Seems like only yesterday he admitted a lengthy relationship with a male hooker who ran a bisexual prostitution service out of Rep. Frank’s apartment. But then he did serve another 22 years in Congress after that.
Good ridance. Now I have a remote possibility to elect someone that represents me. I would not say he was responsible for half of the mortgage crisis but did he did his share to help it get started.
GL Guru, Thanks for saying that you don’t hold Frank responsible, even if you only say half. I find it ludicrous to think that a single Congressman, who was in the minority during the time this problem started, is supposedly to blame for it all.
Here’s an article from the Washington Post pretty much debunking the myth that Barney Frank was somehow to blame for the housing collapse.
And Scott R, is what Frank did any worse that what Senator Vitter (R-La) did? or what Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) did? I don’t tthink so. I’m not condoning Frank’s actions, but there are plenty of targets in DC for such crimes and neither party is immune. The difference though between Frank and Vitter/Craig is that Frank never ran as some holier than though family values guy. At least he’s not a hypocrite.
Thank you, The Other Point of View. I will miss Rep. Frank and his refreshing bluntness. As you said, he’s not a hypocrite, and he could always be counted on to cut to the heart of an issue.
I did not say he was responsible for half but that he had a part in it. How big a part? I don’t know how one qunatifies that objectively. But he is responsible along with Bush, Clinton, the people who borrowed against their means, the banks that pushed the loans knowing people could not afford them, the intermediaries that did not carefully check the loan applications, securities people that packaged them without doing adequate risk testing, the people that bought the securities without asking about the quality of earnings. A lot of people big and small have their hands dirty.
Your link does not debunk the “myth” that Barney was involved in the housing crises. Stay with me here as this is complicated.
I feel the need to have to inform you how to interpet data and make a conclusion by dissecting your article:
Look at the graph. It lists Mortgage backed securities on one edge, sub prime loans on the other. Were you intellectual enough to realize what that means the data means on the graph? Sub prime mortgages are bundled into MSB’s (mortgage backed securities) just like normal mortgage backed securities. This graph shows that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost market share in those MSB’s just before the collapse. It also shows that Private companies picked those securities up. This would mean that if sub prime mortgages were the cause of the collapse that Fannie Mae and Freddie would have suffered worse. See below quote where they re-iterized that point, and I will come back to this later.
“more than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lenders:” See my comment above and below.
And yet Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac suffered the worst loss ratios. Makes you wonder about wether it was too much regulation that was the cause or dergulation doesn’t it? This does eventually tie to Barney Frank wait for it. These are not random snyde comments.
“What’s more, only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was subject to affordable-housing laws. For the most part, private firms such as Countrywide Financial were issuing “nontraditional” mortgages in order to package them off to Wall Street and make money, not to please Barney Frank.”
The last part of that is an opinion, the fist part of that I like though. So by the article’s own admission, the company that was not subject to regulation was hurt, but did not go bankrupt. Look up Countrywide Financial. We must assume that if your source is a credible source that they would use their best example not their worst with the data they had. Even with their best example and the manipulation they put you through, the example they have did not even go bankrupt. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had greater financial issues than the non regulated example. Kind of makes you think about the above concept I said above regarding regulation doesn’t it?
“Still, Fannie and Freddie were starting to act recklessly in other ways. As Jeff Madrick and Frank Portnoy detail in the New York Review of Books, Fannie Mae “aggressively minimized federal regulation of its activities and it fought off attempts to tax its profits, partly through extravagant favors to influential lawmakers.” Frank was one of those favored lawmakers — between 1989 and 2008 he received $42,350 in campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie. Frank even helped get his then-boyfriend a job at Fannie Mae. And yet, for the bulk of this period, Democrats in Congress were in the minority. Even if Frank wanted to help out Fannie and Freddie, he wasn’t in a position to lead these efforts until 2007. (In 2005, when Frank helped sponsor a bipartisan House bill to create an independent regulator for Fannie and Freddie, it died in the Senate.)”
