"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...
wrote:
On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:03:36 -0500, "HeyBub"
wrote:

There is NO plan to restore Mac or Mae to the status quo. But you're
right. This debacle has been building for a long time. Since 1977
to be exact when the Carter administration supported the Community
Reinvestment Act. This law mandated that mortgage lenders meet
government quotas for handing out bad (i.e., subprime) loans.
Failure to meet these quotas resulted in "penalties," penalties
sometimes so severe as to cause the lender to go out of business.

Oh **** this tired old ****. How many times are we going to have to
respond to this bull****.

In recent times, these loans under the threat of the CRA expanded
dramatically.

Why? Because Bush amended it with the American Dream Downpayment Act
of 2003 that took away the level of down payment necessary and made
them less secure. It was a ****ing GOP measure that caused the
increase and sank the boat. The program ran for 25 years with no real
troubles until Bush turned it into a get rich measure for realtors and
lenders.

In the past ten years or so, mortgages to less than
credit-worthy applicants increased from 20% of the market to 27%
recently.

Last five years. 2003 to 2008.

Since 1995, and as recently as 2005, legislation has been introduced
to "reform" this crazy law. In every case it was blocked by
Democratic opposition.

The "reform" was taking it out of government supervision combining
them into an even bigger bureaucratic entity. . Sheesh.

You are correct that the American Dream Downpayment act contributed. But
only at the margins. This was a mere $200 million per year program and for
the five years since its inception accounted for, at most, $1 billion.

From an editorial in today's paper:
"[Clinton] turned the two quasi-private, mortgage-funding firms into a
semi-nationalized monopoly that dispensed cash to markets, made loans to
large Democratic voting blocs and handed favors, jobs and money to
political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and the
Fannie-Freddie collapse.

"Clinton saw homeownership as a way to open the door for blacks and other
minorities to enter the middle class.

"[But] Loans started being made on the basis of race, and often little
else."

http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles....07149667289804

Once again, most problems in society, and certainly this one, are the
result of failed, upstream, liberal programs.

And Clinton iced the cake when signed the repeal of the Glass-Stengal
[banking regulation] Act which was put in place in the 1930s after so many
banks failed in the Great Depression. The corner stone of the Democrat
political strategy is to create welfare, entitlement and hand out programs
to buy votes. They have learned that if you rob Peter and pay Paul, Paul is
going to vote for you. BTW, liberals conveniently forget that the Democrats
have controlled congress and chaired all of the banking and finance
committees for the past two years.

Irish Mike