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barney Frank and waters... had the gall to act like they had nothing to do with the financial crises and the media let them get away with it.
our elected officials are only as good as the voting american population. We all have flaws and do dumb things, so do our politicians. But we get a lot right also.
Five years before those hearings, in September of 1999, an article in the New York Times predicted with amazing accuracy the financial collapse that would begin eight years later. --------------------------------------------- NEW YORK TIMES Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending By STEVEN A. HOLMES Published: September 30, 1999 WASHINGTON, Sept. 29â In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders. The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring. Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits. In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans. ''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.'' Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market. In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's. ''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''
the officials find ways to trick the rig the system. They have lobbyists buy their votes so they can buy t.v. time. They gerrymander districts. I am willing to bet the democrats you saw in that video are almost all from gerrymandered looking districts. Our govt has been corrupted. Its time for term limits and an end to lobbying money.
Of course the high cost of housing is the one factor we consider off-limits to changing. But it could in fact be lowered dramatically, making all this real estate gambling, debt, boom and bust, and desperation, history. But it's a slave system we've set up, and the mortgage lenders like it just fine that way.
I don't undertand why you think it's a slave system. Millions of people buy homes, make the payments and eventually own their homes. Fifteen years ago our neighbors bought their house with a 15-year mortgage. They made all the payments and last month they had a "burn-the-mortgage barbeque" party. They now own their house free and clear. There's nothing special about what they did. There are millions of people across the country who have done exactly the same thing. There's nothing slick or fancy about it. It's just basic common sense. How is that a slave system? What would you change?
Surely you jest. The price of housing in the USA is cheaper than nearly anywhere else in the developed world. Housing in the usa is a fraction of what it costs in Europe, and substantially lower than housing in Australia and Canada. You get far higher quality housing and more space for less money than any comparably developed nation. Where do you get this crap?