[Mulderator]

I don't get it? It is absolutely clear that Democrats caused the current financial crisis--the evidence is overwhelming.

Consider this New York Times Article (certainly no right wing source) from 1999 warning the Clinton Administration of the impending problems:

"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," the New York Times reported Sept. 30, 1999.

"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."

"Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that the 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 percent of loans in the conventional market.

"In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not post 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 loans industry in the 1980s.

"'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,'" said Peter Wallison, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute."

You can watch the below Youtube video (and there are plenty others) which clearly shows Barney Frank encouraging the crisis saying the federal government should be doing more to get low and middle class people into houses and saying that people have a "sky is falling mentality" for warning of impending collapse of the market:



And now the idiot liberals have him appointed as the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee!!!

And of course NO ONE in the press is talking about what effect Democrats had in taking over Congress in 2006--seriously--prior to 2006 we had one of the best economies in history with record unemployment lows, economic growth, etc., etc.

Consider this:

http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2008/10...ead-wrong.html

In December 2006, after six years of Bush and the last month before the Democrats took over both houses of the national legislature, a snapshot of our economy looked like this.

Unemployment stood at 4.4%.

Real GDP growth over the previous four years (under a Republican President, House and Senate) averaged 3% per year.

The S &vP 500 stock index stood at 1418, or 84% above its post-911 low and more than 7% higher than when Bush took office.

Every year of Bush's Presidency, real (inflation-adjusted) disposable income per person went up. By the end of 2006, the average person was making 9% more in real terms than before Bush became President.

And consider this:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/our-rec...amas-election/

Democrats Halted Recovery, Derailed Economy Last Summer

In his Saturday address that followed this news, President Barack Obama was correct in pointing out that 3.6 million jobs have been lost since the recession, at least as “defined” by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), began. The recession, as normal people define it (”a decline in gross domestic product [GDP] for two or more consecutive quarters”), began in the third quarter of 2008 and became official late last month when the fourth quarter came in negative.

What Mr. Obama “somehow” forgot to tell us is that almost 1.8 million of those seasonally adjusted job losses have occurred since his election, when his non-stop economic no-confidence game went into high gear, and that 2.8 million jobs have gone away during the seven months that began in July 2008, the first full month of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy

Seriously--there is a thread here started after Pelosi and the Democrats took office about the "Progress" that was to take place? We were told by the liberal talking head moore-ons here about how good it was going to be after the Democrats were back in control. We were told about the change that would take place when Obama was elected!!! Well how is everyone enjoying the change?

Remember the debates over raising the minimum wage and the effect that would have on the economy? Some of us tried to convince the liberal moore-ons what virtually EVERY ECONOMIC TEXT BOOK teaches:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum...wage_economics

A mainstream economics analysis of supply and demand implies that by mandating a price floor above the equilibrium wage, minimum wage laws should cause unemployment. This is because a greater number of workers are willing to work at the higher wage while a smaller numbers of jobs will be available at the higher wage. Companies can be more selective in those whom they employ thus the least skilled and inexperienced will typically be excluded.

According to the model shown in nearly all introductory textbooks on economics, increasing the minimum wage decreases the employment of minimum-wage workers.[8] One such textbook says:

Make no mistake about it while the MW increase wasn't the cause of the economic crisis, it certainly has added to the problems. It is no surprise that unemployment has increased since the increase in MW and Democrats taking over Congress!

In California, where we are in the midst of an economic crisis that has been ongoing for the past 6 or 7 years since Grey Davis was recalled. And just recently, these idiot liberals who run this state (and who have screwed it up with their Marxist policies) were successful in convincing (or bribing) a handful of Republicans to vote for increased income taxes, increased gas taxes, increased sales taxes and doubled the car registration! WTF??? (can we say that here--don't know). You don't have to be an economic genius (and liberals certainly have no clue as to how an economy works) to figure out that raising taxes on people who have lost jobs and have had their income cut is NOT the way to fix the problem.

In addition to raising taxes, they made some very modest cuts in government spending, but the government unions have now put referendums on the ballot to be heard on an off-election time (so that the union thugs can get the union vote out when no one else is voting) to bring back the spending that was cut!!! And they use all of our tax dollars to play commercials to appeal to the ignorant and the stupid (i.e., liberals)--its disgusting.

I don't know what it takes to convince people how absolutely disastrous it is to have Democrats running an economy. The problem is that communist and socialist policies are incongruent and inapposite to a strong economy. Republicans realize that you have to take care of the economy first because otherwise government won't have any money. And its the same cycle over and over--Democrats screw up the economy, Republicans fix it, we have a good period of economic growth, Democrats then force through their disastrous economic policies and it starts all over again.

