah, you cut it in half, and you also gave less loans to blacks? Bad job! So what did the companies do? They started just giving loans to blacks more, they couldn’t be red lining if they were giving more right?
These guys threw out CRA commitments like no one’s business. $1 trillion in commitments from Bank Of America, $750 billion from WAMU, Country Wide I believe was $500 billion.
Each of those three went down like a rock in a shallow pond.
CRA is suffocating the markets, and it did cause the collapse.
I also feel the need to point out that being republican does not make me right wing.
Nor does not wanting Obama in office. He is an extremist. He couldn’t even agree to bring back $1 trillion in revenues from over seas. He couldn’t even agree on his own 25% tax reduction for corporations. It’s been 4 years, he hasn’t done it.
It’s not only that I don’t like his policies, it’s that he clearly is so partisan he can’t even get republicans to agree with him on a 25% rate they agree on, because he’s using attacks and threats while doing it. I remember him saying “you ride in the back” to republicans after he won. That’s not how you work with people. Biden at the debate made it clear bi partisan wasn’t on his goal, same with Obama. A super majority wasn’t enough in the beginning of his presidency to get things done. He needs more than that, he needs you to destroy republicans.
That’s what I am against. Clinton fought republicans in 95 but he eventually gave in. And what you Clinton-tards fail to see is that the second half of Clinton’s presidency is when the economy picked up. Clinton barely one his second election, and it wasn’t the Monica Lewinsky trial. It was that they guy had no real effect on the economy outside of the norm until his second term. If the republicans were such obstructionists, why did things change back then and they haven’t changed now?
I don’t want partisan crap in Washington. You do. That’s what Obama is about, and Heaven help me if Biden ever has to lead with that bull crap partisan display he had in the debate. He doesn’t know the meaning of working with people you disagree with, just hit the table, raise your voice, and as long as you’re smiling you won’t look like a lunatic, even if you lie about Libya (he said we received no request for security, Hillary said Obama doesn’t work with those security issues, Obama said he was on the phone with the security officials day one) and even if you lie about your record on Iraq (Biden had speeches telling us to go to war with Iraq and voted for it) nah. That’s just a good guy to get into congress. Someone who yells to make their point, and lies while doing it, then speaks of what his opponent will do with raising taxes even though he can’t speak for Ryan Romney.
That’s what we call very bipartisan right? It’s extremist to keep these guys in. Clinton didn’t do this crap.
Yet everyone says Clinton is one of the reasons for the economic collapse. Which is it? Was he a good president or a bad president?
Wasn’t it Bush that said: “America is a stronger country every single time a family moves into a home of their own,”
To achieve this he pushed new policies encouraging homeownership, like the “zero-down-payment initiative,” which was much as it sounds—a government-sponsored program that allowed people to get mortgages without a down payment. More exotic mortgages followed, including ones with no monthly payments for the first two years. Other mortgages required no documentation other than the say-so of the borrower. Absurd though these all were, they paled in comparison to the financial innovations that grew out of the mortgages—derivatives built on other derivatives, packaged and repackaged until no one could identify what they contained and how much they were, in fact, worth.
October 22, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Bob says:
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Libby:
Clinton was to me, not great, not bad. When I go over specifically the issue of “partisan” politics which I don’t like, let’s keep it on topic. It’s not a which is it situation. The answer is: Both. You just can’t handle that.
My only purpose behind my comment was that Obama is partisan. Clinton was as well, to a degree, but not nearly as paritsan as Obama. When they worked together, we had a temporary good time.
I might add that boom was not fake either. I stay constant, just how I don’t call Bush’s boom fake. The pop that happened always happens, as I have said before, for both presidents.
Though it was notably worse for Bush than Clinton, due to the housing boom. Clinton nor republicans caused the internet pop. So I’ll go with that being a good time period. The housing bubble could have been avoided though, and is not linked to Bush.
Your arguement against Bush makes no sense. The no down payment intiative? Are you possibly referring to how Bush made arrangements so that you could take out funds from your retirement fund to put toward a down payment in the event that you didn’t have one? I would call that a push for home ownership that was a little more common sense. Further: No down payment is not how loans fail. Many people can’t afford a down payment, and many of those people pay off their loans. The credit on the loan however, is a big deal, and the earnings of the person who received it in comparison to the size of the loan.
Many early warning signs of the times to come. Yet nothing was done. That was 4 YEARS before Obama inherited the mess we are in. And you can’t say the mess wasn’t Bush’s fault and turn around and say it’s Obama’s fault it isn’t all cleaned up. You can’t have it both ways. And YOU can’t take that!
And EVERY politician is partisan – or we wouldn’t have 2 parties. I contend the Republicans have made the relationship more contenscious with their constant blocking and refusal to work with the other side these past 2 years.
October 22, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Bob says:
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Libby:
On your regions comments with the CRA: Incorrect on all accounts.
First off: There were regions hit hard, and here’s a hint: Many were black populations. So the CRA did affect who got hit in some ways, those black CRA commitments got hit hard.
But we’ll go back to the point: It would not make certain regions hit harder necesarilly. A bank operates fairly globally with the banks who failed. Let’s not kid ourselves, Countrywide, Citigroup, Bank Of America (they almost collapsed) and Wamu were not regional players. They were interstate players. And let’s not kid ourselves, the whole loan portfolio popping is not going to just pop in regional areas.
Those CRA ratings cited the amount of loans TOTAL given to people at poverty. Did you read it?
This would have EVERYTHNG to do with how many loans TOTAL were given to people at poverty level. Further to the point: Give me the name of a bank which did not have a CRA rating. No such banking firm exists, unless they are under the CRA size rating, at which point they didn’t cause the collapse of interstate capital.
This is a pathetic arguement. The CRA rating specifically stated that it compared how many loans TOTAL at poverty level were given in comparison to the AGGREGATE of all other financial firms. Having more TOTAL loans to people at poverty levels was encouraged.
They also compared regional. I don’t so much care about regional other than when it comes to black loans failing. And here’s a newsflash! Everyone agrees that areas with densely populated blacks WERE HIT HARDER. So it follows what I’m talking about. I care about the poverty loans being given and low income loans being given. The CRA rating I showed you gives praise to TOTAL low income poverty loans, and it simultaenously forces regional problems with blacks. Did you hear about the Florida incident with Blacks? Seriously, follow the news. They said the blacks were targeted because so many failed.
Bob: Your argument is the pathetic one. Realtors, mortgage brokers, appraisers, title companies, and banks made millions upon millions making those loans. It had nothing to do with CRA or a CRA rating. They made the loans because there was tons of capital out there during the housing bubble and everyone made alot of money. Banks found a way to bundle and sell the loans as securities because investors thought real estate couldn’t fail, which then freed up more capital for those same banks to make more bad loans. Banks and investors alike purchased CDS’s to hedge their bets in case the market went south (which it was destined to do) and AIG made millions selling them. When the whole house of cards collapsed, guess who bailed out AIG (and in turn all the banks that made the bad loans)? The American people.
I know plenty of people that refinanced to purchase expensive toys or upgrade their home to something outrageous and they defaulted and went bankrupt, too. You did not read my article. The minority of those loans were for first-time home buyers.
Trying to blame this on poor black peole, who did nothing but try to better themselves by purchasing a home, is just wrong. You are a disgrace and an example of everything that is wrong with the Republican party. Now take your racist, elitist remarks and go away.
October 23, 2012 at 8:36 am
Libby says:
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And one more thing. The main reason Lehman went bankrupt is because they chose (for some unknown reason) to hold onto the majority of the sub-prime loans they made instead of securitizing them. They were left holding the bag.
October 23, 2012 at 2:12 pm
Libby says:
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OK, Bob. I am going to agree with you to a certain point but then no more.
Here is an excerpt from an article pro-blaming CRA I found very interesting?
Q. But even during the crisis, CRA loans didn’t default at higher rates than other mortgages. CRA banks aren’t failing more than other financial institutions, CRA areas aren’t hotspots of defaults. What about that?
A. In part, this is evidence that the lending standards of the CRA had spread to the rest of the mortgage market.
Q. I thought you said CRA loans caused this crisis.
A. Nope. It isn’t losses from CRA loans that drove the crisis (although they are disproportionately responsible for losses at some banks). Instead, the CRA required lax lending standards that spread to the rest of the mortgage market. That fueled the mortgage boom and bust.
Q. So how and why did the CRA lax lending spread to the rest of the mortgage market?
A. The structure of the CRA regulations encouraged the spread. Banks that were the best at making CRA loans were allowed to grow by making acquisitions and opening new branches. This created a kind of political-financial Darwinism that reward the biggest enthusiasts for lax CRA lending standards. Of course, the most successful people under this regime were not the types who needed their arms twisted to make loose loans. They were who were predisposed to engage in loosey-goosey finance, who discovered that the CRA had made the world their oyster.
So I will contend that CRA opened up the world of lax-lending, but banks were more than happy to jump on the bandwagon to many other borrowers that were not CRA candidates just to make a buck or $30 million.
Will you accept that?
October 23, 2012 at 2:16 pm
Libby says:
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Here’s the rest of the answer to the last question:
As for the “why” part of your question, the answer is a bit ironic. Banks making CRA loans initially expected that defaults would be higher due to lax lending standards. When they discovered the low-income borrowers had an unexpected propensity to pay their mortgages. After years of data poured in showing that borrowers were paying mortgages despite high LTVs, low down payments and unconventional income measures, bankers began to believe that many of the traditional measure of credit worthiness were overly conservative. Recall what I said earlier about how mortgage service providers started pursuing low-income borrowers in part because of the CRA.
What they didn’t take into account was that different types of borrowers may behave differently, and that much of the data on those lax lending mortgages was warped by increasing home prices. Wealthier, more sophisticated borrowers ruthlessly default when their mortgage goes underwater, for example. What’s more, the reversal of housing prices meant that defaults across all borrower classes increased.
Making matters worse, President Bush pushed hard for lax lending standards. He wanted to expand minority and low income home ownership far beyond what the CRA required. So he pushed even harder for the broadening of these lending standards.
October 23, 2012 at 1:34 pm
Bob says:
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Libby:
Simplify your facts.
You just stated in Leahman Brothers the reason they went bankrupt is that they held the loan rather than passing it in securities. Also, securities are more or less credit default swaps. So let’s keep it basic Libby.
Credit default swaps and securities are insurance against bad loans. It determines who holds the bag, as I said before who fails, not whether or not you fail.
Yes, the firms knew if they bought loans they could sell it to someone else. That is a technically accurate fact. However, they were forced to give low income poverty level loans to get higher CRA ratings.
You’ll note in the score I showed you regarding Leahman brothers it compared the AGGREGATE amount of poverty loans to the prior year, as well as to ALL other companies. If one company as an example identified the crises could happen, and stopped their low income loans, or poverty level loans, they would have been sued.
As my example showed, the reason behind this would be multi level. In black neighborhoods where more blacks are in poverty than whites, they would have to cancel more black loans than they would whites. They would be sued for regional black discrimination. This isn’t an opinion. On a interstate basis they would be below the aggregate by huge numbers. They would be accused of doing it alone, separate from the pack.
CRA judged everyone on what everyone else was doing.
I once asked you, in a deregulated market WHY WOULD EVERYONE FAIL THE SAME EXACT WAY. A regulated one caused that. These firms were kept into an aggregate of loans, bad loans, encouraged to people at poverty, and were RATED on keeping to that aggregate, if they were not in that aggregate, it WAS grounds to being sued, CRA DID become a method of suing for red lining against low income borrowers.
It DID result in the collapse. What deregulation caused these people to have 13% of their loans (Leahman Brothers) in the hands of people at poverty level? You’ll note it praised Leahman Brothers for being ahead of the aggregate, but on Service they still were rated low.
Bob, I agree to a point. What I disagree with is your loose use of the term “people at poverty level.” Not all subprime loans were to people at poverty level and those defaulted at the same rate. Loaning on 125% values assuming housing prices would continue to rise, offering credit cards with large lines of credit to folks that, if used, would never be able to pay them back, the willy-nilly financing of luxury items to people that did not have the income, but owned a home – these things also contributed. It was irresponsible lending to be sure, but not CRA related.
And Lehman Brothers was left with a larger amount of subprime loans because they did not securitize and sell them. For some reason no-one knows.
October 15, 2012 at 1:58 pm
J.C.H says:
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“My friends were so concerned about my well-being they had me signing up with every single social service.” This is exactly what’s wrong with our country. Rather than helping our friends directly, were pointing them towards the government for help.
History will tell us that when 80% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the population, revolution is the result. I think we’re a bit behind schedule….let them eat cake!
I am all for helping people as I have been in bad spots myself financially in my life. But people without many resources need to change their habits. For instance, instead of buying processed food in boxes or cans, what about actually cooking food from scratch. If not working, time is not an issue. My husband and I had an excellent dinner of roasted chicken, bean soup, salad and fresh cornbread last night for under $5 total with enough leftovers for 2 more meals. Together, we make over $200,000 a year and so don’t have to eat that way, but we do because it’s tasty, nutritious and economical (so allows us to be voracious savers for retirement). The problem facing our country is that everyone wants everything and nobody wants to make any sacrifices. That’s a problem. 1+1 will never equal 5.
Are you kidding me? Do you know how much fresh meat, vegetables, and fruit have gone up? It’s costs so much more to cook and eat healthy than it does to buy some processed or frozen BS in the store. That is one of the reasons there is increased obesity among the poor. They don’t have access to healthy, nutritious food because they can’t afford to feed their families with it. Macaroni in a box, processed rice, and potatoes will stretch alot further than poultry, eggs, meat, and vegetables. So that’s what they end up buying.
Libby, or may I call you Moron since you now admit it, fresh food is actually cheaper than canned and processed food, even after cooking it. Saying it costs more is just an excuse for not taking the time to cook. And if you want to argue that a meal at McDonald’s is cheaper than cooking at home, don’t forget to add in the high cost of gas. Once or twice a week to the grocery store vs. 21 trips to a fast food place is a big gas savings (in more ways than one).
Not only that, but taking the time to have a nice sit down meal will only improve the family dynamic.
Idiot, I never said to go to McDonalds. I said people with families and no money can not afford fresh vegetables and meat. They survive on pasta, rice, potatoes, and corn, which ARE cheaper than vegetables and meat.
Why don’t you pay attention instead of jumping the gun to get down my throat? So now run along with the rest of your little merry gang of Libby-haters.
I was anticipating your next argument, moron. Again, fresh corn in season is cheaper than canned corn. Whole potatoes cost less than canned. Fresh food generally costs less than its frozen or canned counterparts, as long as you are smart about it by trying to buy in season or on sale. And the meals can be extended with leftovers.
Judging from all your comments and posts, I sincerely doubt I would want to get down your throat!
October 19, 2012 at 3:22 pm
Libby says:
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What does the price of fresh corn v. canned corn have to do with my statement? Corn is still corn. It’s not meat and it’s not healthy fruits and vegetables.
And just how in the hell do you extend meals with leftovers when you barely have enough to go around in the first place?
You obviously know nothing about being hungry or going without, and that’s a lucky thing for you. Not so much with alot of other folks.
Don’t speak of what you don’t know, idiot.
October 19, 2012 at 5:51 pm
Bob says:
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People can’t afford food, and somehow we’ll get Obama to fix that.
Food costs are way up, but somehow some way he’ll get on that.
Corn is still subsidized. Bad foods and oils are still subsidized.
Vegetables and organic foods are not subsidized. Level of intent here perhaps?
But Obama will get right on fixing that. I seem to recall some speeches with him saying he wouldn’t do away with Farmer’s subsidies and blasting Romney for it in his Campaigning when Paul Ryan was nominated vice president. Don’t worry though, he won’t continue those subsidies for corn like he said he would, and like he said Romney wouldn’t. He won’t keep bad food at a low cost.
No need to worry Bluto. None at all.
October 19, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Cheetoh Mulligan says:
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Speaking of gas, why wouldn’t the savior obama answer the gas question the other night? It was $1.80 when he took over and now it is $4 a gallon. Is $4 a gallon the new normal for the US? He dodged this one, pretty much along with most of the others. If you have no record to run on, you attack your opponent.
Though his reply didn’t make sense. He stated that the reason was we were in a recession, which made people buy less gass (less demand).