None of these areas above are “facts”. They are “concepts”. The “data” backing up these “concepts” are not in the article. They offer these up as facts I should just believe? I think not. I want data. And all of this is basically useless banter in the article. I don’t care about his opinions. None of it ties into any hard data for or against Barney Frank.
Conclusion: The pieces of data they do have point to regulated companies doing worse than de-regulated ones. Fannie Mae and Frannie Mac did worse than their best private example. They adaquettely proved that the sub prime market wasn’t the responsible culprit. And then they moved forward to prove (or attempt to prove) that Barney Frank wanted to regulate banks. Barney Frank wasn’t concerned with the soundness of Fannie Mac and Freddie Mae. He attempted to pass regulations. Those are two separate statements AND endeavours. What this means is he was content with regulating them but was not concerned with regulating them in a way to ensure their soundness (as how could he, he didn’t even see a soundness problem). So on negligence I find him guilty. On knowing how to solve the problem I find him guilty of not knowing. And on passing more regulations (like it or not their regulted example failed worse than the non-regulated) I find him guilty. How is he not responsible with this article’s own words? I didn’t ask how they proved him responsible (that’s my opinion he is) but how did they factually disprove all my items in that article? In order to prove he is irresponsible, they must debunk all aspects. That article did not. Your article is moot. So are your abilities to see facts…
Regardless I looked up the top 20 firms that DID fail and were private. The reason your source didn’t name the top firms, and named a top firm (which didn’t fail I might add) is that so far the I’ve linked WAMU’s collapse to regulations (who used to be small) in order to be big they had to have a CRA rating, as well as meet other requirements. They met this requirement by making a commmitment to actively pursue low income housing (different than sub prime, sub prime has to do with credit rating, if I can’t pay due to income I can’t pay due to income. That won’t change. A credit rating may) by commmiting $750 billion in loans over a ten year period. They made this commitment in early 2000. They were required to do what they did to expand. They expanded by over 20 locations in less than 8 years. They collaped. Bank of America made a 1 Trillion low income loan housing commitment. They didn’t collapse but they came dang close. Leahman Brothers was quoted in their CRA rating report as receiving a higher rating for giving over 10% of their loans out to people living below the poverty line, with a median loan point of roughly $250,000 cost home. If you don’t see why that is a problem I shall call you a fool now. I own a $214,000 home. With 5% interest the home is $1,475 including insurance and property taxes a month. You tell me which person living at poverty level would afford that. Which 2 people would afford that monthly payment? WAMU, BOA, Leahman Brothers, those are three of the absolute biggest that failed. Each of them were encouraged to make low income loans, and had to in order to expand in size due to REGULATION. So Barney and his regulation cronies did cause this crises. You may access the CRA report online as they are public data from the government. You can look up the commitments from any media station just by typing in the key words low income hosing commitments and comparing it to the list of the top 20 failed firms. You may reference the requirements for expanding in size at any government regulatory site. THAT is research OPV. And I’ve never seen you do it.
Where I said none of these are facts they are concepts, I meant to say that none of them are relevant data. They listed contributions, then said well Barney could have been bought, but no wait he passed some bills so he wasn’t bought. I want to see what he did do. Not what he may or may not have or could have done based on inconclusive data.
What law has he broken? If you are talking about the male prostitute, do you feel the same way about Senator Vitter? If my son had half the brains and sucess of Barney Frank, I would be quite proud.
With so much ammo on which to supposedly critcize the guy, why do you resort to making fun of his speech impediment? It’s not relevant to anything constructive to what he is or is not responsible for in the economic mess we are in.
It is very said that alledge “grown adults” still resort to middle school insults. Seriously, how old are you people? Do you also make fun of someone in a wheelchair since they can’t walk?
There are plenty of things that Barney Frank has done wrong, and he did have a part in the Fannie and Freddie Mac mess, so why make fun of something so minor that he can not control?
The guy running against him is a decent guy the few times I met him and heard him speak. Qualified? I don’t knwo but since he may be my rep you know I will found out.
I was always more concerned about Barney’s impaired brain. He kept insisting that Fannie and Freddie were fiscally sound right up to the point that the mortgage markets collapsed. Anyone wanting reform of these agencies was labeled a racist or a hater of the poor. BTW OPOV, The Washington Post is hardly a reliable unbiased source of information about anything.