Now I can understand some people voting for Democrats--those that are living off of others and want to continue the free ride, but I can't understand those that work and pay taxes voting people in office that are going to take more of their families income? I just don't understand that stupidity--the people in California that voted all these Democrats into office have had their taxes raised at a time when they can least afford it in a state that already has the highest taxes in the country! Why would anyone ever vote for anyone that is going to raise taxes and take money from their families? How is that EVER a good thing? When did that EVER do anything for the economy???

I just don't get how people can be so gullible and so stupid!

[aka Brett]

As the liberals say

[Mulderator]

From the Boston Globe:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ed...ancial_fiasco/

Frank's fingerprints are all over the financial fiasco

By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Columnist / September 28, 2008
Email| Print| Single Page| Yahoo! Buzz| ShareThisText size – + 'THE PRIVATE SECTOR got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it."

That's Barney Frank's story, and he's sticking to it. As the Massachusetts Democrat has explained it in recent days, the current financial crisis is the spawn of the free market run amok, with the political class guilty only of failing to rein the capitalists in. The Wall Street meltdown was caused by "bad decisions that were made by people in the private sector," Frank said; the country is in dire straits today "thanks to a conservative philosophy that says the market knows best." And that philosophy goes "back to Ronald Reagan, when at his inauguration he said, 'Government is not the answer to our problems; government is the problem.' "

In fact, that isn't what Reagan said. His actual words were: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Were he president today, he would be saying much the same thing.

Because while the mortgage crisis convulsing Wall Street has its share of private-sector culprits -- many of whom have been learning lately just how pitiless the private sector’s discipline can be -- they weren't the ones who "got us into this mess." Barney Frank's talking points notwithstanding, mortgage lenders didn't wake up one fine day deciding to junk long-held standards of creditworthiness in order to make ill-advised loans to unqualified borrowers. It would be closer to the truth to say they woke up to find the government twisting their arms and demanding that they do so - or else.

The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and "redlining" because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites.

The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to "meet the credit needs" of "low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods." Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans. The two government-chartered mortgage finance firms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, encouraged this "subprime" lending by authorizing ever more "flexible" criteria by which high-risk borrowers could be qualified for home loans, and then buying up the questionable mortgages that ensued.

All this was justified as a means of increasing homeownership among minorities and the poor. Affirmative-action policies trumped sound business practices. A manual issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston advised mortgage lenders to disregard financial common sense. "Lack of credit history should not be seen as a negative factor," the Fed's guidelines instructed. Lenders were directed to accept welfare payments and unemployment benefits as "valid income sources" to qualify for a mortgage. Failure to comply could mean a lawsuit.

As long as housing prices kept rising, the illusion that all this was good public policy could be sustained. But it didn't take a financial whiz to recognize that a day of reckoning would come. "What does it mean when Boston banks start making many more loans to minorities?" I asked in this space in 1995. "Most likely, that they are knowingly approving risky loans in order to get the feds and the activists off their backs . . . When the coming wave of foreclosures rolls through the inner city, which of today's self-congratulating bankers, politicians, and regulators plans to take the credit?"

Frank doesn't. But his fingerprints are all over this fiasco. Time and time again, Frank insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in good shape. Five years ago, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing.

Now that the bubble has burst and the "systemic risk" is apparent to all, Frank blithely declares: "The private sector got us into this mess." Well, give the congressman points for gall. Wall Street and private lenders have plenty to answer for, but it was Washington and the political class that derailed this train. If Frank is looking for a culprit to blame, he can find one suspect in the nearest mirror.

Seriously--how can anyone with any shred of credibility fault Bush and not Frank and the Democrats for this crap!!! We are all paying the price and we will all continue the pay the price of liberal stupidity--these people can't make reasoned decisions because they infuse every decision with marxist criteria--every decision is colored by the communist policies. And in fact, communists aren't as bad as today's liberal because today's liberal incessantly plays the race card to force stupid economic polices and we are all paying for it.

Look folks--its no accident the stock market is down--investing is primarily a psychological exercise--that is people invest based on how good they think a company will perform in the future. Anyone with half a brain (liberals don't have that much) can learn how to price a stock--if you look at the current stock prices, many are well below the intrinsic value of the stock. The reason for that is there is a huge vote of no confidence in Democrats!!! The people who create jobs in this country have no confidence in the current Democratic leadership and that's why the economy is so bad.