However, numbers say otherwise. If that was the case when the recession peaked gas prices would have been the lowest. 2007 is when we had those gas prices, and at the END of Bush’s presidency when the recession was worst is the summer we had the rough near $4.00 gas. It was something that pissed people off.
I smell B.S. on Obama’s part. Shouldn’t it have been 1.81 at the lowest point in the recovery? It wasn’t. Less people weren’t buying gas during the $1.81 time point.
And ever arguing that more oil is a bad thing is stupid. Keystone oil is a good idea. He doesn’t want it though.
Go into green if you want…But get as much oil now in the mean time.
October 15, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Original bob says:
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I don’t pretend that rising prices, fees, and taxes are not harder on the poor and middle class but I don’t blame one party, I blame both. People who have money don’t keep it under the mattress, they invest in business, buy bonds, make loans etc. Government legislation, regulations and laws can create limited but not efficient economic opportunities. They are not adept at meeting needs or the demand for essential products at a price that most people can reasonably afford. There was an old story back in the 50s about a Russian government shoes factory that boasted that it produced 10,000 shoes a day – the fact that they were all made for the right foot was not a factor in meeting the government quota. Global markets make it simple, even for the modest 401K investors, to move money to countries or economies that do not penalize profits. Job creation has never been easy but the current regulatory environment makes small business start ups extremely difficult. Ask someone who has actually started a business not an occupy Wall Street idealist. We have had to cut one employee due to the rising cost of prices and fees. Soon we may have to reduce the number again due to medical plan costs. We cannot charge more because the demand for our product at our current prices has maxed out – reduction of expenses is our only option at this time. I just don’t see how increasing the tax on capital gains is going to help the business environment.
I’m the working poor; come to work every year for 35 years and am no better off than back then. I don’t like either candidate but will vote Obama. I don’t to spend more on missile defense that doesn’t work.
Anyone and I mean anyone that thinks they are better off then 4 years ago just needs to look at the value of their home if they still have one. Look at your employment if you still have a job and ask when you last time you got a raise and when have you worked as hard as you do now. No one is better off,except banks and wall street.
With Obama the CHANGE did happen!! More people on welfare, foodstamps and other federal assistance then ever before.
In addition 23 million good people out of work or under-employed and your house is not worth what you owe. This is not the CHANGE we want or need. Let’s give someone else the chance to do better. Obama has not and will not turn this country around. He has had almost 4 years and we are NOT better off. God help us all, if he is re-elected.
Funny because obama sure said he would make an impact in the economy in 4 years while debating with the great John McCain. He did increase our debt by 50% or over $5,000,000,000 and again he said during the debates with the great John McCain that he would decrease the country’s debt. The economy issues are best left to the Republicans to solve.
I love how Republicans know “what’s best” for the rest of us. Very patriarchcal and patronizing of you.
“The day the Bush administration took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus — with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion,” Axelrod wrote. “When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit — and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade.”
The deficit run by Bush in his 2 terms were primarily the wars we were and will continue to fight against the terrorist that would rather crash 4 airplanes and kill themselves and thousands all in the name of Alla. A little known truth about Bill Clinton is that in 1999 after the bombing of the Navy ship USS Cole in Yemen, a Navy Seal had Osama Bin laden in his sights and Clinton denied the order to take him out! If only Clinton had given the order many lives would have been saved and billions not wasted in our deficit. So much for Clinton and his budget surplus, and he’s also a heck of a liar, remember “I DID NOT HAVE SEXUAL RELATIONS WITH MS. LOWINSKI” I will never trust him again . Just saying.
October 16, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Libby says:
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I have heard that rumor and it’s probably true. But you can not say, unequivocally, that 9/11 wouldn’t have happened had he taken out bin Laden. There were many, many more where he came from. And all of them just as over-zealous and fanatical as he was.
October 15, 2012 at 5:49 pm
Marcus says:
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What made John McCain great is his rational ability to analyze issues and be independent. When Senator Mitch McConnel declared, at the beginning of Obama’s term that the sole mission of the “loyal” opposition party is to make Obama a one term president, that party forfeited all claim to being a problem solving partner.
Obama and democrats did cause this, I’ve explained how.
Explain how republicans did. Laws must be triggered before thier effect on the economy is made.
A fee law was just triggered on our firm (unjustifiably, but still, it’s the first time it’s been triggered.) And it was a TEN YEAR old law.
CRA may be a 1977 law, but no body triggered a suit. Between 1977 and 1992 firms only made under $10 billion in commitments. Following 1992 to 2007 they made 4.53 trillion in commitments.
Could you see how 4.53 trillion in commitments, following Obama stating it was illegal to “discriminate” against low income, low credit borrowers, would increase those borrowers in a portfolio?
It happened Libby. Leahman brother’s CRA rating showed a $212,000 median loan and over 15% given to people at poverty level. And you think deregulation caused that 15% to be given out? And republicans? If you do show me the direct regulation that did that.
I’ve shown you the direct regulation. I’ve cited a suit that trigerred that regulation.
If you don’t have that, you don’t have grounds to blame republicans.
If you give me a minute to respond, Bob, I will back up my statement. I think I have shown that deregulation caused this crises and not the CRA. Read my post.
I did. And your post, the only one which had facts, is proven a fallacy by even left leaning politfact.
I’m sorry, you’re wrong.
You have not made the case. I have.
October 22, 2012 at 1:33 pm
Bob says:
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Libby:
You know what I notice about you? You don’t often think for yourself.
But if you’re not going to think for yourself and talk about the FDIC, you should at least have your facts straight for the most recent study as to what they think about the recession:
I don’t agree with this myself either, as loans don’t just fail.
But the point is: You are following a liberal left claim, without fact checking it whatsoever for other opinions. The other opinions you insult.
You need to use FOX to fact check these people and compare the two. MSNBC, FOX, use them all.
I don’t like MSNBC but I fact check the methodology all the time.
Example again for the 40th time: MSNBC differs from Forbes on how much they believe oil companies pay. The methodology is the reason for the difference between the numbers.
Your methodology for this CRA debate is flawed.
October 22, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Libby says:
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You have your “facts” and I have mine Bob. There is plenty of debate on this issue amongst people much more in the know than I am. I have looked at both sides and I have chosen which one I believe. And it’s not yours.
October 22, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Libby says:
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Your cocky insults know no bounds, do they Bob? I most certainly think for myself and while I agree with the link you posted to a degree – I do not entirely. It was a combination of greed (on bankers and consumers parts), deregulation, and the Fed that caused this mess.
BUT, the CRA had nothing to do with. And that was the basis for the beginning of this debate if you’ll remember.
So nice try of changing course mid-stream when you are losing an argument, but I will not allow it this time. Stick with the subject at hand – The CRA and the Current Economic Crises.
Links? None.
Period.
October 15, 2012 at 5:46 pm
Marcus says:
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Victimizing the people now on welfare, foodstamps, and other government assistance is turning the country in the wrong direction.
Value of my home? Up. Raise – at least one in each of the last 4 years and a promotion to boot. This goes for most people I know, too. And, my wife was finally rehired with President Obama in office. We aren’t going back to the policies that put us in the mess The President was handed. And, with Mitch McConnell saying it is the Republican Party’s #1 goal to make President Obama a one term President, no wonder we haven’t been able to get all the change we are looking for. And, if anyone thinks it was only going to take 4 years to clean up a 30+ year old mess, you were sorely mistaken. GoBama 2012!
OK Libbyral, let’s not forget who handed Clinton the keys. Reaganomics carried on by Mr. Bush. Clinton had it easy and even had enough time to solicit sex from interns while at the same time turn away the handing over of Osama bin laden. Clinton laxed the military and our borders, and we lost the Twin Towers. I digress.
obama increased our country’s debt by now $6,000,000,000 which is more than all the other Presidents combined. So go check your figures as they are not correct. obama told us all 4 years ago he had all the answers, was going to decrease unemployment, was going to decrease the debt, was going to get the troops out of the middle east, was going to lessen our dependency on foreign oil, was going to blah, blah, … Facts are he didn’t live up to any of his promises, unless you count Change as a change for the worse. There is nothing in the works that can make you believe that he has laid any ground work for improvement in any areas. And that includes our maintaining our military dominance in the world.
Unemployment has decreased in many areas, the troops are out of Iraq, and his green policy, while not fully successful, was a step towards lessening our dependency on foreign oil. Congress has fought him on the jobs act and passing a budget. You can only beat your head against the wall for so long before you just pass out. It’s Congress that needs to change, not the President.
Libby, not just a few of the Green Projects that Obama funded have fallen on their faces. This will be long, but following is a list of how much money has been given to the top 36 and the * denotes those that are either bankrupt or filing bankruptcy. Since I don’t believe you would ever follow a link you’re getting the whole list:
1. Evergreen Solar ($24Million)*
2. SpectraWatt ($500K)*
3. Solyndra($535 Million)*
4. Beacon Power ($69 Million)*
5. AES’s Subsidiary Eastern Energy ($17.1 Million)
6. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 Milliono)
7. SunPower ($1.5 Billion)
8. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
9. Babcock and Brown ($178 Million)
10. enerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 Million)*
11. Amonix ($5.9 Million)
12. National Renewalbe energy Lab ($200 Million)
13. Fisker Automotive ($528 Million)
14. Abound Solar ($374 Million) *
15. A123 Systems ($279 Million)*
16. Willard & Kelsey Soalr Group ($6 million)
17 Johnson Controls ($299 million)
18. Schneider electric ($86 million)
19. Brightsurce ($1.6 billion)
20. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
21. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
22. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
23. Mountain Plazak Inc. ($2 million)*
24. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsens Mills Acquisition Co.($10 Mil)*
25. Range Fuels ($80 mil)*
Thompson River Power ($6.4 mil)*
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 mill)*
LSP energy ($2.1 billion)*
UniSolar ($100 million)*
Azure Dynamics ($120 mil)*
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Vestas ($50 mil)
LG Chem’s Subsidiary Comopact Power ($150 mil)
Nordic Windpower ($16 mil)I
Navisar ($10 mil)
Satcon ($3 mil)*
he 2009 stimulus set aside $80 billion to subsidize politically preferred energy projects. Since that time, 1,900 investiagions have beenopened to look into sstimulus waste, fraud, and abuse (not all related to green energy funds, and nearly 600 convictions have been made. Government isn’t capaable of picking winners and losers. that is why venture capitalist firms exist, and they choose what to invest in by looking at companies’ business models and deciding ifthey are worthy. When the government plays venture capitalist, it tends to reward companies that are connect to the policymakers themselves. This is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. the companies in this list received federal support and have either gone bankrupt or are laying off workers and are headin for bankruptcy. THIS LIST INCLUDES ONLY THOSE COMPANIES THAT RECEIVED FEDERAL MONEY FRO THE OBAMA ADMINSTRATION’S DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY!!!!!
What’s your point TX? That we should abandon a green policy? That we should continue our dependence on oil? And I do follow links, as I don’t trust the stuff people copy & edit. No-one trusts mine, that’s for sure.
Reaganomics is what has put us in this mess, Cheetoh. That’s what got the ball rolling. And, he has made good on many of his promises, despite obstruction by The Right.
Bulloney! Clinton signed the document that lowered the requirements for an individual to secure a mortgage. The standards were lowered so that more people could enjoy being a home owner, and Clinton signed it.
Guess they aren’t enjoying it now.
If you are talking about the CRA, that was originally passed in 1977, which discouraged redlining. It did not force banks to make loans outside their underwriting guidlelines.
In 1999, the GLB was passed, which was backed by three Republicans. It allowed banks to branch out into other types of financial transactions and become “financial institutions”. This is where the trouble started. And it was shoved through by Republicans for big-business Republicans.
I blame the right for this housing mess. Greedy wall street bankers branching into derivitives, swaps, securitized books of bad loans and on ad nauseum. The whole thing stinks and is a direct result of right wing Republicans.
You’re plainly wrong about this Libby. It did force banks to give loans to low income low credit borrowers.
After the CRA suit from Obama the commitments for CRA loans went from under $10 billion total to 4.53 trillion total.
Look at the portfolio.
GLB is not what caused bad loans to be given. Branching out into other types of banks would not force banks or cause banks to give low credit low income loans. Even liberal sites call what you said a fallacy.
Of course politifact doesn’t go over correctly what did cause it, but it was not GLB.
The question is what caused people to give low credit low income loans. The answer is: CRA changed when Obama triggered a suit to be a method of going after companies who did not give loans to people who were at poverty level and low credit. Those loans are the loans that failed.
Do you deny that low income low credit loans are the only loans that fail? Do you deny that those loans increased due to CRA and force through Obama?
If you do you’re a liar or confused.
I would ask you again: How did the republicans cause low income and low credit loans to be given out.
Specifics please.
October 18, 2012 at 4:31 pm
Libby says:
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You will have them when you get in tomorrow. I have an appointment and have to sign off. Rest up!
October 19, 2012 at 10:36 am
Libby says:
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Bob:
The Federal Reserve Board has stated that the sub-prime crises is rooted in the poor performance of mortgage loans made between 2004-2007. The case against CRA being responsible is based on both logic and facts – things you are quite fond of using:
First of all, the CRA states that regulated financial institutions have a continuing obligation to help meet the needs of the local coomunities in which they are chartered. This is to be done consistent with safe and sound operation and lending practices. The CRA pertains to banks and thrift companies and NOT Independent Mortgage Companies (IMC).
In 2006 almost 2/3 of low-documentation, high-cost loans were for purposes other than the purchase of a primary residence and were mostly refinancings to extract equity. BETWEEN 1998 AND 2006 ONLY 9% OF SUB-PRIME LOANS WENT TO FIRST TIME HOME BUYERS.
3 recent studies provide strong evidence that during the boom years that led to the crises, CRA lending was relatively small in the context of a mulitrillion-dollar mortgage market, they were of relatively high quality, and CRA covered loans have performed well compared to those that were not covered by CRA.
Researchers at the Center for Community Capital concluded “For comparable borrowers, the estimated default risk is much lower with a CRA loan than with a sub-prime mortgage…Borrowers and responsible CRA lending should not be balmed for the current housing crises. Loans made by lenders regulated under CRA were significantly less likely to go into foreclosure than those made by IMCs.”
Former Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner concluded “we believe that the available evidence runs counter to the contention that the CRA contributed in any substantive way to the current mortgage crises.”
FDIC Chair Sheila Bair has stated “I want to give you my verdict on CRA: Not Guilty.”
Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan agrees “CRA is not the culprit behind the sub-prime mortgage lending abuses, or the broader credit quality issues in the marketplace. Indeed, the lenders most prominently associated with sub-prime mortgage lending abuses and high rates of foreclosure are not lenders subject to CRA.”
Now. I have proved my point. You are wrong. Admit it.
October 19, 2012 at 2:18 pm
Bob says:
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Libby:
Nothing in what you just posted disproved that 4.53 trillion in CRA commitments were given out from 1992 to 2007.
9% doesn’t matter. As I said, 9% could collapse the entire market if they were loans that failed.
Debt to net capital ratios are 1 to 15, because beyond that you could collapse for giving 1 bad loan to every good loan dollar on a 1 to 15 ratio. I don’t know if you know math, but that’s UNDER 7 PERCENT being an acceptable ratio of bad loans to give out. 9% you say is low, I say it’s high.
Moving forward:
Leahman Brother’s portfolio had over 15% of loans given to low income borrowers with a 212,000 median loan in their 2007 CRA rating. What you fail to see is CRA rates ALL firms. You are only allowed to operate in a capacity for loan expansion (you quoted GLB in this area and were correct in a similar method of expansion) if you have a high CRA rating. They were given high ratings for giving loans with “little to no” income documentation.
The only reason why anyone would have that portfolio, is the CRA suit Obama did in the 90’s stating they were redlining against low income low credit borrowers.
CRA became a method of forcing loans.
You are wrong. Admit it. Relevant facts Libby. You aren’t good at connecting dots.
October 19, 2012 at 2:33 pm
Libby says:
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You’re right, Bob. Even though the former Governor of the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and the Treasurer of the Currency all agree that CRA had nothing to do with the collapse – they are all wrong as the great and powerful Oz, I mean Bob, has spoken.
Get over yourself. You aren’t that smart.
