Only one solution, mark my words you left wing bastards, BRING BACK PUBLIC HANGING. WASHINGTON -- Long before the mortgage crisis began rocking Main Street and Wall Street, a top FBI official made a chilling, if little-noticed, prediction: The booming mortgage business, fueled by low interest rates and soaring home values, was starting to attract shady operators and billions in losses were possible. "It has the potential to be an epidemic," Chris Swecker, the FBI official in charge of criminal investigations, told reporters in September 2004. But, he added reassuringly, the FBI was on the case. "We think we can prevent a problem that could have as much impact as the S&L crisis," he said. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mortgagefraud25-2008aug25,0,6946937.story
Well I'm glad we had the FBI to watch out for us on that one, it could have been a disaster...... Edit: does anybody here besides me think that the Clinton policies of forcing lenders to make bad loans in areas that were "discriminated against" led up to the loan problems?
How simplistic of you. Do you know who Roland Arnall was? He was the founder of Ameriquest that raised nearly 20 million for the repubs/Bush in 2004. He helped fund the swiftboat campaign smearing a vietnam vet - Kerry. In return, he successfully lobbied to have predatory lending laws weakened. Eventually, before his death, Bush gave him an ambassadorship to the Netherlands. To think this mortgage fiasco was the product of altruistic lending shows a high level of naivete of how the world really works. We have a monetary system that creates too much money chasing too few opportunities for high returns. The mortage crisis I believe is just the beginning and a small part of a larger crisis - a monetary system mismanaged to alleviate Wall Street's aversion to true Capitalism. Privatize profits, socialize losses.
Then that FBI guy was really ahead of the curve, he saw the problem in 2004 before Arnall had much time to even lobby or anything... obviously the problem was building up long before the FBI guy made that statement.... I'm really getting a sense that the true story is getting buried here, I know that Clinton would have had a stupid policy like considering that loans not made to Blacks were a form of discrimination, it was all the talk of the time, they made documentaries on it actually...... I guess it spread from the Black Neighborhoods to everywhere once the lenders figured out how to get out from under the regulatory policies that forced them to make bad loans, in fact they got the upper hand in the whole mess and shoved if all off from the Clintons to the rest of the world seemingly.... we need a tell all book from the lenders viewpoint.....
I was in the mortgage business almost 9 years. The inner city programs that I saw basically lowered the rate. There were a few that had somewhat relaxed standards, but nothing like subprime loans and option arms. Those loans were created by the partnership of Wall Street and Mortgage Lenders to get extremely high commissions and were sold across the country - regardless of the type of community. It was the search for increased profits that drove the relaxation of lender standards, not altruism. Hedge Funds, Institutional Funds, etc... wanted high returns. It was a case of too much money chasing too few high yielding opportunities. Greenspan's lowering of the rate and the Japanese Yen carry trade and China's trade surplus of dollars fed this beast even more. To call this a Clinton helping minorities thing is extremely naive and a typical nonthinking right-wing kneejerk reaction. I guess we'll be blaming Clinton for another 8 years. Gee... didn't W add almost another 5 TRILLION to the deficit? Face it - we are a debt ridden nation - both private and public sector - all communities, all races.
Folks from the politicos on down are mighty complacent about our debt situation. Shouldn't be. DEBT ALWAYS GETS ACCOUNTED FOR... BY SOMEBODY... it's always ultimately unfun, and often very painful/disastrous...
Greenspan's easy money was during both Clinton and Bush's term. The FBI guy saw it in 2004. Bush was Prez since 2001. Wouldn't surprise me if it started building in the '90's though. But what politician isn't above riding the wave while it's there? Didn't Bush boast that more Americans owned homes under his administration than ever before? The "Ownership" society. He forgot to mention that they would later be foreclosed upon... BTW - I remember a report that before the 9/11 attacks some FBI guys were reporting back that guys were taking flying lessons but weren't interested in the landing part. And during the summer of '01, Tenet at the CIA was running around "with his hair on fire" because the intercepted "chatter" had increased. But, like in the shady loans - somebody's got to listen.