Soon he will be roasting in Hell with Ted Kennedy.
Some of you can be so hateful. If you do not want to be labeled a hater, then why would you say “impaired brain” about someone who is obviously intelligent but you don’t agree with their view. And the comment about his demise and eternal damnation sound like a threat.
Cheri,
This site has lost all respectability with the hate and nastiness from the uninformed. Hatred now rules American life and politics and it’s over flowing into our industry. Sad but true. Keep posting truth and real information. Those of us who stopped posting do appreciate thoughtful and informative information. That’s what we use to share here.
Kinda like the rating agencies that gave AAA rating to bogus mortgage companies and investments 30 days before they went belly up with no repercussion to the rating agencies while we all lost our IRA and municipal pension money because the rating agencies did not do their job.. Thanks for all your years of service Barney Frank. May your replacement have as much intelligence as you have and may they advocate for the citizens of your district as ardently as you did. Enjoy your retirement and become a senior statesmans like Newt Gingrich… you have more to offer!
Frank was ALWAYS bad news
His insistance that Freddie & Fanny were sound is unforgiveable, and he should have been impeached from Congress and pursued for prosecution.
The damge he is responsible for in unending..in it’s fourth year now..
Good eff’n riddance & yes; burn in hell.
THANK GOD!
Bwarney Fwank was half to blame for the housing collapse and Freddie and Fannie Mae’s boon doggle for all tax payers.
Good riddence! Bye Bye Bwarney!
AGREE 100% – you took the words right out of my thoughts!
Seems like only yesterday he admitted a lengthy relationship with a male hooker who ran a bisexual prostitution service out of Rep. Frank’s apartment. But then he did serve another 22 years in Congress after that.
Good ridance. Now I have a remote possibility to elect someone that represents me. I would not say he was responsible for half of the mortgage crisis but did he did his share to help it get started.
GL Guru, Thanks for saying that you don’t hold Frank responsible, even if you only say half. I find it ludicrous to think that a single Congressman, who was in the minority during the time this problem started, is supposedly to blame for it all.
Here’s an article from the Washington Post pretty much debunking the myth that Barney Frank was somehow to blame for the housing collapse.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/barney-frank-didnt-cause-the-housing-crisis/2011/11/28/gIQANqLH5N_blog.html
And Scott R, is what Frank did any worse that what Senator Vitter (R-La) did? or what Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) did? I don’t tthink so. I’m not condoning Frank’s actions, but there are plenty of targets in DC for such crimes and neither party is immune. The difference though between Frank and Vitter/Craig is that Frank never ran as some holier than though family values guy. At least he’s not a hypocrite.
Thank you, The Other Point of View. I will miss Rep. Frank and his refreshing bluntness. As you said, he’s not a hypocrite, and he could always be counted on to cut to the heart of an issue.
I’ve only stated fact.
I did not say he was responsible for half but that he had a part in it. How big a part? I don’t know how one qunatifies that objectively. But he is responsible along with Bush, Clinton, the people who borrowed against their means, the banks that pushed the loans knowing people could not afford them, the intermediaries that did not carefully check the loan applications, securities people that packaged them without doing adequate risk testing, the people that bought the securities without asking about the quality of earnings. A lot of people big and small have their hands dirty.
Your link does not debunk the “myth” that Barney was involved in the housing crises. Stay with me here as this is complicated.
I feel the need to have to inform you how to interpet data and make a conclusion by dissecting your article:
Look at the graph. It lists Mortgage backed securities on one edge, sub prime loans on the other. Were you intellectual enough to realize what that means the data means on the graph? Sub prime mortgages are bundled into MSB’s (mortgage backed securities) just like normal mortgage backed securities. This graph shows that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost market share in those MSB’s just before the collapse. It also shows that Private companies picked those securities up. This would mean that if sub prime mortgages were the cause of the collapse that Fannie Mae and Freddie would have suffered worse. See below quote where they re-iterized that point, and I will come back to this later.