October 19, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Bob says:
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Hey Libby:
Actually, I am that smart. The government doesn’t like it and neither do you.
The FDIC, this is just funny. You really believe the CRA doesn’t seek to protect it’s ass? And that the FDIC doesn’t seek the same?
Remember that suit I told you about against my firm? The one that failed? We issued an order to release all public documents. Want to know what we saw from the respectful offices of our courts?
Emails stating that their number 1 agenda was not to give counsel, it was to collect revenue.
That they must not admit they didn’t give technical counsel which was required according to law. They strick it from the court as irrelavent material to the case by stating that their credibility didn’t determine whether or not we broke the law, and it wasn’t material fact in consideration of whether or not we did so. We countered with the law says they cannot be arbitrary, says we are to have technical counsel, and that them not giving technical counsel and being arbitrary was completely material facts in the case of whether or not we broke the law (use the word “your” company on a broker fee agreement instead of the actual name) and we won the case.
But no, we don’t know what we’re talking about.
Also worth noting: My facts are true. Every firm is CRA rated. You get higher ratings for giving out loans with little to no proof of income, and to people at poverty level. You can give different types of loans if you have a higher CRA rating. That’s a fact. Obama did sue for “red lining against” low income borrowers. You really believe, that low income loans didn’t go out after that? Here’s a hint: Citibank went bankrupt 10 years later FOR GIVING those loans, and was one of the biggest recipients of bail out funds. And you believe that Obama’s suit didn’t trigger people to react, one of the largest financial companies in the world was sued for redlining, everyone started giving low income loans, and you think it happened magically? You think deregulation collapsed Citi? Just greedy bankers? Greedy bankers who changed their habits over ten years, NOTHING to do with Obama’s suit?
Loans that failed WERE low income low credit loans that started the mess. Of course when the recession hit full on EVERYONE even higher credit people lost jobs and defaulted as well. That’s how they lied. They measured people after the recession triggered. They did not show you how it started.
So in conclusion: Yes. I am more intelligent than those people. My facts speak for themselves if you’d look it up and stop putting your head up the democrat’s ass.
I should mention: I was a fiscal liberal until my mid 20’s and a conservative social. That’s what happens when you’re raised Catholic, which is why I spoke about Catholic’s generally supporting a socialist agenda. Let me assure you, I know about having your head up the democrat’s asses for financial issues. But I also know about not letting people pressure you into believing something (believe it or not, Catholics are discriminated against in how they supposedly feel with regards to women’s issues and gay rights, you and planet do not make the minority and we are attacked and questioned on it all the time)
October 22, 2012 at 2:02 pm
FFA` says:
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He stated that on Letterman while after Billary lost the primary. Seems he only gave Billary Sect of State position to bring Bill around.
There is no doubt the lower rates during Clinton’s presidency worked. There is no doubt without Reagan they would never have happened. There is no doubt a 70% rate would not bring in more revenues (it never brought in 20% of GDP, it will never bring in 20% of GDP, while 39.6% did)
It is amazing how democrats blindly follow obama and the party. Unemployment is down because of a function of time, not jobs. There are still troops in Iraq and the withdrawal began way later than when was promised. Obama’s green policy has been to give money to companies and watch them squander it and go out of business, with the exception of the company that developed the $150,000 electric car. By the way, where did the $6,000,000,000 over spending go?
I guess, like most Republicans, you didn’t read my post and just ignored the facts – so I’ll say it again:
“When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit — and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade.”
I guess, like most democrats, you just ignore the question. I don’t have time for your nonsense. Obama has a deficit of $16,000,000 now. If Bush left obama a deficit of $1.3 trillion, which isn’t correct, and it is now $16 trillion, which is correct, and Bush supposedly has shortfalls of $8 trillion over 10 years, or $800,000 billion each year, what did obama spend the money on?
Enjoy the debate tonight.
You are right, it wasn’t correct. It was much more than $1.3T:
The latest posting from the Bureau of Public Debt at the Treasury Department shows the National Debt now stands at $15.566 trillion. It was $10.626 trillion on President Bush’s last day in office, which coincided with President Obama’s first day. -CBS News 3/19/12
But debt and deficits are two different things. You are mixing apples with oranges. Nice try, though.
October 16, 2012 at 2:04 pm
Libby says:
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Debt when Bush left office was $10.6T and it is now $16T. That’s a difference of $5.4T. Bush started with a budget surplus of $236B. When he left office he had a $1.3T deficit in the budget. That’s a difference of $1.5T with continued deficits of $8T over the next 10 years. That does not mean $800B per year, it means $8T over 10 years. Now enough of your antics.
October 18, 2012 at 4:58 pm
Bob says:
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Any president can choose on a year to year not to have the same deficits of the prior, depending on spending.
Obama is continuing to spend 1 trillion each year. This is not due to Bush. Your antics won’t fly.
Deficits are not inherited. Choices are made. Obama needs to own his responsibilty of deficits. It is not George W’s at this point.
Side comment: She messed up the word debt to deficit one time. The other time she had it correct.
October 15, 2012 at 5:13 pm
Bob says:
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“The spike in food prices at times this year “had such a tremendous impact on me that I didn’t eat most of the summer,” Jubert, 58, told the Asbury Park Press of Neptune.”
To the people who think the poor economy just showed up one day out of the blue thanks to Obama…really? C’mon. If you are posting here you can’t be that dumb. When politicians start thinking country first and party second or third we will all be better off.
I don’t think anyone is blaming obama for the initial poor economy. My objection to obama is that he has been President for 4 years and has not lived up to his campaign promises from 4 years ago, nor has he laid any ground work for the next 4 to make believe that he can turn the economy around and stop the debt from exploding.
Really, a large part of the unemployment is lost government jobs? What union told you that?
Think back. What happened in the 2006 midterm elections ? The Dems won veto proof majorities in both houses of Congress. Certainly George W was wrong in sponsoring prescription coverage for Medicare with now way to pay for it. He also supported the ethanol program for fuel. Both bad ideas but they were not economy breakers by themselves.
Then the Obama unit came into office with total control of both houses of Congress. The phrase “We won and you didn’t” was hurled at the Republicans over and over and we were assaulted with Obama care which required threats and bribes to Democrats to get it passed. Conservatives were not invited to help come up with ideas to cure our national ills.There was also a $1 Trillion stimulus package dumped on us. The Libs controlled our destiny until the 2010 midterm elections that saw large conservative gains in the House and in state and local legislatures. Harry Reid still won’t even bring Republican bills to a vote because a lot of Democrats would support them. I want the left to stop whining about Republican obstructionism.
I would also point out that the 7.8% unemployment rate is inaccurate because there are fewer people working now than when Obama had his coronation in 2009. There are also huge numbers of people no longer looking for work because the are completely discouraged.
The Federal government is being run by a bunch of elitist liberals who have no real world experience. including Barry Obama who has been told all of his privelegd life that he is a genius and everyone loves him. He plays golf and his Queen Michelle squanders many millions on vacations and parties while the citizens clip coupons and buy day old bread.
The hateful left despises those who worked hard and got wealthy and they would rather drag down the successful that improve conditions so more of the poor can achieve a better station in life.
As I have said before, I probably won’t see the restoration of freedom in the US but I hope and pray for it.
Yes. Yes it is. 1995 the congress went republican, the president finally conceded to what they wanted after nearly shutting down the govenrment, and then we had surpluses and they worked together.
2010 we nearly have a government shut down with another republican congress, only this time the president didn’t conceded, and our problems are equal.
The left are the hateful obstructionists right now.
I notice she had a government job and lost it due to a dispute with management- you know this isn’t my first recession – and the first thing you learn is – no matter how bad you hate your job, you do everything you can to keep it when times are bad. I think among other things, there have been some poor decisions here.
Yes, the American Dream is to be miserable, work 3 jobs to barely skate by (which takes you away from your family), eat processed and gentically modified food, not be able to afford healthcare if you can get it at all, not get paid as much as men if you are a woman, hate gays, be suspicious of brown people who MAY be here illegally (we won’t know until we check out their papers), support The President during times of war no matter what (except for when he’s a black Democrat), and keep trickling your paychecks to the wealthy. Hmm, doesn’t sound like the dream I was described back when I was a kid. But, it is the real Romney plan…currently. He changes it so often, I’m not sure. Etch-A-Sketchy!
Obama deosn’t have the ability to make sure the poor don’t eat processed or genitically modified food.
The hate gays thing is out of line, that is not what republicans are about. Extreme ones yes, not the mainstream. We have a problem with how government seeks to integrate gay marriage. Not with Gays. Get that through your head. You cannot label us as gay haters and not expect retaliation you @#%@%ing moron. Pardon my french but NO ONE labels me as a gay hater, or republicans, that’s a form of hate all it’s own that I consider bullshit and a form of racism. I will not tolerate it.
Regarding paychecks to the wealthy: The “wealthy” create jobs. And under “Obama” he denies anyone in the middle class from getting enough money to have capital to invest into a business through not only the death tax, but the capital gains tax. THAT is how middle class americans get the chance to gain enough capital. Where do you think jobs come from? Honestly planet I want an answer. WHERE DO JOBS COME FROM? “small” business is not an answer. Allowing people who make $250,000 or over to accumulate capital is CRITICAL to them having enough money to excel their business (or start one at all), not taxing them at death is CRITICAL to the next generation having capital to make a business.
You think you can tax and create a job? You take it out one one end to “supposedly” fund an education (how is past my head, because revenues don’t go up) but you TOOK CAPITAL from someone who could create a job. If you take too much capital, you have college trained kids with no capital to create jobs for them.
we should have booming job creation. Instead, that wealth is just being kept up top…as usual. There is a demand problem in this country and once demand increases, then you’ll see more jobs. The only way to get demand up is to have more money in the middle and lower class pockets. I’m sick and tired of the trickle up distribution of wealth. We’re headed to serfdom.
You don’t give me the time of day because your facts are bull shit.
You just honestly made a post referring to racist, gay hating, republicans. You have done it before when referring to religions and the movement for civil rights. Nevermind the fact that the majority of religious organizations moved forward civil rights. Never mind the fact that republicans voted for that bill as a percentage more than democrats. Nevermind the fact that republicans got women the right to vote. They are against women and blacks. It’s ignorant, it’s untrue, it’s insulting, and you don’t get to say it.
Trickle down did not cause the food differnce you are talking about.
Subsidizing bad food did. Who subsidized food….I can’t remember…Oh wait, I can FDR. I have a nutritionist friend. He hates both republicans and democrats for the subsidies, but we all know the government causes those subsidies and they are democrat originating.
Trickle down does not result in bad things.
Explain how. Equal revenues with 39.6 versus 95%, with more capital available in business.
How did trickle down destroy the economy? Trickle down is exactly what Clinton did with a 39.6 rate (less than half that of the 40’s) and it worked.
I’m not a bully, I push back against people like you who label my kind. Jack ass. And you are wrong on this one.
October 19, 2012 at 2:34 pm
Bob says:
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Planet:
As a side comment: No matter how much you tax from the rich it won’t help the middle class. The majority of the middle class goes to school, collects social security, and collects medicare. Those are their primary means to jobs, and their support from the government.
In which way do you propose bringing up their incomes? Taxing more doesn’t do it. You talk about it destroying the nation. Taxing more will not change their schooling funds (as revenues will not change) social security pay outs (as those are self funded, and revenues we receive here even if we collected all from the rich would amount to less than a 10% increase per recipient) and medicare is self funded pay outs (this will not get the middle class out of poverty).
Taxing more won’t bring in more revenues, will destroy capital, won’t put more in the pockets of the middle class, and will effectively take money out of the rich’s pockets, which they could invest into jobs. When a rich man invests into a business and it profits that is a GOOD thing and he will hire. When Obama invests into green energy, gives them low tax rates, and green jobs as a percentage of that investment come about painfully slow, fail (the volt, solyandra) and we wait for 4 years and nothing happens what do you expect? The business guy would spend money right NOW to make money or fail. The government has no risk, no interest in the growth, and fails no matter what.
Lower taxes, more capital, this is a fact. Higher taxes, equal revenue. This is a fact. There is no reason to raise taxes to close to what they were before, this will help no one. This is a fact. It will be detrimental, it will destroy capital, this is a fact.
Trickle down works, Clinton your god proved it. You say his rates were higher than Reagan, yeah so were everybody’s. His rates were also nearly a third that of the 95% top rate of FDR.
October 23, 2012 at 10:32 am
FFA says:
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Isin this what OBama Care encourages – Employment of 50 or less? Sure, the number is 50 today. a few years down the road 50 dont work so lets make it 25 and so on and so on.
My strongest objection (among many) to OBama is oBama Care. No Tort Reform = No reform at all. Anyone in the Insurance qworld knows how stupid law suites run premiums up across the board.
Yes or No Libby & Cap Planet – you do know that dont you?
I’m not sure what you mean, FFA. Employment of 50 or less what? 25 or less what?
I agree with your argument for tort reform (I’m in the insurance business, right?) But I don’t see anyone tackling that issue at this time, so what does it have to do with having or not having Obamacare?
At least with Obamacare, you and your wife will be able to have affordable health insurance that will cover your pre-existing conditions. Which should be alot better than the situation you are in right now. So I don’t get why you’re so against Obamacare. It’s going to help people like you.
when a politician says affordable, I think their definition of affordable is 2x what I am currently paying. A policician from IL, who knows what they really mean.
So, I guess its the fear of the unknown. My lack of trust in politicians especially from IL. Besides, it creats competition for me. Another product line I wont be able to sell.
October 23, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Libby says:
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You can still sell it. You may have a better chance to sell it because people now HAVE to have it. If you make it easier for them to buy from you instead of an exchange, where they will probably not receive any service, you should be able to write tons of it. This is an opportunity, not a setback.
October 23, 2012 at 3:38 pm
FFA says:
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Empoyers that have employee count of over 50 people will go to a part time work force to loop hole their way through it. I would be better off dropping my insurance and picking it up when I need it.
When the powers that be figure ht enumber needs to be moved down from 50, there will be more layoff – hire part timers to avoid the whole mess.
I am not a fan of change for the sake of change. Address the underlying factor – Tort – then you will have meaningfull change – Do soemthing to reduce the cost, not just say it and expect it to happen.
My trust in policiticans is well documented. When they come from IL is even les. Then when they say Trust Me over and over, whittles down my trust even more. Affordable? Show me the rates.
October 19, 2012 at 2:48 pm
Cheetoh Mulligan says:
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Bob,
How does it feel to talk to a wall? I give you a lot of credit for properly educating the rest of us. Libby, who may in reality be obama although my first guess was Biden except Libby’s spelling was correct, and Capt Planet can’t hold a candle to your intelligence. Thank you for the enlightenment and proper use of facts.
Thank you for the compliment, Cheetoh. I love being compared to someone as intelligent, charming, and charismatic as Obama &/or as no-nonsense and down-to-earth as Joe Biden.
You, on the other hand, I liken to a sophmoric brown-noser with your head up Bob’s butt.
Libby, if you were my employee you’d be fired for spending so many hours posting on this blog. Like most Democrats I know, your character is lacking. Slacking on the job is not good character. Maybe you own your own business????
Dont agree = get called names. HMM.
Get a grip folks. Just a few more weeks we will know if we should claim Bankruptcy and stick our hands out or we can keep our jobs.
It seems these comments aren’t addressing the fact that poor people have to pay more for the same products as those who are better off. While everyone is attacking each others politics and, in some instances, each other personally the poor still have to pay more sometimes. You can blame politicans and their programs all you want, but people are still going to bed hungry and cold. Some of us are still living pay check to pay check and doing everything we can to hold on to our two jobs. I don’t know what the answer is but, even with two jobs and living pay check to paycheck, I do what I can for those less fortunate than I am.
You’re right, Maggie. But those people are the entitled dependent do-nothings that make up the 47%, so they don’t count. In fact, people like Bob are trying to blame the entire economic crises on poor black people. It’s a travesty and worth fighting against.
I stopped reading Bobs post when he started swearing. Just dont get past the cussing when this should be debate instead of name calling and swearing and cussing.
Racisim? Maybe still does exist. Guess I just put the blinders on. My over all beef with racisim seems to center on color. Should be reflected on an attitude – one that I referr to as trash.