If Ronald Reagan could be risen from the dead and put back in the Presidency, you would see and almost overnight change in the economy. Business and employers could hire and expand with the confidence of knowing they will not be taxed and regulated into oblivion. I don't know where the next Reagan is coming from but my God we need it in 2012 because Barrack Hussein Obama and the Democrats are destroying the economy.

[iltos]

good to see you back for a spell mulder
as usual, you make some valid points.....but you need to change your....ah....undergarments......they're starting to stink with that all too familiar smell

[Bastiat]

Originally Posted by iltos

good to see you back for a spell mulder
as usual, you make some valid points.....but you need to change your....ah....undergarments......they're starting to stink with that all too familiar smell

Hummm...your response is not up to its usual coherent and thoughtful standard.

What Mulder didn't addresses is how the Obama Stimulus Fiasco has guaranteed that the economic recovery will be painfully slow and mediocre at best because of the need to impose confiscatory taxes on the upper middle class and small businesses resulting in the loss of capital that could have been used to spur growth, investment and the entrepreneurial spirit that has made this country the envy of the business world.

[iltos]

Originally Posted by Bastiat

Hummm...your response is not up to its usual coherent and thoughtful standard.

i just wanted to razz mulder
i don't have to be coherent to that.....the man's a piano

What Mulder didn't addresses is how the Obama Stimulus Fiasco has guaranteed that the economic recovery will be painfully slow and mediocre at best because of the need to impose confiscatory taxes on the upper middle class and small businesses resulting in the loss of capital that could have been used to spur growth, investment and the entrepreneurial spirit that has made this country the envy of the business world.

would that be trickle up economics?

[Shamou]

Poor Mulder... I see you're still as lost as ever...

Keep on trucking... sooner or later you'll see the light...

.

[Bastiat]

Originally Posted by iltos

would that be trickle up economics?

No, its called economic reality. The business world operates on a flow of capital. Causing competing claims to that capital (i.e. taxes) and you reduce the ability of the business to be productive. If the business isn't productive it does not hire or retain employees.

[Bastiat]

Originally Posted by Shamou

Poor Mulder... I see you're still as lost as ever...

Keep on trucking... sooner or later you'll see the light...

.

Wow, what an insightful analysis.

[Littlefield]

Originally Posted by Bastiat

Wow, what an insightful analysis.

They are coming out of the woodwork . I bet Linksky and Schwartz will be next

[Shamou]

You don't need to write a book to say what you think...

.

[Mulderator]

Originally Posted by iltos

would that be trickle up economics?

The real shame is that we have so many sheep that pick up these media buzz phrases like "trickle down economics" or "Reagonomics" coined by idiots in the press that can spell Economics and that's about as far as they can go.

Bottom line is, as Bastiat pointed out, but that I'll use an example to better illustrate. You have 100 seeds--you can plant those seeds, care for them, fertilize and cultivate and with some work, you have lots of vegetables to feed many people. Now the government comes along and takes 50 of your seeds--they give a few to the "poor" who eat the seeds and then are looking for more food. Of course, you could have fed many more of them if the government had let you keep more of your seeds instead of confiscating them.

The theory that somehow taking money from employers and companies and the "rich" and redistributing it to the poor is better for the economy because they will spend it is utter crap--not supported by any sound economic theory. Giving people money to spend does not create any wealth in anyone--about the only good it does is it gets it out of the hands of the government--so to the extent that money is given to citizens to spend, its a far better use than government using it, but it is certainly not a better use of capital than to allow it to work to create jobs and products and services. Keep it from the government in the first place and we will all be much better off. As Reagan said, Government is not the solution, Government is the problem--and anyone who doesn't believe that is a Moore-On with a Capital "M"!!!!

This won't be understood by most of the sheep we have on this board and in general in the country, but it doesn't change the truth of it.

[Mulderator]

Originally Posted by Shamou

You don't need to write a book to say what you think...

.

Since when do you "think?" All you do is regurgitate what Tony Robbins says. And I got news for you--Robbins would agree with me on this issue.

[paisanol69]

Hmmmmmm,
I wonder where that IPN bill is, he will be crushed to have missed a pot shot at shamu.

Real good to see you back Mulder, and nice to see you and GB in the same thread, on the same page again!

I wonder where you get your long lasting energy from tho, Mulder, trying to educate (wake up to reality) some of these folks is a never ending, thankless task...anyway..
.good to see you again!

[Shamou]

Originally Posted by Mulderator

Since when do you "think?" All you do is regurgitate what Tony Robbins says. And I got news for you--Robbins would agree with me on this issue.

That what's nice about this place... you can stay away from it for years and nothing has changed...

.