“more than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lenders:” See my comment above and below.
And yet Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac suffered the worst loss ratios. Makes you wonder about wether it was too much regulation that was the cause or dergulation doesn’t it? This does eventually tie to Barney Frank wait for it. These are not random snyde comments.
“What’s more, only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was subject to affordable-housing laws. For the most part, private firms such as Countrywide Financial were issuing “nontraditional” mortgages in order to package them off to Wall Street and make money, not to please Barney Frank.”
The last part of that is an opinion, the fist part of that I like though. So by the article’s own admission, the company that was not subject to regulation was hurt, but did not go bankrupt. Look up Countrywide Financial. We must assume that if your source is a credible source that they would use their best example not their worst with the data they had. Even with their best example and the manipulation they put you through, the example they have did not even go bankrupt. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had greater financial issues than the non regulated example. Kind of makes you think about the above concept I said above regarding regulation doesn’t it?
“Still, Fannie and Freddie were starting to act recklessly in other ways. As Jeff Madrick and Frank Portnoy detail in the New York Review of Books, Fannie Mae “aggressively minimized federal regulation of its activities and it fought off attempts to tax its profits, partly through extravagant favors to influential lawmakers.” Frank was one of those favored lawmakers — between 1989 and 2008 he received $42,350 in campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie. Frank even helped get his then-boyfriend a job at Fannie Mae. And yet, for the bulk of this period, Democrats in Congress were in the minority. Even if Frank wanted to help out Fannie and Freddie, he wasn’t in a position to lead these efforts until 2007. (In 2005, when Frank helped sponsor a bipartisan House bill to create an independent regulator for Fannie and Freddie, it died in the Senate.)”
None of these areas above are “facts”. They are “concepts”. The “data” backing up these “concepts” are not in the article. They offer these up as facts I should just believe? I think not. I want data. And all of this is basically useless banter in the article. I don’t care about his opinions. None of it ties into any hard data for or against Barney Frank.
Conclusion: The pieces of data they do have point to regulated companies doing worse than de-regulated ones. Fannie Mae and Frannie Mac did worse than their best private example. They adaquettely proved that the sub prime market wasn’t the responsible culprit. And then they moved forward to prove (or attempt to prove) that Barney Frank wanted to regulate banks. Barney Frank wasn’t concerned with the soundness of Fannie Mac and Freddie Mae. He attempted to pass regulations. Those are two separate statements AND endeavours. What this means is he was content with regulating them but was not concerned with regulating them in a way to ensure their soundness (as how could he, he didn’t even see a soundness problem). So on negligence I find him guilty. On knowing how to solve the problem I find him guilty of not knowing. And on passing more regulations (like it or not their regulted example failed worse than the non-regulated) I find him guilty. How is he not responsible with this article’s own words? I didn’t ask how they proved him responsible (that’s my opinion he is) but how did they factually disprove all my items in that article? In order to prove he is irresponsible, they must debunk all aspects. That article did not. Your article is moot. So are your abilities to see facts…
Regardless I looked up the top 20 firms that DID fail and were private. The reason your source didn’t name the top firms, and named a top firm (which didn’t fail I might add) is that so far the I’ve linked WAMU’s collapse to regulations (who used to be small) in order to be big they had to have a CRA rating, as well as meet other requirements. They met this requirement by making a commmitment to actively pursue low income housing (different than sub prime, sub prime has to do with credit rating, if I can’t pay due to income I can’t pay due to income. That won’t change. A credit rating may) by commmiting $750 billion in loans over a ten year period. They made this commitment in early 2000. They were required to do what they did to expand. They expanded by over 20 locations in less than 8 years. They collaped. Bank of America made a 1 Trillion low income loan housing commitment. They didn’t collapse but they came dang close. Leahman Brothers was quoted in their CRA rating report as receiving a higher rating for giving over 10% of their loans out to people living below the poverty line, with a median loan point of roughly $250,000 cost home. If you don’t see why that is a problem I shall call you a fool now. I own a $214,000 home. With 5% interest the home is $1,475 including insurance and property taxes a month. You tell me which person living at poverty level would afford that. Which 2 people would afford that monthly payment? WAMU, BOA, Leahman Brothers, those are three of the absolute biggest that failed. Each of them were encouraged to make low income loans, and had to in order to expand in size due to REGULATION. So Barney and his regulation cronies did cause this crises. You may access the CRA report online as they are public data from the government. You can look up the commitments from any media station just by typing in the key words low income hosing commitments and comparing it to the list of the top 20 failed firms. You may reference the requirements for expanding in size at any government regulatory site. THAT is research OPV. And I’ve never seen you do it.