Sometime I do get foul mouthed too. I’m not immune to losing controll of my emotions.
One thing I do believe – somewhere out the Utopia does exist. ONe thing I do know, its not in Illinois and an Ill Politician is not going to get us there.
October 24, 2012 at 8:46 am
Libby says:
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I think Bob stopped reading when he knew I was getting the best of him. Spoiled sport!
I’m sorry your bias of Illinois politicians is your basis for choosing this election. Seems a little unfair and broad-brushed to me. Oh well, we’ll all know soon enough…
October 24, 2012 at 11:17 am
FFA says:
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Its a shame – no faith in our leaders. Corruption at every level in this state right into DC with Jr now having two criminal investigations going on. He is dubble dipping the (criminal) system setting up a nice insanity defense. My local suburban mayor is not running again alledgedly so his mis conduct is not reported. Did you see what happened in Dixon IL with the Comtroller? Google it. Just another sad sad story of the state of IL.
October 24, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Libby says:
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Unbelievable! She stole (allegedly) $53M and now she needs a Public Defender?? I hope they throw the book at her.
October 23, 2012 at 11:09 am
John says:
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Everything that I have read in these comments, in favor of Obama does not change the facts. So I am re-stating the facts.
Anyone and I mean anyone that thinks they are better off then 4 years ago just needs to look at the value of their home if they still have one. Look at your employment if you still have a job and ask when you last time you got a raise and when have you worked as hard as you do now. No one is better off,except banks and wall street.
With Obama the CHANGE did happen!! More people on welfare, foodstamps and other federal assistance then ever before.
In addition 23 million good people out of work or under-employed and your house is not worth what you owe. This is not the CHANGE we want or need. Let’s give someone else the chance to do better. Obama has not and will not turn this country around. He has had almost 4 years and we are NOT better off. God help us all, if he is re-elected.
I am not in this shape because of Obama. I am in this shape because of Wall Street and Bankers. Of course we have more people on assistance and food stamps! Look at the state of the economy!
But Obama did not cause it, nor can he turn it around in only 4 years. “No one is better off but the banks and Wall Street.” Who do you think those people are? They are the very people that Romney will continue to support should he be elected.
Wake up people! Voting against Obama is voting against your best interests. Banks and Wall Street have plenty of money, the problem is they are holding onto it or using it to buy up assets at rock bottom prices. They are controlling the rate of economic recovery so that it stays in their favor. How much more control do you want to give them???
There is a considerable fraction of lower income Americans facing these institutional and structural price inflators who will be voting against their own economic interests by supporting the elitist Republican ticket in November. So long as they can afford to pay their cable or satellite bill to stay glued to Fox News, I suppose they’ll be able to elevate their serotonin levels to be able to remain reasonably content with their misery.
Absolutely – especially the red state southerners.
This is my life in a nutshell. Going from six figures to the same amount I was making 20 years ago in 4 short years. I WILL NOT be voting for the elitist Republican ticket, because these are the greedy swine that got me into this mess in the first place. Gobama 2012!
Even the article states how much things have declined under Obama: 39 million living in poverty in 2009 and now it is 46,000,000 almost a 20% gain; NJ unemployment rate is 9.9%. Obama has shown nothing in the past 4 years that makes you think it will get better with 4 more years. And now he runs commercials and debates that he has a plan while attacking Romney. If he has such a good plan, why doesn’t he implement it and get us to recovery already? And don’t say he can’t because of the Republicans. He closed the door and voted Obamacare through; he can surely do the same if he had a plan. Vote for a real change with Romney, nobama!
The recession is not Obama’s fault. And I will blame the Republicans, as they have made it their number one mission (as they have proudly stated) to make him a one-term president. They are doing that by blocking anything he proposes so people like you will then point and say “he hasn’t done anything”. Well, good luck with Romney. If you’re rich, you’ll definitely get richer. If you aren’t, like most of us, expect to become poorer still.
Nonsense. First off, when would the Republicans work to help a democrat get elected? Of course it is their mission to get obama out of office. Second, several times during the past 4 years obama got behind closed doors and passed bills through without a vote.
If he truly had a plan that would work, he would have implemented it, we would be seeing signs of improvement, and he would be a lock for re-election. Paul Ryan said it during his debate with the laughing moronic Biden “if you don’t have a record to run, then you attack the opposition.” Unfortunately for all of us, neither party is letting us in on their plan details, so we should look at the past 4 years to make our decision. Gas, food, insurance, and other necessities are up in cost. Jobs are NOT coming back. Obama is lost and he showed us bewilderment in the first debate.
It is their mission to represent the American people and work in our best interests, NOT the best interests of their party.
That is what they have done by opposing him at every turn and it is not what they were hired to do. Let the lobbyists and campaign managers handle that, NOT Congress.
Moronic is not a term of civil discourse but a rather inflammatory smear.
to Marcus – your reference to “moronic”. Did Joe Biden and Harry Reid not prove their lack of intelligence this week when Joe asked who knew someone that had served in the wars in Iran and Iraq. He said it twice and Harry raised his hand. If he wasn’t VP it wouldn’t be such a big deal.
Obama triggered CRA regulations in his suit in the 90’s to cite Citibank was “red lining” against low income borrowers.
Leahman Brothers was given high CRA ratings for giving a median $212,000 loan, and about 15% of their loans to people at poverty level.
Countrywide Financial. Same thing.
Bank of America nearly failed. Same thing. Look at their CRA ratings.
WAMU. Same thing.
You tell me how the housing bubble was not Obama’s fault, considering he started a suit that triggered CRA regulations as a method for suing big corporations who “red lined” against low income/credit borrowers. Dont take my word for it, look at the ground for the suit online, and who the attorney is that signed it.
Are you telling me Citibank going bankrupt for giving those loans was just because we “deregulated”? Bull%@. I’m sorry Libby, the republicans did not cause this crises. And contrary to the Obama debate implications he made, taxing more from the rich will not give more to the poor.
Low government revenues, and bad government spending cannot be the sole source of our recession. If it is, well then it IS Obama’s fault we are still in recession. He has spent more, and the revenues he wants to bring in would leave a larger deficit still than the time period which supposdely ruined us even if he got his tax increases.
Bob:
Not all subprime loans, or even a majority of them, were made for CRA-related reasons. The combination of cheap money and imprudent borrowers clearly made for the tremendous bubble.
“Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, said that “we were setting up this bonfire years ago — the deregulation, the inordinate amount of liquidity given to the system all set the stage for the bubble and the bust.”
The repeal of important portions of the Glass-Steagall Act allowed banks to seek high returns by investing money from checking and savings accounts into “creative” and “innovative” financial instruments such as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) and credit default swaps (CDSs). These risky investments led to the collapse of the financial markets in 2008 and the resulting global financial crisis.
It’s pretty clear to me that giving the green light to Wall Street ultimately led to the housing crises and subsequent economic crises in the U.S.
I meant to say that 4.53 trillion of normal CRA loans in comparison to $1 trillion bad ones.
Not every bank loan is a CRA loan, but every firm is held to CRA rules regarding red lining.
Libby:
See my comment on credit default swaps. Those are a risk, but on capital which is already at risk.
This is like saying we are juggling flaming knives. If you have 10 flaming knives you will explode.
So we do a credit default swap to get rid of our flaming knives.
Is the problem that the credit default swap eventually lead to firms holding too many flaming knives, or is the problem that we had flaming knives to begin with?
Don’t play with fire, don’t play with knives. You don’t give someone a bad loan they don’t have to do a credit default swap to ensure they don’t lose capital.
Credit default swaps are not risky if you are using them to back entire loan portfolios you know are going to collapse. You get the money up front by originating the loans, sell the risk by securitizing it, and then bet against by purchasing a CDS. Sounds pretty smart to me. Too bad it’s one big ponzy scheme.
They should all be put in jail and their assets confiscated.
No, its not. Its the people that attacked us on our soil. Thats was not Bushs fault either.
If Billy boy would have gave the order to shoot, someone else would have popped up. For every nut job they kill off, another is waiting to take his place.
The recession is OBamasa to fix. He has not. Obama should get crushed in tonights debate. This fiasco in Libbya – denying extra security then throwing Billary under the buss – man on man.
I wont be watching this debate. I’ll be watching another debate – Bears V Lions! Gotta luve Luvie! Another fina example of the opportunity that exists.
It’s RobMe, not Romney, Just sayin…
Libby:
Not many loans have to fail when you have crap loans to fail the whole system.
Debt to net capital ratios are usually required to be 1 to 15. Are you aware why? Because loans fail. We put in those measuremnets in order to attempt to offset the losses experienced by expanding low income low credit loans.
They didn’t offset it. It turns out having even 1 in 15 loans fail causes a huge capital issue. The buying and selling of loans was another way to attempt and not lose capital. And arguably it works. You put together a package of bad and good loans, maybe 2 bad 20 good, and you sell the bad debt to make sure someone with enough capital may be able to handle the loan if it fails. Those credit swaps are good things, when we have less low income less low credit loans.
The threshold though, as even agreed by Obama, is larger than we thought where everything fails. He proposed to change the debt to net capital, and to regulate derivatives. That’s not solving the problem. The low income low credit borrowing is the problem.
I can refinance my loan with no proof of income. That’s due to Obama. Even the banks tell me it.
Obama said he was re-opening banks to give loans to low income borrowers, because as he said it, if that college student can get a loan to buy a computer, or a business owner can buy a truck, he can build America. Only problem is, low credit low income people remain a large risk, and he opened us up for part two of this later.
We need a high amount of good loans in that debt to net capital ratio. Not bad. And even a few bad ones crash the market.
If you think 4.53 trillion in bad loans, didn’t include at least 1 trillion failed loans you clearly didn’t read the news. That 1 trillion that failed messed over the 4.53 in the CRA, and also the trillions more that were not CRA loans.
Libby:
Let me put this clear: No one bets against a loan in credit default swaps.
They try to profit off the profit, building more capital. If they invest and non of the loans fail they make the most money.
This is not an opinion, this is a fact.
Default swaps are swaps of defaults that happen to begin with, because bad loans are in the swap.
They exist because some bad loans will always exist. With a default swap if the market switches, you can get rid of bad debt, to improve your debt to net capital ratio.
Now again: They must exist, they are good.
The only point at which they turn bad, is when you lower requirements on loans, and give to low credit low income borrowers.
I’ve noticed you can’t make the argument that democrats didn’t give low income low credit loans. I’ve noticed you can’t make the argument that republicans gave them.
If the only argument you can make is they deregulated the credit default swaps (which you haven’t shown me that they did with one law yet) then your argument is still null and void.
You clearly aren’t in business, or you’d understand why credit default swaps exist. I only explained it because you clearly don’t.
Credit default swaps are good, until you juggle too much bad credit. You only juggle too much bad credit when you give bad loans to start with. We need credit default swaps for a firm to keep a solid debt to net capital ratio.
Am I wrong in anything I put above? No. Are you? No. Again: Methodology. You are correct in concept, incorrect in application.
Not at all incorrect, Bob. I understand credit default swaps and their INTENDED use. Unfortunately, they were not used as intended and were indeed used by financial institutions to bet against the very loans they either originated or purchased. They knew they were bad, but didn’t care because they could purchase a CDS.
I did not say credit default swaps were good or bad, only that they contributed to the economic crises and were part of a giant ponzy scheme perpetrated on the American people.
Libby:
We are in a circle, here we are again.
A default swap can only be abused and result in a collapse if you swap a bad loan.
And as you just said you don’t disagree that Democrats forced bad loans to be given.
Were there no bad loans, credit default swaps are good.
Therefore: Regulating the trading of bad loans (which avoids collapse by shifting to someone else, you are correct) does not avoid the failing of the loan which caused the collapse and need to shift the loans to someone else.
I don’t know how else I can say this Libby.
No bad loan, nothing bad you can shift to someone else.
No bad loan, CDO’s don’t fail.
No bad loan, you don’t need to trade the loan to begin with.
Every single CDO trader would vastly prefer to trade without bad loans. They were forced to need to trade so many loans, because there were so many bad loans. If there were not so many bad loans no one would have had to make a market of taking other people’s crap loans. If the firms who took those CDO’s had not have taken them Libby, the firms who first made the loan would have failed.
They knew the loans were bad, but they didn’t care because they *knew they would fail no matter what* and were working to pass the debt as much as possible for already toxic loans. It’s a shift as to who would have collapsed Libby, not whether or not someone would have collapsed. If you understood CDO’s you would know what I just put is 100% correct.
Therefore, CDO’S did not cause the collapse. Bad loans failing did, and no one could handle the amount of capital to fill the hole, they all traded it to try to get rid of it before they collapsed.
This means again, to repeat a 4th time, that the giving of bad loans to start was the sole cause of the collapse, which was democrat in origin.
Bob, Libby has drank too much kool aid. I suppose she believed everything Obama said Tuesday night too.
Good God, you are hard-headed, Bob. I did not say CDOs were the cause of the collapse. Bad loans were the reason for the collapse, but that is not the fault of the Democrats. No one forced these banks and IMC’s to give bad loans.
Mortgage brokers were closing loans right and left and making a bundle. They were willy nilly giving loans to anyone with a telephone.
No democrat held a gun to their heads and made them do it. It was greed. On top of that deregulation, which was pushed through by Republicans for Republicans.
Even economists agree with me.
Libby:
Let me simplify it, I have a bad habit of being too long:
CDO’s are a method of passing already existing debt.
They do not increase the size of that debt.
They do not increase the liklihood of the collapse of that debt.
CDO’s determined who collapsed, not how much of loans failed.
You are seriously arguing that bad debt was created because people passed key word *already existing* debt around and took on too much *already existing* debt, but you aren’t blaming the people who gave the loan which became the *already existing* debt.
No matter how much you pass *already existing debt* it will not change how much of that *already existing debt* fails. It will only change who holds it when it fails.
Does that make sense?
Bob, you don’t make sense because you don’t carefully read what I say, take it, twist it, and make it seem like I said something ridiculous when I didn’t.
What you just said does not in any way resemble what I said.
Once again, I understand what CDOs do. Bad loans were the reason for the collapse. Bad loans were freely given because of greedy bankers. CDOs guaranteed that even though they made bad loans, they would be compensated dollar for dollar on them.
Deregulation caused the collapse. Can I be any clearer than that???
Well then, I’m glad we are clear on a few things:
GLB didn’t cause the collapse.
CDO’s didn’t cause the collapse.
Now on giving bad loans: Wrong. They did.
To branch out you needed a higher CRA rating. To get a higher CRA rating you had to give low credit low income loans to people at poverty level.
Why did that come to pass? That wasn’t CRA’s goal originally. It wasn’t until the 90’s when Obama sued and triggered CRA regulations for “red lining” against low income borrowers that CRA was used for that purpose.
What deregulation from republicans allowed low income low credit loans to go out?
You’ve not provided an answer. I might add you did bring up CDO’s and you did bring say they contributed to the collapse.
You understand that Credit – Default – Swaps, you’re against the swaps part of that, I want (higher) credit, (lower) default Swaps. Democrats want Low credit loans given, more regulations on swaps (thus less swaps) = less swaps + More bad loans.
What you don’t get is Less swaps + more bad loans = higher debt to net capital ratio for firms that get in over their head.
More swaps + more good loans = If a firm gets too many bad loans they can trade the loans to someone else who can handle.
More swaps + more bad loans = Everyone swapping bad loans, everyone goes under.
We need more swaps + more good loans.
Can I make it any easier? This is what republicans sought to do. Name one law in which they deregulated standard lending practices, so that low income low borrowers were given loans.
Obama’s law suit was triggered specifically and I quote “FOR REDLINING AGAINST LOW INCOME BORROWERS”. That is factually, triggering a loan to force low income loans. That is using CRA to do so. Don’t tell me CRA wasn’t intended for it. The suit happened Libby, or are you going to pretend like it didn’t?
I’m not hot headed. I just know this topic, I’m not going to go in saying “oh you’re right” when I’ve seen your argument and it’s where I STARTED 4 years ago to search into the problem. You’re 4 years behind Libby, like democrats have been for some time.
It’s time to get 4 years ahead.
The republican way: More swaps, less bad loans, more capital growth. They did not cause this collapse.
Well, Bob, you are wrong AGAIN. Obama did not sue Citibank. He was a junior member of an 8 attorney team. And the suit was not to force Citibank to make bad loans, but to discontinue redlining, which is DISCRIMATION.
Deregulation caused this meltdown. Economists and experts alike agree with me. You are NOT that smart, you pompous ass.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/loans.asp
And redlining involves discrimination of people in a particular area or zip code, not their economic status or ability to re-pay the loan.
“Redlining is the practice of denying, or charging more for, services such as banking, insurance,[2] access to health care,[3] or even supermarkets[4], or denying access to jobs to residents in particular, often racially determined,[5] areas.”
Look it up and learn something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
In addition, you (nor anyone else I have seen) have not produced a scintilla of evidence that then-junior lawyer Barack Obama influenced the Buycks-Roberson case in any significant way. His name was not even mentioned in court papers on the major milestones of the case, such as the three complaints,a lengthy discussion among opposing attorneys and the judge, the motion seeking class action certification, the settlement or the final orders. He was essentially a little-used errand boy. Look into the case file — I have.
The outcome of the case has been grossly misrepresented as well. The bank never agreed in the settlement to make loans to uncreditworthy applicants, but did offer to fashion a way to educate unsuccessful applicants on how to repair their creditworthiness and other problems to qualify for future loans.
Nor has anyone demonstrated that the Buycks-Roberson case had any appreciable effect on the mortgage crisis several years down the road.
Just a lot of right-wing innuendo and hot air.
Libby:
Obama being a part of the team, is his endorsement to the suit.
Being a member of a 8 person team sueing one of the largest financial companies in the world means you’re top of the game, not the bottom.
Further:
Your liberal media kacks do agree with you. That’s not a major talking point.
My facts add up and they are facts.
After that CRA suit, CRA could go after you for red lining against low income low credit borrowers. That case did state that was the reason behind the suit.
You did your homework, and as usual did it completely wrong.
CRA became a culprit and REGULATION which could fine you for not giving out low income low credit loans, which simultaneously GAVE YOU YOUR RATING based on how much of those loans you gave out.
If you didn’t give out enough, you could be fined, sued, and have a lower rating.
When you had a higher CRA rating, you were allowed to expand into more risky capital.
WAMU as a result of making a commitment for $750 billion in loans grew by almost 20 locations in under 10 years. That was CRA endorsed. They collapsed.
Leahman Brothers, they sought that high CRA rating, the CRA rating in 2007 cited they were praised for finding “innovative” ways to give loans with “little to no evidence” of income documentation.
Come on Libby, the government rating, which does FOR A FACT trigger red lining when you don’t give low income low credit loans, gave high ratings and allowed expansion for firms who gave low credt, no documentation loans.
That’s not deregulation. That’s regulation.
Again: Which deregulation encouraged no income documentation? Which deregulation required you to give low credit low income loans?
Are you this retarded?
I’m not a pompous ass. I’m quite the smart cookie. And back off seriously.
This is how the smart cookie crumbles. Redlining is illegal. The CRA does not force any financial institution to make bad loans. That was a matter of expanding credit to people who traditionally had not dealt with banks or financial institutions because of the immense amount of capital available in the market.
The amount of capital was increased by securitizing and selling off debt to investors, opening up more capital to the loan originators. The loan originators no longer had to hold the loans, or they many have underwritten more carefully.
Lack of regulation (SEC oversight, rating agencies, and yes, GLB) allowed this cycle of bad loans and securitization to balloon until it could not possibly be sustained.
This was not a case of banks trying to improve CRA ratings. Try to get that through your hard head.
Libby:
Ok listen Lib,
You cited deregulation regarding CDO’s, not me. If it wasn’t relevant, don’t bring it up.
Quit saying it was deregulation and it’s a fact. It wasn’t. You have not stated how the bad loans went out.
I have. Bad loans is the only way loans fail.
CRA did state you had to give low credit no proof of income poverty level loans to a certain degree to get a good rating. You would get sued if you didn’t meet those requirements (Citi bank).
You really think poverty level loans, with no loan documentation, with low credit, is not a form of “deregulation” in the fact that it lowered the requirements for loans? Come on Libby, admit it.
Further: The debt to net capital ratio was brought up in even the Fannie Mae Freddie Mac debate in 2005. We have youtube videos on it. We have several key democrats saying in their opinion we could make those companies take on even more risky loans than 1 to 15, because they would never fail, and they were succeeding in getting poor people into houses.
They pushed a movement for poor people, low credit people, in houses. Those markets failed. They were risky, and the loan companies did NOT want to take on those loans.
“He was essentially a little-used errand boy”
I think it is racist of libby to call Obama “boy”
Get it through your head. The CRA does not say you have to make bad loans. It says you can not discriminate based on zip code, which usually includes some type of racial or ethnic demographic just because of the nature of how neighborhoods are established.
If a borrower does not qualify, they are not required to make the loan. Period.
CDS’s contributed to the current crises because they provided large financial institutions a means to speculate and turned the entire market into a large casino. And what do we know about casinos? In the end, the house always wins. And the American people always lose.
Libby:
I am at a loss for words. You just used the CDO argument again and you don’t even get that you just did.
They made bad loans that they knew they couldn’t cover because they wouldn’t have to cover the loans, your words. This again implies they took on more than they could borrow because they could give it away.
Wrong.
Obama’s position on the team:
http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/03/documents-plaintiffs-in-1995-obama-led-citibank-lawsuit-submitted-class-action-claims/
Wrong there as well.
Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank was “supposedly” for red lining against blacks. But ultimately, it was in a low income neighborhood. CRA looks at the neighborhood you are in, and they check to see that other neighborhoods with low income people have similar amount of black, women, minority loans, and what you fail to realize is that they have equal low income low borrower loans.
The way they make sure you aren’t red lining against african americans is to make sure you have equal amounts of african americans in poverty level across all states.
Here’s the thing: When you have a lot of capital, you’re going to make more loans to people at poverty level. Then it will differ from another location. I don’t doubt that the goal of CRA is to go against red lining. However, in full application what it did was force companies to give loans to people who could not afford them, simply for the sake of Clinton forcing low income loans to begin with. It became a tool. Note in my other comment I said what it was intended for, and what it BECAME. When Clinton forced low income loans onto Fannie and Freddie, those firms ate up black neighborhoods, WAMU made a $750 billion commitment to low income blacks. They targeted low income blacks specifically not to be on the back end of a lawsuit.
This is completely foolish. There was clearly a panic. I might add that subprime loans made up less than 5% of loans in Bush Sr.’s term. It went up to 13% after Clinton’s.
Sub prime loans did cause the collapse, and Clinton and Obama both lead to this. Clinton for giving out low income loans, and Obama for then charging suits for red lining.
What was that link supposed to prove? A headline? If you believe all the headlines you read then you are the fool here, not me. Since when is a junior partner instrumental in an action? That would be like saying a CSR is instrumental in writing a new account when all they did was service it.
You try to make it seem like you are a moderate with no ties to either party, but you are clearly a right-wing Republican that hates Obama – in sheep’s clothing.
So of course we will argue every political point there is since I am a left-wing Democrat. That’s how it works, Bob.
Ok,
Since you have not looked up CRA ratings let me break this down for you with a CRA Rating and how it applies:
CRA did force low income loans through the rating, see the rating for Leahman Brothers that I keep bringing up:
http://www.dcrac.org/pdfs/advocacy/Lehman%20Brothers%20Bank,%20FSB.pdf
“As permitted by CRA regulations for large retail institutions, the institution can elect a weight percentage for each of the Performance Tests. Lehman bank has assigned the following weight percentages for evaluating its CRA performance:
• Lending Test 65 percent
• Investment Test 25 percent
• Service Test 10 percent”
Those are CRA’s methods of rating.
“The above chart shows that the distribution, based on number and dollar amount of loans provided to LMI borrowers for 2005, exceeded the aggregate lenders for the same period. During each calendar period, the distribution of loans to LMI borrowers slightly declined but remained above the aggregate. The LMI borrower distribution during the review period is favorable compared to that of the 2005 aggregate lenders”
LMI is: Low and middle income bracket.
They compared how much you gave to a prior year, and compared to how much other banks gave. This is the “2005” aggregate of lenders. If you didn’t give as much as the next guy, you were “red lining” Libby.
“Based on the number of loans, the bank’s penetration in both low- and moderate-income (LMI) geographies exceeded the 2005 aggregate’s ratio. Based on borrower distribution, the bank equaled the aggregate’s ratio to low-income borrowers but exceeded the ratio to moderate-income borrowers.”
Exceeding the ratio to moderte-income borrowers is good, exceeding the ratio for low income borrowers, again good. This to CRA means you aren’t red lining.
“According to 2000 U.S. Census Data, 40.7 percent of the families in the combined assessment area are classified low- to moderate-income, with 13.3 percent of the families reporting income below the poverty level. Table CA-3 shows the distribution of families in each income range of the assessment area.”
“Under the lending test, the areas reviewed consisted of the institution’s lending activity within its assessment area, the geographic distribution of loans, borrower profile, and evidence that loans were made to all income groups. Additional areas reviewed include the institution’s responsiveness to the credit needs of highly economically disadvantaged geographies and individuals, community development lending activities, and the use of innovative and flexible loan products to serve the assessment area credit needs.”
Again, CRA making sure you made loans to ALL income groups. Making loans that exceeded the aggregate of other financial firms was reason to get a higher rating. Leahman brothers at nearly 15% of their loans at poverty level was a good thing, and meant they were not red lining.
Read it and interpret it.
If the CRA was to blame, the housing boom would have been in CRA regions; it would have made places such as Harlem and South Philly and Compton and inner Washington the primary locales of the run up and collapse. Further, the default rates in these areas should have been worse than other regions.
Instead, the suburbs boomed and busted and went into foreclosure in much greater numbers than inner cities. The redlined areas the CRA address missed much of the boom; places that busted had nothing to do with the CRA.
Check the mortgage origination data: The vast majority of subprime mortgages — the loans at the heart of the global crisis — were underwritten by unregulated private firms. These were lenders who sold the bulk of their mortgages to Wall Street, not to Fannie or Freddie. Indeed, these firms had no deposits, so they were not under the jurisdiction of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp or the Office of Thrift Supervision. The relative market share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dropped from a high of 57 percent of all new mortgage originations in 2003, down to 37 percent as the bubble was developing in 2005-06.
I know you will pooh-pooh this argument, but the facts are the facts.
LIBBY:
IT’S NOT THE HEADLINE.
I do NOT just believe what I see. That’s YOU. READ IT.
It specifically states he was one of 3 attorneys that sought to get this case going.
It doesn’t matter if he was junior attorney, again, 8 attorneys handling a case with someone as big as Citibank means he IS a part of it.
By the way: Read a CRA rating for once in your life.
I am a moderate. You’re not. Wolf in sheep’s clothing my ass.
You have not one clue how CRA works.
There was nothing to read when I clicked on the link. Only the headline.
Libby:
Now to summarize why that CRA rating screwed things up:
Whether or not you were red lining was determined based on:
How many loans you made to people in geographic locations and income brackets, as compared to other firms and yourself in the past.
Let’s say you had harmed capital, and you cut all loans the next year to low income loans. Let’s say that Chicago has a higher than average amount of people at poverty level. One year you gave them loans, but woah woah, wait now, the next you didn’t. More blacks are in Chicago than say Alaska. But in Alaska, you gave 5% of poverty level loans, to a 1% of black population, and in Chicago you gave let’s say 4.5% of loans to people at poverty, where coincidentally, most people there in poverty are blacks. This means you will end up rejecting a hell of a lot more blakcs percentage wise in Chicago, but not Alaska. In Alaska, as there are less blacks, you rejected the same amount of people at poverty level, but less blacks. It could be due to population, it could be less black people came in for loans. It happened. But the CRA will make the automatic assumption that you red lined.
It can also assume that you red lined against low income borrowers when you bring down the number from let’s say 10% to 5%. Woah woah, you cut it in half, and you also gave less loans to blacks? Bad job! So what did the companies do? They started just giving loans to blacks more, they couldn’t be red lining if they were giving more right?
These guys threw out CRA commitments like no one’s business. $1 trillion in commitments from Bank Of America, $750 billion from WAMU, Country Wide I believe was $500 billion.
Each of those three went down like a rock in a shallow pond.
CRA is suffocating the markets, and it did cause the collapse.
Libby:
I also feel the need to point out that being republican does not make me right wing.
Nor does not wanting Obama in office. He is an extremist. He couldn’t even agree to bring back $1 trillion in revenues from over seas. He couldn’t even agree on his own 25% tax reduction for corporations. It’s been 4 years, he hasn’t done it.
It’s not only that I don’t like his policies, it’s that he clearly is so partisan he can’t even get republicans to agree with him on a 25% rate they agree on, because he’s using attacks and threats while doing it. I remember him saying “you ride in the back” to republicans after he won. That’s not how you work with people. Biden at the debate made it clear bi partisan wasn’t on his goal, same with Obama. A super majority wasn’t enough in the beginning of his presidency to get things done. He needs more than that, he needs you to destroy republicans.
That’s what I am against. Clinton fought republicans in 95 but he eventually gave in. And what you Clinton-tards fail to see is that the second half of Clinton’s presidency is when the economy picked up. Clinton barely one his second election, and it wasn’t the Monica Lewinsky trial. It was that they guy had no real effect on the economy outside of the norm until his second term. If the republicans were such obstructionists, why did things change back then and they haven’t changed now?
I don’t want partisan crap in Washington. You do. That’s what Obama is about, and Heaven help me if Biden ever has to lead with that bull crap partisan display he had in the debate. He doesn’t know the meaning of working with people you disagree with, just hit the table, raise your voice, and as long as you’re smiling you won’t look like a lunatic, even if you lie about Libya (he said we received no request for security, Hillary said Obama doesn’t work with those security issues, Obama said he was on the phone with the security officials day one) and even if you lie about your record on Iraq (Biden had speeches telling us to go to war with Iraq and voted for it) nah. That’s just a good guy to get into congress. Someone who yells to make their point, and lies while doing it, then speaks of what his opponent will do with raising taxes even though he can’t speak for Ryan Romney.
That’s what we call very bipartisan right? It’s extremist to keep these guys in. Clinton didn’t do this crap.
Yet everyone says Clinton is one of the reasons for the economic collapse. Which is it? Was he a good president or a bad president?
Wasn’t it Bush that said: “America is a stronger country every single time a family moves into a home of their own,”
To achieve this he pushed new policies encouraging homeownership, like the “zero-down-payment initiative,” which was much as it sounds—a government-sponsored program that allowed people to get mortgages without a down payment. More exotic mortgages followed, including ones with no monthly payments for the first two years. Other mortgages required no documentation other than the say-so of the borrower. Absurd though these all were, they paled in comparison to the financial innovations that grew out of the mortgages—derivatives built on other derivatives, packaged and repackaged until no one could identify what they contained and how much they were, in fact, worth.
Libby:
Clinton was to me, not great, not bad. When I go over specifically the issue of “partisan” politics which I don’t like, let’s keep it on topic. It’s not a which is it situation. The answer is: Both. You just can’t handle that.
My only purpose behind my comment was that Obama is partisan. Clinton was as well, to a degree, but not nearly as paritsan as Obama. When they worked together, we had a temporary good time.
I might add that boom was not fake either. I stay constant, just how I don’t call Bush’s boom fake. The pop that happened always happens, as I have said before, for both presidents.
Though it was notably worse for Bush than Clinton, due to the housing boom. Clinton nor republicans caused the internet pop. So I’ll go with that being a good time period. The housing bubble could have been avoided though, and is not linked to Bush.
Your arguement against Bush makes no sense. The no down payment intiative? Are you possibly referring to how Bush made arrangements so that you could take out funds from your retirement fund to put toward a down payment in the event that you didn’t have one? I would call that a push for home ownership that was a little more common sense. Further: No down payment is not how loans fail. Many people can’t afford a down payment, and many of those people pay off their loans. The credit on the loan however, is a big deal, and the earnings of the person who received it in comparison to the size of the loan.
Relevant facts libby. Relevant facts.
Bush’s “No Down Payment Initiative” – read it:
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2004/10/05/zero_down_mortgage_initiative_by_bush_is_hit/
Many early warning signs of the times to come. Yet nothing was done. That was 4 YEARS before Obama inherited the mess we are in. And you can’t say the mess wasn’t Bush’s fault and turn around and say it’s Obama’s fault it isn’t all cleaned up. You can’t have it both ways. And YOU can’t take that!