Later!
Sometimes I word things incorrectly,
Where I said none of these are facts they are concepts, I meant to say that none of them are relevant data. They listed contributions, then said well Barney could have been bought, but no wait he passed some bills so he wasn’t bought. I want to see what he did do. Not what he may or may not have or could have done based on inconclusive data.
B Fwank should be in jail now, he’s a crook.
OPOV- do you want your kids emulate B Fwank? He is a bottom feeder.
What law has he broken? If you are talking about the male prostitute, do you feel the same way about Senator Vitter? If my son had half the brains and sucess of Barney Frank, I would be quite proud.
With so much ammo on which to supposedly critcize the guy, why do you resort to making fun of his speech impediment? It’s not relevant to anything constructive to what he is or is not responsible for in the economic mess we are in.
I’m not that familiar with Barney Frank. What’s with the w’s people are putting in his name?
They are unfortunately making fun of his impaired speech.
It is very said that alledge “grown adults” still resort to middle school insults. Seriously, how old are you people? Do you also make fun of someone in a wheelchair since they can’t walk?
There are plenty of things that Barney Frank has done wrong, and he did have a part in the Fannie and Freddie Mac mess, so why make fun of something so minor that he can not control?
Check out who is in line to succeed him. You may be wishing he was back.
The guy running against him is a decent guy the few times I met him and heard him speak. Qualified? I don’t knwo but since he may be my rep you know I will found out.
I was always more concerned about Barney’s impaired brain. He kept insisting that Fannie and Freddie were fiscally sound right up to the point that the mortgage markets collapsed. Anyone wanting reform of these agencies was labeled a racist or a hater of the poor. BTW OPOV, The Washington Post is hardly a reliable unbiased source of information about anything.
Soon he will be roasting in Hell with Ted Kennedy.
Some of you can be so hateful. If you do not want to be labeled a hater, then why would you say “impaired brain” about someone who is obviously intelligent but you don’t agree with their view. And the comment about his demise and eternal damnation sound like a threat.
Cheri,
This site has lost all respectability with the hate and nastiness from the uninformed. Hatred now rules American life and politics and it’s over flowing into our industry. Sad but true. Keep posting truth and real information. Those of us who stopped posting do appreciate thoughtful and informative information. That’s what we use to share here.
Thank you Nan. We have renewed my faith in the IJ reader.
I am not a fan of Barney or Ted. I smiled when I heard he was chickening out. But Burning in hell? OK.
The post is far from unbiased. they clearly have an agenda.
I had to reread the article after your comment. It sounded like they were just communicating the fact that Barney Frank is retiring.
What agenda do you see in it?
Kinda like the rating agencies that gave AAA rating to bogus mortgage companies and investments 30 days before they went belly up with no repercussion to the rating agencies while we all lost our IRA and municipal pension money because the rating agencies did not do their job.. Thanks for all your years of service Barney Frank. May your replacement have as much intelligence as you have and may they advocate for the citizens of your district as ardently as you did. Enjoy your retirement and become a senior statesmans like Newt Gingrich… you have more to offer!
The constituents in Frank’s MA district did a horrible job electing their congressman for 30 years, what were these people thinking?
Frank was ALWAYS bad news
His insistance that Freddie & Fanny were sound is unforgiveable, and he should have been impeached from Congress and pursued for prosecution.
The damge he is responsible for in unending..in it’s fourth year now..
Good eff’n riddance & yes; burn in hell.
Insurance Journal, why do you allow hateful posts like this? “Burn in hell”–how immature.