And EVERY politician is partisan – or we wouldn’t have 2 parties. I contend the Republicans have made the relationship more contenscious with their constant blocking and refusal to work with the other side these past 2 years.
Libby:
On your regions comments with the CRA: Incorrect on all accounts.
First off: There were regions hit hard, and here’s a hint: Many were black populations. So the CRA did affect who got hit in some ways, those black CRA commitments got hit hard.
But we’ll go back to the point: It would not make certain regions hit harder necesarilly. A bank operates fairly globally with the banks who failed. Let’s not kid ourselves, Countrywide, Citigroup, Bank Of America (they almost collapsed) and Wamu were not regional players. They were interstate players. And let’s not kid ourselves, the whole loan portfolio popping is not going to just pop in regional areas.
Those CRA ratings cited the amount of loans TOTAL given to people at poverty. Did you read it?
This would have EVERYTHNG to do with how many loans TOTAL were given to people at poverty level. Further to the point: Give me the name of a bank which did not have a CRA rating. No such banking firm exists, unless they are under the CRA size rating, at which point they didn’t cause the collapse of interstate capital.
This is a pathetic arguement. The CRA rating specifically stated that it compared how many loans TOTAL at poverty level were given in comparison to the AGGREGATE of all other financial firms. Having more TOTAL loans to people at poverty levels was encouraged.
They also compared regional. I don’t so much care about regional other than when it comes to black loans failing. And here’s a newsflash! Everyone agrees that areas with densely populated blacks WERE HIT HARDER. So it follows what I’m talking about. I care about the poverty loans being given and low income loans being given. The CRA rating I showed you gives praise to TOTAL low income poverty loans, and it simultaenously forces regional problems with blacks. Did you hear about the Florida incident with Blacks? Seriously, follow the news. They said the blacks were targeted because so many failed.
Bob: Your argument is the pathetic one. Realtors, mortgage brokers, appraisers, title companies, and banks made millions upon millions making those loans. It had nothing to do with CRA or a CRA rating. They made the loans because there was tons of capital out there during the housing bubble and everyone made alot of money. Banks found a way to bundle and sell the loans as securities because investors thought real estate couldn’t fail, which then freed up more capital for those same banks to make more bad loans. Banks and investors alike purchased CDS’s to hedge their bets in case the market went south (which it was destined to do) and AIG made millions selling them. When the whole house of cards collapsed, guess who bailed out AIG (and in turn all the banks that made the bad loans)? The American people.
I know plenty of people that refinanced to purchase expensive toys or upgrade their home to something outrageous and they defaulted and went bankrupt, too. You did not read my article. The minority of those loans were for first-time home buyers.
Trying to blame this on poor black peole, who did nothing but try to better themselves by purchasing a home, is just wrong. You are a disgrace and an example of everything that is wrong with the Republican party. Now take your racist, elitist remarks and go away.
And one more thing. The main reason Lehman went bankrupt is because they chose (for some unknown reason) to hold onto the majority of the sub-prime loans they made instead of securitizing them. They were left holding the bag.
OK, Bob. I am going to agree with you to a certain point but then no more.
Here is an excerpt from an article pro-blaming CRA I found very interesting?
Q. But even during the crisis, CRA loans didn’t default at higher rates than other mortgages. CRA banks aren’t failing more than other financial institutions, CRA areas aren’t hotspots of defaults. What about that?
A. In part, this is evidence that the lending standards of the CRA had spread to the rest of the mortgage market.
Q. I thought you said CRA loans caused this crisis.
A. Nope. It isn’t losses from CRA loans that drove the crisis (although they are disproportionately responsible for losses at some banks). Instead, the CRA required lax lending standards that spread to the rest of the mortgage market. That fueled the mortgage boom and bust.
Q. So how and why did the CRA lax lending spread to the rest of the mortgage market?
A. The structure of the CRA regulations encouraged the spread. Banks that were the best at making CRA loans were allowed to grow by making acquisitions and opening new branches. This created a kind of political-financial Darwinism that reward the biggest enthusiasts for lax CRA lending standards. Of course, the most successful people under this regime were not the types who needed their arms twisted to make loose loans. They were who were predisposed to engage in loosey-goosey finance, who discovered that the CRA had made the world their oyster.
So I will contend that CRA opened up the world of lax-lending, but banks were more than happy to jump on the bandwagon to many other borrowers that were not CRA candidates just to make a buck or $30 million.
Will you accept that?
Here’s the rest of the answer to the last question:
As for the “why” part of your question, the answer is a bit ironic. Banks making CRA loans initially expected that defaults would be higher due to lax lending standards. When they discovered the low-income borrowers had an unexpected propensity to pay their mortgages. After years of data poured in showing that borrowers were paying mortgages despite high LTVs, low down payments and unconventional income measures, bankers began to believe that many of the traditional measure of credit worthiness were overly conservative. Recall what I said earlier about how mortgage service providers started pursuing low-income borrowers in part because of the CRA.
What they didn’t take into account was that different types of borrowers may behave differently, and that much of the data on those lax lending mortgages was warped by increasing home prices. Wealthier, more sophisticated borrowers ruthlessly default when their mortgage goes underwater, for example. What’s more, the reversal of housing prices meant that defaults across all borrower classes increased.
Making matters worse, President Bush pushed hard for lax lending standards. He wanted to expand minority and low income home ownership far beyond what the CRA required. So he pushed even harder for the broadening of these lending standards.
Libby:
Simplify your facts.
You just stated in Leahman Brothers the reason they went bankrupt is that they held the loan rather than passing it in securities. Also, securities are more or less credit default swaps. So let’s keep it basic Libby.
Credit default swaps and securities are insurance against bad loans. It determines who holds the bag, as I said before who fails, not whether or not you fail.
Yes, the firms knew if they bought loans they could sell it to someone else. That is a technically accurate fact. However, they were forced to give low income poverty level loans to get higher CRA ratings.
You’ll note in the score I showed you regarding Leahman brothers it compared the AGGREGATE amount of poverty loans to the prior year, as well as to ALL other companies. If one company as an example identified the crises could happen, and stopped their low income loans, or poverty level loans, they would have been sued.
As my example showed, the reason behind this would be multi level. In black neighborhoods where more blacks are in poverty than whites, they would have to cancel more black loans than they would whites. They would be sued for regional black discrimination. This isn’t an opinion. On a interstate basis they would be below the aggregate by huge numbers. They would be accused of doing it alone, separate from the pack.
CRA judged everyone on what everyone else was doing.
I once asked you, in a deregulated market WHY WOULD EVERYONE FAIL THE SAME EXACT WAY. A regulated one caused that. These firms were kept into an aggregate of loans, bad loans, encouraged to people at poverty, and were RATED on keeping to that aggregate, if they were not in that aggregate, it WAS grounds to being sued, CRA DID become a method of suing for red lining against low income borrowers.
It DID result in the collapse. What deregulation caused these people to have 13% of their loans (Leahman Brothers) in the hands of people at poverty level? You’ll note it praised Leahman Brothers for being ahead of the aggregate, but on Service they still were rated low.
Leahman was nearly not satisfactory.
Bob, I agree to a point. What I disagree with is your loose use of the term “people at poverty level.” Not all subprime loans were to people at poverty level and those defaulted at the same rate. Loaning on 125% values assuming housing prices would continue to rise, offering credit cards with large lines of credit to folks that, if used, would never be able to pay them back, the willy-nilly financing of luxury items to people that did not have the income, but owned a home – these things also contributed. It was irresponsible lending to be sure, but not CRA related.
And Lehman Brothers was left with a larger amount of subprime loans because they did not securitize and sell them. For some reason no-one knows.
“My friends were so concerned about my well-being they had me signing up with every single social service.” This is exactly what’s wrong with our country. Rather than helping our friends directly, were pointing them towards the government for help.
Yes, we should avoid turning more people toward the 47% attitude. They might become 51% and then where would the country club be???
History will tell us that when 80% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the population, revolution is the result. I think we’re a bit behind schedule….let them eat cake!
I am all for helping people as I have been in bad spots myself financially in my life. But people without many resources need to change their habits. For instance, instead of buying processed food in boxes or cans, what about actually cooking food from scratch. If not working, time is not an issue. My husband and I had an excellent dinner of roasted chicken, bean soup, salad and fresh cornbread last night for under $5 total with enough leftovers for 2 more meals. Together, we make over $200,000 a year and so don’t have to eat that way, but we do because it’s tasty, nutritious and economical (so allows us to be voracious savers for retirement). The problem facing our country is that everyone wants everything and nobody wants to make any sacrifices. That’s a problem. 1+1 will never equal 5.
Are you kidding me? Do you know how much fresh meat, vegetables, and fruit have gone up? It’s costs so much more to cook and eat healthy than it does to buy some processed or frozen BS in the store. That is one of the reasons there is increased obesity among the poor. They don’t have access to healthy, nutritious food because they can’t afford to feed their families with it. Macaroni in a box, processed rice, and potatoes will stretch alot further than poultry, eggs, meat, and vegetables. So that’s what they end up buying.
Under Baraks watch. Good point.
Correction. Under the mess Barack inherited…
ONe thing for sure, we will know in which direction we will all be headed in about two weeks.
Who are the morons who agrue Sharon’s statement???
I’m the Moron, idiot. You obviously haven’t been to the grocery store any time lately.
Libby, or may I call you Moron since you now admit it, fresh food is actually cheaper than canned and processed food, even after cooking it. Saying it costs more is just an excuse for not taking the time to cook. And if you want to argue that a meal at McDonald’s is cheaper than cooking at home, don’t forget to add in the high cost of gas. Once or twice a week to the grocery store vs. 21 trips to a fast food place is a big gas savings (in more ways than one).
Not only that, but taking the time to have a nice sit down meal will only improve the family dynamic.
Idiot, I never said to go to McDonalds. I said people with families and no money can not afford fresh vegetables and meat. They survive on pasta, rice, potatoes, and corn, which ARE cheaper than vegetables and meat.
Why don’t you pay attention instead of jumping the gun to get down my throat? So now run along with the rest of your little merry gang of Libby-haters.
I was anticipating your next argument, moron. Again, fresh corn in season is cheaper than canned corn. Whole potatoes cost less than canned. Fresh food generally costs less than its frozen or canned counterparts, as long as you are smart about it by trying to buy in season or on sale. And the meals can be extended with leftovers.
Judging from all your comments and posts, I sincerely doubt I would want to get down your throat!
What does the price of fresh corn v. canned corn have to do with my statement? Corn is still corn. It’s not meat and it’s not healthy fruits and vegetables.
And just how in the hell do you extend meals with leftovers when you barely have enough to go around in the first place?
You obviously know nothing about being hungry or going without, and that’s a lucky thing for you. Not so much with alot of other folks.
Don’t speak of what you don’t know, idiot.
People can’t afford food, and somehow we’ll get Obama to fix that.
Food costs are way up, but somehow some way he’ll get on that.
Corn is still subsidized. Bad foods and oils are still subsidized.
Vegetables and organic foods are not subsidized. Level of intent here perhaps?
But Obama will get right on fixing that. I seem to recall some speeches with him saying he wouldn’t do away with Farmer’s subsidies and blasting Romney for it in his Campaigning when Paul Ryan was nominated vice president. Don’t worry though, he won’t continue those subsidies for corn like he said he would, and like he said Romney wouldn’t. He won’t keep bad food at a low cost.
No need to worry Bluto. None at all.
Speaking of gas, why wouldn’t the savior obama answer the gas question the other night? It was $1.80 when he took over and now it is $4 a gallon. Is $4 a gallon the new normal for the US? He dodged this one, pretty much along with most of the others. If you have no record to run on, you attack your opponent.
He gave an answer Cheetoh.
Though his reply didn’t make sense. He stated that the reason was we were in a recession, which made people buy less gass (less demand).
However, numbers say otherwise. If that was the case when the recession peaked gas prices would have been the lowest. 2007 is when we had those gas prices, and at the END of Bush’s presidency when the recession was worst is the summer we had the rough near $4.00 gas. It was something that pissed people off.
I smell B.S. on Obama’s part. Shouldn’t it have been 1.81 at the lowest point in the recovery? It wasn’t. Less people weren’t buying gas during the $1.81 time point.
And ever arguing that more oil is a bad thing is stupid. Keystone oil is a good idea. He doesn’t want it though.
Go into green if you want…But get as much oil now in the mean time.
I don’t pretend that rising prices, fees, and taxes are not harder on the poor and middle class but I don’t blame one party, I blame both. People who have money don’t keep it under the mattress, they invest in business, buy bonds, make loans etc. Government legislation, regulations and laws can create limited but not efficient economic opportunities. They are not adept at meeting needs or the demand for essential products at a price that most people can reasonably afford. There was an old story back in the 50s about a Russian government shoes factory that boasted that it produced 10,000 shoes a day – the fact that they were all made for the right foot was not a factor in meeting the government quota. Global markets make it simple, even for the modest 401K investors, to move money to countries or economies that do not penalize profits. Job creation has never been easy but the current regulatory environment makes small business start ups extremely difficult. Ask someone who has actually started a business not an occupy Wall Street idealist. We have had to cut one employee due to the rising cost of prices and fees. Soon we may have to reduce the number again due to medical plan costs. We cannot charge more because the demand for our product at our current prices has maxed out – reduction of expenses is our only option at this time. I just don’t see how increasing the tax on capital gains is going to help the business environment.
Blame both, but buy into the prescriptions of one lock, stock, and barrel. A wolf in sheeps clothing?
I’m the working poor; come to work every year for 35 years and am no better off than back then. I don’t like either candidate but will vote Obama. I don’t to spend more on missile defense that doesn’t work.
Anyone and I mean anyone that thinks they are better off then 4 years ago just needs to look at the value of their home if they still have one. Look at your employment if you still have a job and ask when you last time you got a raise and when have you worked as hard as you do now. No one is better off,except banks and wall street.
With Obama the CHANGE did happen!! More people on welfare, foodstamps and other federal assistance then ever before.
In addition 23 million good people out of work or under-employed and your house is not worth what you owe. This is not the CHANGE we want or need. Let’s give someone else the chance to do better. Obama has not and will not turn this country around. He has had almost 4 years and we are NOT better off. God help us all, if he is re-elected.
I lost my job in 2008 – well before Obama. And I was just able to get another one last year during Obama. Making alot less, but at least I have one.
Obama did not cause this. And it can not be turned around in 4 years.
We need Congress working together, not another stiff-shirt Republican in office.
Funny because obama sure said he would make an impact in the economy in 4 years while debating with the great John McCain. He did increase our debt by 50% or over $5,000,000,000 and again he said during the debates with the great John McCain that he would decrease the country’s debt. The economy issues are best left to the Republicans to solve.
I love how Republicans know “what’s best” for the rest of us. Very patriarchcal and patronizing of you.
“The day the Bush administration took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus — with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion,” Axelrod wrote. “When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit — and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade.”
The deficit run by Bush in his 2 terms were primarily the wars we were and will continue to fight against the terrorist that would rather crash 4 airplanes and kill themselves and thousands all in the name of Alla. A little known truth about Bill Clinton is that in 1999 after the bombing of the Navy ship USS Cole in Yemen, a Navy Seal had Osama Bin laden in his sights and Clinton denied the order to take him out! If only Clinton had given the order many lives would have been saved and billions not wasted in our deficit. So much for Clinton and his budget surplus, and he’s also a heck of a liar, remember “I DID NOT HAVE SEXUAL RELATIONS WITH MS. LOWINSKI” I will never trust him again . Just saying.
I have heard that rumor and it’s probably true. But you can not say, unequivocally, that 9/11 wouldn’t have happened had he taken out bin Laden. There were many, many more where he came from. And all of them just as over-zealous and fanatical as he was.
What made John McCain great is his rational ability to analyze issues and be independent. When Senator Mitch McConnel declared, at the beginning of Obama’s term that the sole mission of the “loyal” opposition party is to make Obama a one term president, that party forfeited all claim to being a problem solving partner.
Obama and democrats did cause this, I’ve explained how.
Explain how republicans did. Laws must be triggered before thier effect on the economy is made.
A fee law was just triggered on our firm (unjustifiably, but still, it’s the first time it’s been triggered.) And it was a TEN YEAR old law.
CRA may be a 1977 law, but no body triggered a suit. Between 1977 and 1992 firms only made under $10 billion in commitments. Following 1992 to 2007 they made 4.53 trillion in commitments.
Could you see how 4.53 trillion in commitments, following Obama stating it was illegal to “discriminate” against low income, low credit borrowers, would increase those borrowers in a portfolio?
It happened Libby. Leahman brother’s CRA rating showed a $212,000 median loan and over 15% given to people at poverty level. And you think deregulation caused that 15% to be given out? And republicans? If you do show me the direct regulation that did that.
I’ve shown you the direct regulation. I’ve cited a suit that trigerred that regulation.
If you don’t have that, you don’t have grounds to blame republicans.
If you give me a minute to respond, Bob, I will back up my statement. I think I have shown that deregulation caused this crises and not the CRA. Read my post.
I did. And your post, the only one which had facts, is proven a fallacy by even left leaning politfact.
I’m sorry, you’re wrong.
You have not made the case. I have.
Libby:
You know what I notice about you? You don’t often think for yourself.
But if you’re not going to think for yourself and talk about the FDIC, you should at least have your facts straight for the most recent study as to what they think about the recession:
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/08/fed-study-says-bush-and-banks-didnt-cause-the-great-recession-the-fed-did/
I don’t agree with this myself either, as loans don’t just fail.
But the point is: You are following a liberal left claim, without fact checking it whatsoever for other opinions. The other opinions you insult.
You need to use FOX to fact check these people and compare the two. MSNBC, FOX, use them all.
I don’t like MSNBC but I fact check the methodology all the time.
Example again for the 40th time: MSNBC differs from Forbes on how much they believe oil companies pay. The methodology is the reason for the difference between the numbers.
Your methodology for this CRA debate is flawed.
You have your “facts” and I have mine Bob. There is plenty of debate on this issue amongst people much more in the know than I am. I have looked at both sides and I have chosen which one I believe. And it’s not yours.
Your cocky insults know no bounds, do they Bob? I most certainly think for myself and while I agree with the link you posted to a degree – I do not entirely. It was a combination of greed (on bankers and consumers parts), deregulation, and the Fed that caused this mess.
BUT, the CRA had nothing to do with. And that was the basis for the beginning of this debate if you’ll remember.
So nice try of changing course mid-stream when you are losing an argument, but I will not allow it this time. Stick with the subject at hand – The CRA and the Current Economic Crises.
Links? None.
Period.
Victimizing the people now on welfare, foodstamps, and other government assistance is turning the country in the wrong direction.
Value of my home? Up. Raise – at least one in each of the last 4 years and a promotion to boot. This goes for most people I know, too. And, my wife was finally rehired with President Obama in office. We aren’t going back to the policies that put us in the mess The President was handed. And, with Mitch McConnell saying it is the Republican Party’s #1 goal to make President Obama a one term President, no wonder we haven’t been able to get all the change we are looking for. And, if anyone thinks it was only going to take 4 years to clean up a 30+ year old mess, you were sorely mistaken. GoBama 2012!
OK Libbyral, let’s not forget who handed Clinton the keys. Reaganomics carried on by Mr. Bush. Clinton had it easy and even had enough time to solicit sex from interns while at the same time turn away the handing over of Osama bin laden. Clinton laxed the military and our borders, and we lost the Twin Towers. I digress.
obama increased our country’s debt by now $6,000,000,000 which is more than all the other Presidents combined. So go check your figures as they are not correct. obama told us all 4 years ago he had all the answers, was going to decrease unemployment, was going to decrease the debt, was going to get the troops out of the middle east, was going to lessen our dependency on foreign oil, was going to blah, blah, … Facts are he didn’t live up to any of his promises, unless you count Change as a change for the worse. There is nothing in the works that can make you believe that he has laid any ground work for improvement in any areas. And that includes our maintaining our military dominance in the world.
Unemployment has decreased in many areas, the troops are out of Iraq, and his green policy, while not fully successful, was a step towards lessening our dependency on foreign oil. Congress has fought him on the jobs act and passing a budget. You can only beat your head against the wall for so long before you just pass out. It’s Congress that needs to change, not the President.
Libby, not just a few of the Green Projects that Obama funded have fallen on their faces. This will be long, but following is a list of how much money has been given to the top 36 and the * denotes those that are either bankrupt or filing bankruptcy. Since I don’t believe you would ever follow a link you’re getting the whole list:
1. Evergreen Solar ($24Million)*
2. SpectraWatt ($500K)*
3. Solyndra($535 Million)*
4. Beacon Power ($69 Million)*
5. AES’s Subsidiary Eastern Energy ($17.1 Million)
6. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 Milliono)
7. SunPower ($1.5 Billion)
8. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
9. Babcock and Brown ($178 Million)
10. enerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 Million)*
11. Amonix ($5.9 Million)
12. National Renewalbe energy Lab ($200 Million)
13. Fisker Automotive ($528 Million)
14. Abound Solar ($374 Million) *
15. A123 Systems ($279 Million)*
16. Willard & Kelsey Soalr Group ($6 million)
17 Johnson Controls ($299 million)
18. Schneider electric ($86 million)
19. Brightsurce ($1.6 billion)
20. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
21. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
22. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
23. Mountain Plazak Inc. ($2 million)*
24. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsens Mills Acquisition Co.($10 Mil)*
25. Range Fuels ($80 mil)*
Thompson River Power ($6.4 mil)*
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 mill)*
LSP energy ($2.1 billion)*
UniSolar ($100 million)*
Azure Dynamics ($120 mil)*
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Vestas ($50 mil)
LG Chem’s Subsidiary Comopact Power ($150 mil)
Nordic Windpower ($16 mil)I
Navisar ($10 mil)
Satcon ($3 mil)*
he 2009 stimulus set aside $80 billion to subsidize politically preferred energy projects. Since that time, 1,900 investiagions have beenopened to look into sstimulus waste, fraud, and abuse (not all related to green energy funds, and nearly 600 convictions have been made. Government isn’t capaable of picking winners and losers. that is why venture capitalist firms exist, and they choose what to invest in by looking at companies’ business models and deciding ifthey are worthy. When the government plays venture capitalist, it tends to reward companies that are connect to the policymakers themselves. This is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. the companies in this list received federal support and have either gone bankrupt or are laying off workers and are headin for bankruptcy. THIS LIST INCLUDES ONLY THOSE COMPANIES THAT RECEIVED FEDERAL MONEY FRO THE OBAMA ADMINSTRATION’S DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY!!!!!
TX Agent:
I think I just fell in love.
Great numbers above, and great tie in.
Well fact checkers – is this true? All this money wated? Only one I know to be true is the Chevy Volts flop.
What’s your point TX? That we should abandon a green policy? That we should continue our dependence on oil? And I do follow links, as I don’t trust the stuff people copy & edit. No-one trusts mine, that’s for sure.
Not true.
Bush’s carrying on Reaganomics resulted in large deficits that were only turned around by a bipartisan effort in Clinton’s second term.
Reaganomics is what has put us in this mess, Cheetoh. That’s what got the ball rolling. And, he has made good on many of his promises, despite obstruction by The Right.
Bulloney! Clinton signed the document that lowered the requirements for an individual to secure a mortgage. The standards were lowered so that more people could enjoy being a home owner, and Clinton signed it.
Guess they aren’t enjoying it now.
If you are talking about the CRA, that was originally passed in 1977, which discouraged redlining. It did not force banks to make loans outside their underwriting guidlelines.
In 1999, the GLB was passed, which was backed by three Republicans. It allowed banks to branch out into other types of financial transactions and become “financial institutions”. This is where the trouble started. And it was shoved through by Republicans for big-business Republicans.
I blame the right for this housing mess. Greedy wall street bankers branching into derivitives, swaps, securitized books of bad loans and on ad nauseum. The whole thing stinks and is a direct result of right wing Republicans.
You’re plainly wrong about this Libby. It did force banks to give loans to low income low credit borrowers.
After the CRA suit from Obama the commitments for CRA loans went from under $10 billion total to 4.53 trillion total.
Look at the portfolio.
GLB is not what caused bad loans to be given. Branching out into other types of banks would not force banks or cause banks to give low credit low income loans. Even liberal sites call what you said a fallacy.
http://www.factcheck.org/2008/10/who-caused-the-economic-crisis/
Of course politifact doesn’t go over correctly what did cause it, but it was not GLB.
The question is what caused people to give low credit low income loans. The answer is: CRA changed when Obama triggered a suit to be a method of going after companies who did not give loans to people who were at poverty level and low credit. Those loans are the loans that failed.
Do you deny that low income low credit loans are the only loans that fail? Do you deny that those loans increased due to CRA and force through Obama?
If you do you’re a liar or confused.
I would ask you again: How did the republicans cause low income and low credit loans to be given out.
Specifics please.
You will have them when you get in tomorrow. I have an appointment and have to sign off. Rest up!
Bob:
The Federal Reserve Board has stated that the sub-prime crises is rooted in the poor performance of mortgage loans made between 2004-2007. The case against CRA being responsible is based on both logic and facts – things you are quite fond of using:
First of all, the CRA states that regulated financial institutions have a continuing obligation to help meet the needs of the local coomunities in which they are chartered. This is to be done consistent with safe and sound operation and lending practices. The CRA pertains to banks and thrift companies and NOT Independent Mortgage Companies (IMC).
In 2006 almost 2/3 of low-documentation, high-cost loans were for purposes other than the purchase of a primary residence and were mostly refinancings to extract equity. BETWEEN 1998 AND 2006 ONLY 9% OF SUB-PRIME LOANS WENT TO FIRST TIME HOME BUYERS.
3 recent studies provide strong evidence that during the boom years that led to the crises, CRA lending was relatively small in the context of a mulitrillion-dollar mortgage market, they were of relatively high quality, and CRA covered loans have performed well compared to those that were not covered by CRA.
Researchers at the Center for Community Capital concluded “For comparable borrowers, the estimated default risk is much lower with a CRA loan than with a sub-prime mortgage…Borrowers and responsible CRA lending should not be balmed for the current housing crises. Loans made by lenders regulated under CRA were significantly less likely to go into foreclosure than those made by IMCs.”
Former Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner concluded “we believe that the available evidence runs counter to the contention that the CRA contributed in any substantive way to the current mortgage crises.”
FDIC Chair Sheila Bair has stated “I want to give you my verdict on CRA: Not Guilty.”
Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan agrees “CRA is not the culprit behind the sub-prime mortgage lending abuses, or the broader credit quality issues in the marketplace. Indeed, the lenders most prominently associated with sub-prime mortgage lending abuses and high rates of foreclosure are not lenders subject to CRA.”
Now. I have proved my point. You are wrong. Admit it.
Libby:
Nothing in what you just posted disproved that 4.53 trillion in CRA commitments were given out from 1992 to 2007.
9% doesn’t matter. As I said, 9% could collapse the entire market if they were loans that failed.
Debt to net capital ratios are 1 to 15, because beyond that you could collapse for giving 1 bad loan to every good loan dollar on a 1 to 15 ratio. I don’t know if you know math, but that’s UNDER 7 PERCENT being an acceptable ratio of bad loans to give out. 9% you say is low, I say it’s high.
Moving forward:
Leahman Brother’s portfolio had over 15% of loans given to low income borrowers with a 212,000 median loan in their 2007 CRA rating. What you fail to see is CRA rates ALL firms. You are only allowed to operate in a capacity for loan expansion (you quoted GLB in this area and were correct in a similar method of expansion) if you have a high CRA rating. They were given high ratings for giving loans with “little to no” income documentation.
The only reason why anyone would have that portfolio, is the CRA suit Obama did in the 90’s stating they were redlining against low income low credit borrowers.
CRA became a method of forcing loans.
You are wrong. Admit it. Relevant facts Libby. You aren’t good at connecting dots.
You’re right, Bob. Even though the former Governor of the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and the Treasurer of the Currency all agree that CRA had nothing to do with the collapse – they are all wrong as the great and powerful Oz, I mean Bob, has spoken.
Get over yourself. You aren’t that smart.
Hey Libby:
Actually, I am that smart. The government doesn’t like it and neither do you.
The FDIC, this is just funny. You really believe the CRA doesn’t seek to protect it’s ass? And that the FDIC doesn’t seek the same?
Remember that suit I told you about against my firm? The one that failed? We issued an order to release all public documents. Want to know what we saw from the respectful offices of our courts?
Emails stating that their number 1 agenda was not to give counsel, it was to collect revenue.
That they must not admit they didn’t give technical counsel which was required according to law. They strick it from the court as irrelavent material to the case by stating that their credibility didn’t determine whether or not we broke the law, and it wasn’t material fact in consideration of whether or not we did so. We countered with the law says they cannot be arbitrary, says we are to have technical counsel, and that them not giving technical counsel and being arbitrary was completely material facts in the case of whether or not we broke the law (use the word “your” company on a broker fee agreement instead of the actual name) and we won the case.
But no, we don’t know what we’re talking about.
Also worth noting: My facts are true. Every firm is CRA rated. You get higher ratings for giving out loans with little to no proof of income, and to people at poverty level. You can give different types of loans if you have a higher CRA rating. That’s a fact. Obama did sue for “red lining against” low income borrowers. You really believe, that low income loans didn’t go out after that? Here’s a hint: Citibank went bankrupt 10 years later FOR GIVING those loans, and was one of the biggest recipients of bail out funds. And you believe that Obama’s suit didn’t trigger people to react, one of the largest financial companies in the world was sued for redlining, everyone started giving low income loans, and you think it happened magically? You think deregulation collapsed Citi? Just greedy bankers? Greedy bankers who changed their habits over ten years, NOTHING to do with Obama’s suit?
Loans that failed WERE low income low credit loans that started the mess. Of course when the recession hit full on EVERYONE even higher credit people lost jobs and defaulted as well. That’s how they lied. They measured people after the recession triggered. They did not show you how it started.
So in conclusion: Yes. I am more intelligent than those people. My facts speak for themselves if you’d look it up and stop putting your head up the democrat’s ass.
I should mention: I was a fiscal liberal until my mid 20’s and a conservative social. That’s what happens when you’re raised Catholic, which is why I spoke about Catholic’s generally supporting a socialist agenda. Let me assure you, I know about having your head up the democrat’s asses for financial issues. But I also know about not letting people pressure you into believing something (believe it or not, Catholics are discriminated against in how they supposedly feel with regards to women’s issues and gay rights, you and planet do not make the minority and we are attacked and questioned on it all the time)
He stated that on Letterman while after Billary lost the primary. Seems he only gave Billary Sect of State position to bring Bill around.
No, Reaganomics did not.
A top 39.6 rate brought in 20% of GDP.
A top rate of 95% brought in 20% of GDP.
Reaganomics works.
There is no doubt the lower rates during Clinton’s presidency worked. There is no doubt without Reagan they would never have happened. There is no doubt a 70% rate would not bring in more revenues (it never brought in 20% of GDP, it will never bring in 20% of GDP, while 39.6% did)
It is amazing how democrats blindly follow obama and the party. Unemployment is down because of a function of time, not jobs. There are still troops in Iraq and the withdrawal began way later than when was promised. Obama’s green policy has been to give money to companies and watch them squander it and go out of business, with the exception of the company that developed the $150,000 electric car. By the way, where did the $6,000,000,000 over spending go?
I guess, like most Republicans, you didn’t read my post and just ignored the facts – so I’ll say it again:
“When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit — and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade.”
That’s where the $6T went.
I guess, like most democrats, you just ignore the question. I don’t have time for your nonsense. Obama has a deficit of $16,000,000 now. If Bush left obama a deficit of $1.3 trillion, which isn’t correct, and it is now $16 trillion, which is correct, and Bush supposedly has shortfalls of $8 trillion over 10 years, or $800,000 billion each year, what did obama spend the money on?
Enjoy the debate tonight.
You are right, it wasn’t correct. It was much more than $1.3T:
The latest posting from the Bureau of Public Debt at the Treasury Department shows the National Debt now stands at $15.566 trillion. It was $10.626 trillion on President Bush’s last day in office, which coincided with President Obama’s first day. -CBS News 3/19/12
But debt and deficits are two different things. You are mixing apples with oranges. Nice try, though.
Debt when Bush left office was $10.6T and it is now $16T. That’s a difference of $5.4T. Bush started with a budget surplus of $236B. When he left office he had a $1.3T deficit in the budget. That’s a difference of $1.5T with continued deficits of $8T over the next 10 years. That does not mean $800B per year, it means $8T over 10 years. Now enough of your antics.
Any president can choose on a year to year not to have the same deficits of the prior, depending on spending.
Obama is continuing to spend 1 trillion each year. This is not due to Bush. Your antics won’t fly.
Deficits are not inherited. Choices are made. Obama needs to own his responsibilty of deficits. It is not George W’s at this point.
Side comment: She messed up the word debt to deficit one time. The other time she had it correct.
“The spike in food prices at times this year “had such a tremendous impact on me that I didn’t eat most of the summer,” Jubert, 58, told the Asbury Park Press of Neptune.”
As Libby would say “Are you kidding me?”
Feel the need to point out:
This is not me. I’ve talked about how it’s not right to quote “pulling a libby” in the past.
Just wanted to clear that up.
To the people who think the poor economy just showed up one day out of the blue thanks to Obama…really? C’mon. If you are posting here you can’t be that dumb. When politicians start thinking country first and party second or third we will all be better off.
I don’t think anyone is blaming obama for the initial poor economy. My objection to obama is that he has been President for 4 years and has not lived up to his campaign promises from 4 years ago, nor has he laid any ground work for the next 4 to make believe that he can turn the economy around and stop the debt from exploding.
Really, a large part of the unemployment is lost government jobs? What union told you that?
If Boehner doesn’t get his way, he holds his breath until his face turns orange.
A large part of the rise in unemployment over the last 8 years has been due to the reduction of government jobs.
Think back. What happened in the 2006 midterm elections ? The Dems won veto proof majorities in both houses of Congress. Certainly George W was wrong in sponsoring prescription coverage for Medicare with now way to pay for it. He also supported the ethanol program for fuel. Both bad ideas but they were not economy breakers by themselves.
Then the Obama unit came into office with total control of both houses of Congress. The phrase “We won and you didn’t” was hurled at the Republicans over and over and we were assaulted with Obama care which required threats and bribes to Democrats to get it passed. Conservatives were not invited to help come up with ideas to cure our national ills.There was also a $1 Trillion stimulus package dumped on us. The Libs controlled our destiny until the 2010 midterm elections that saw large conservative gains in the House and in state and local legislatures. Harry Reid still won’t even bring Republican bills to a vote because a lot of Democrats would support them. I want the left to stop whining about Republican obstructionism.
I would also point out that the 7.8% unemployment rate is inaccurate because there are fewer people working now than when Obama had his coronation in 2009. There are also huge numbers of people no longer looking for work because the are completely discouraged.
The Federal government is being run by a bunch of elitist liberals who have no real world experience. including Barry Obama who has been told all of his privelegd life that he is a genius and everyone loves him. He plays golf and his Queen Michelle squanders many millions on vacations and parties while the citizens clip coupons and buy day old bread.
The hateful left despises those who worked hard and got wealthy and they would rather drag down the successful that improve conditions so more of the poor can achieve a better station in life.
As I have said before, I probably won’t see the restoration of freedom in the US but I hope and pray for it.
Boldly and correctly said
“The hateful left”? Are you kidding me? After that rant you just made, it is quite obvious who the hater is here.
Libby:
Yes. Yes it is. 1995 the congress went republican, the president finally conceded to what they wanted after nearly shutting down the govenrment, and then we had surpluses and they worked together.
2010 we nearly have a government shut down with another republican congress, only this time the president didn’t conceded, and our problems are equal.
The left are the hateful obstructionists right now.
Amen to to that!!
And I wasn’t talking about your comment, Libby. You are just one of the many “blind leading the blind” Obamanites.
Back at you, Romney-Ryanator. Ain’t America great?
So I says to Libby, SEE YOU Next Tuesday.
Little different here Libby. We’re hoping on the new guy.
You’re hoping on the old guy, who hasn’t had success.
Therefore, the supporters of Romney are the “hoping on the new path” and you are the “blind follower of the non-working old path”.
Well said Waterbug.
I notice she had a government job and lost it due to a dispute with management- you know this isn’t my first recession – and the first thing you learn is – no matter how bad you hate your job, you do everything you can to keep it when times are bad. I think among other things, there have been some poor decisions here.
Yes, the American Dream is to be miserable, work 3 jobs to barely skate by (which takes you away from your family), eat processed and gentically modified food, not be able to afford healthcare if you can get it at all, not get paid as much as men if you are a woman, hate gays, be suspicious of brown people who MAY be here illegally (we won’t know until we check out their papers), support The President during times of war no matter what (except for when he’s a black Democrat), and keep trickling your paychecks to the wealthy. Hmm, doesn’t sound like the dream I was described back when I was a kid. But, it is the real Romney plan…currently. He changes it so often, I’m not sure. Etch-A-Sketchy!
Unbelievably twisted.
Obama deosn’t have the ability to make sure the poor don’t eat processed or genitically modified food.
The hate gays thing is out of line, that is not what republicans are about. Extreme ones yes, not the mainstream. We have a problem with how government seeks to integrate gay marriage. Not with Gays. Get that through your head. You cannot label us as gay haters and not expect retaliation you @#%@%ing moron. Pardon my french but NO ONE labels me as a gay hater, or republicans, that’s a form of hate all it’s own that I consider bullshit and a form of racism. I will not tolerate it.
Regarding paychecks to the wealthy: The “wealthy” create jobs. And under “Obama” he denies anyone in the middle class from getting enough money to have capital to invest into a business through not only the death tax, but the capital gains tax. THAT is how middle class americans get the chance to gain enough capital. Where do you think jobs come from? Honestly planet I want an answer. WHERE DO JOBS COME FROM? “small” business is not an answer. Allowing people who make $250,000 or over to accumulate capital is CRITICAL to them having enough money to excel their business (or start one at all), not taxing them at death is CRITICAL to the next generation having capital to make a business.
You think you can tax and create a job? You take it out one one end to “supposedly” fund an education (how is past my head, because revenues don’t go up) but you TOOK CAPITAL from someone who could create a job. If you take too much capital, you have college trained kids with no capital to create jobs for them.
Clinton proved this. Reagan Proved this.
Get off the polarized band wagon.
Bob, first of all, I really don’t care what you say or think. You are a bully and that’s why I rarely give you the time of the day. I’m not saying Obama can stop people from eating processed food, I’m just saying look what has become of this country over the past 30+ years thanks to trickle down. One of these candidates is for trickle down, the other is not. Wealthy don’t create jobs, the middle and lower classes do. Otherwise, given the following:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-private-sector-and-the-public-sector-under-obama-2012-6?op+1#first-here-are-corporate-profits-after-tax-theyve-gone-parabolic-and-never-been-higher-1
we should have booming job creation. Instead, that wealth is just being kept up top…as usual. There is a demand problem in this country and once demand increases, then you’ll see more jobs. The only way to get demand up is to have more money in the middle and lower class pockets. I’m sick and tired of the trickle up distribution of wealth. We’re headed to serfdom.
Now, good day, sir.
You don’t give me the time of day because your facts are bull shit.
You just honestly made a post referring to racist, gay hating, republicans. You have done it before when referring to religions and the movement for civil rights. Nevermind the fact that the majority of religious organizations moved forward civil rights. Never mind the fact that republicans voted for that bill as a percentage more than democrats. Nevermind the fact that republicans got women the right to vote. They are against women and blacks. It’s ignorant, it’s untrue, it’s insulting, and you don’t get to say it.
Trickle down did not cause the food differnce you are talking about.
Subsidizing bad food did. Who subsidized food….I can’t remember…Oh wait, I can FDR. I have a nutritionist friend. He hates both republicans and democrats for the subsidies, but we all know the government causes those subsidies and they are democrat originating.
Trickle down does not result in bad things.
Explain how. Equal revenues with 39.6 versus 95%, with more capital available in business.
How did trickle down destroy the economy? Trickle down is exactly what Clinton did with a 39.6 rate (less than half that of the 40’s) and it worked.
I’m not a bully, I push back against people like you who label my kind. Jack ass. And you are wrong on this one.
Planet:
As a side comment: No matter how much you tax from the rich it won’t help the middle class. The majority of the middle class goes to school, collects social security, and collects medicare. Those are their primary means to jobs, and their support from the government.
In which way do you propose bringing up their incomes? Taxing more doesn’t do it. You talk about it destroying the nation. Taxing more will not change their schooling funds (as revenues will not change) social security pay outs (as those are self funded, and revenues we receive here even if we collected all from the rich would amount to less than a 10% increase per recipient) and medicare is self funded pay outs (this will not get the middle class out of poverty).
Taxing more won’t bring in more revenues, will destroy capital, won’t put more in the pockets of the middle class, and will effectively take money out of the rich’s pockets, which they could invest into jobs. When a rich man invests into a business and it profits that is a GOOD thing and he will hire. When Obama invests into green energy, gives them low tax rates, and green jobs as a percentage of that investment come about painfully slow, fail (the volt, solyandra) and we wait for 4 years and nothing happens what do you expect? The business guy would spend money right NOW to make money or fail. The government has no risk, no interest in the growth, and fails no matter what.
Lower taxes, more capital, this is a fact. Higher taxes, equal revenue. This is a fact. There is no reason to raise taxes to close to what they were before, this will help no one. This is a fact. It will be detrimental, it will destroy capital, this is a fact.
Trickle down works, Clinton your god proved it. You say his rates were higher than Reagan, yeah so were everybody’s. His rates were also nearly a third that of the 95% top rate of FDR.
Isin this what OBama Care encourages – Employment of 50 or less? Sure, the number is 50 today. a few years down the road 50 dont work so lets make it 25 and so on and so on.
My strongest objection (among many) to OBama is oBama Care. No Tort Reform = No reform at all. Anyone in the Insurance qworld knows how stupid law suites run premiums up across the board.
Yes or No Libby & Cap Planet – you do know that dont you?
I’m not sure what you mean, FFA. Employment of 50 or less what? 25 or less what?
I agree with your argument for tort reform (I’m in the insurance business, right?) But I don’t see anyone tackling that issue at this time, so what does it have to do with having or not having Obamacare?
At least with Obamacare, you and your wife will be able to have affordable health insurance that will cover your pre-existing conditions. Which should be alot better than the situation you are in right now. So I don’t get why you’re so against Obamacare. It’s going to help people like you.
What do you say to that?
when a politician says affordable, I think their definition of affordable is 2x what I am currently paying. A policician from IL, who knows what they really mean.
So, I guess its the fear of the unknown. My lack of trust in politicians especially from IL. Besides, it creats competition for me. Another product line I wont be able to sell.
You can still sell it. You may have a better chance to sell it because people now HAVE to have it. If you make it easier for them to buy from you instead of an exchange, where they will probably not receive any service, you should be able to write tons of it. This is an opportunity, not a setback.
Empoyers that have employee count of over 50 people will go to a part time work force to loop hole their way through it. I would be better off dropping my insurance and picking it up when I need it.
When the powers that be figure ht enumber needs to be moved down from 50, there will be more layoff – hire part timers to avoid the whole mess.
I am not a fan of change for the sake of change. Address the underlying factor – Tort – then you will have meaningfull change – Do soemthing to reduce the cost, not just say it and expect it to happen.
My trust in policiticans is well documented. When they come from IL is even les. Then when they say Trust Me over and over, whittles down my trust even more. Affordable? Show me the rates.
Bob,
How does it feel to talk to a wall? I give you a lot of credit for properly educating the rest of us. Libby, who may in reality be obama although my first guess was Biden except Libby’s spelling was correct, and Capt Planet can’t hold a candle to your intelligence. Thank you for the enlightenment and proper use of facts.
Thank you for the compliment, Cheetoh. I love being compared to someone as intelligent, charming, and charismatic as Obama &/or as no-nonsense and down-to-earth as Joe Biden.
You, on the other hand, I liken to a sophmoric brown-noser with your head up Bob’s butt.
If you cannot run on your record, then attack the other party. Thanks again for proving this point.
I’m not running and I don’t have a record. So much for your attempt at smartass humor.
Jesus Libby. He thanked me for being well stated with my facts.
You can state you don’t like my facts. But they are well tied together from his point of view.
And I don’t think you have a say in that matter…
Go Gary Johnson.
Go Gary Johnson, 2012.
Libby, if you were my employee you’d be fired for spending so many hours posting on this blog. Like most Democrats I know, your character is lacking. Slacking on the job is not good character. Maybe you own your own business????
Well, you are not my boss Agent. Some other fat-ass white Republican male is.
There but for grace go I, or any one of us. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
Dont agree = get called names. HMM.
Get a grip folks. Just a few more weeks we will know if we should claim Bankruptcy and stick our hands out or we can keep our jobs.
It seems these comments aren’t addressing the fact that poor people have to pay more for the same products as those who are better off. While everyone is attacking each others politics and, in some instances, each other personally the poor still have to pay more sometimes. You can blame politicans and their programs all you want, but people are still going to bed hungry and cold. Some of us are still living pay check to pay check and doing everything we can to hold on to our two jobs. I don’t know what the answer is but, even with two jobs and living pay check to paycheck, I do what I can for those less fortunate than I am.
You’re right, Maggie. But those people are the entitled dependent do-nothings that make up the 47%, so they don’t count. In fact, people like Bob are trying to blame the entire economic crises on poor black people. It’s a travesty and worth fighting against.
Right back to race for Libby. Woindering when you were going to make that circle.
If you read Bob’s post, it was not a very far jump.
Good God, do you think there is no racism left in this country? If so, you are living under a rock.
I stopped reading Bobs post when he started swearing. Just dont get past the cussing when this should be debate instead of name calling and swearing and cussing.
Racisim? Maybe still does exist. Guess I just put the blinders on. My over all beef with racisim seems to center on color. Should be reflected on an attitude – one that I referr to as trash.
Sometime I do get foul mouthed too. I’m not immune to losing controll of my emotions.
One thing I do believe – somewhere out the Utopia does exist. ONe thing I do know, its not in Illinois and an Ill Politician is not going to get us there.
I think Bob stopped reading when he knew I was getting the best of him. Spoiled sport!
I’m sorry your bias of Illinois politicians is your basis for choosing this election. Seems a little unfair and broad-brushed to me. Oh well, we’ll all know soon enough…
Its a shame – no faith in our leaders. Corruption at every level in this state right into DC with Jr now having two criminal investigations going on. He is dubble dipping the (criminal) system setting up a nice insanity defense. My local suburban mayor is not running again alledgedly so his mis conduct is not reported. Did you see what happened in Dixon IL with the Comtroller? Google it. Just another sad sad story of the state of IL.
Unbelievable! She stole (allegedly) $53M and now she needs a Public Defender?? I hope they throw the book at her.
Everything that I have read in these comments, in favor of Obama does not change the facts. So I am re-stating the facts.
Anyone and I mean anyone that thinks they are better off then 4 years ago just needs to look at the value of their home if they still have one. Look at your employment if you still have a job and ask when you last time you got a raise and when have you worked as hard as you do now. No one is better off,except banks and wall street.
With Obama the CHANGE did happen!! More people on welfare, foodstamps and other federal assistance then ever before.
In addition 23 million good people out of work or under-employed and your house is not worth what you owe. This is not the CHANGE we want or need. Let’s give someone else the chance to do better. Obama has not and will not turn this country around. He has had almost 4 years and we are NOT better off. God help us all, if he is re-elected.
I am not in this shape because of Obama. I am in this shape because of Wall Street and Bankers. Of course we have more people on assistance and food stamps! Look at the state of the economy!
But Obama did not cause it, nor can he turn it around in only 4 years. “No one is better off but the banks and Wall Street.” Who do you think those people are? They are the very people that Romney will continue to support should he be elected.
Wake up people! Voting against Obama is voting against your best interests. Banks and Wall Street have plenty of money, the problem is they are holding onto it or using it to buy up assets at rock bottom prices. They are controlling the rate of economic recovery so that it stays in their favor. How much more control do you want to give them???