.Liveblogging McCain/Obama Redux
"...9:14 McCain on Fannie and Freddie "There were some of us who stood up against us. There were others who took a hike." Too bad he didn't bother to follow through on that point. This is a town hall debate. Subtlety doesn't work here. Now Obama's going to be UNSUBTLE...and more effective. With his deregulation lie. Obama's lying his ass off (as usual). And Obama's being more effective. Point: McCain on substance, Obama in style.
9:19 The "How can we trust you when both parties got us into this mess?" No, Republicans didn't get us into this "crisis." To the extent any party is responsible, this is PURELY a Democrat mess. It is very clear that it was Republicans sounding alarm bells going back years. It was the DEMOCRATS in charge of Fannie and Freddie, and it was the DEMOCRATS who sold us out to ACORN. It was the DEMOCRATS who defended Frannie and Freddie and shielded them from regulators, and who demanded they overextend themselves into subprime and adjustable mortgages..."
CounterColumn
A heads up:
It's amazing how easily Republican can be defeated even when they are in the majority. I will grant you all that the Fannie and Freddie were Democrat gorillas, but where were the Republican when you needed them?
What good are they if they can lead even from the majority.
9:19 The "How can we trust you when both parties got us into this mess?" No, Republicans didn't get us into this "crisis." To the extent any party is responsible, this is PURELY a Democrat mess. It is very clear that it was Republicans sounding alarm bells going back years. It was the DEMOCRATS in charge of Fannie and Freddie, and it was the DEMOCRATS who sold us out to ACORN. It was the DEMOCRATS who defended Frannie and Freddie and shielded them from regulators, and who demanded they overextend themselves into subprime and adjustable mortgages..."
CounterColumn
A heads up:
It's amazing how easily Republican can be defeated even when they are in the majority. I will grant you all that the Fannie and Freddie were Democrat gorillas, but where were the Republican when you needed them?
What good are they if they can lead even from the majority.
posted by madtom at 9:13 PM
15 Comments:
That's what happens with 'compassionate Conservatism'. You end up fucking things up in ways even the most liberal among us could only dream of. Home ownership for all! Sure, why not? If you're against it, you are a goddamn racist that only cares for the rich---- you know, White people! Honestly, I am to the point I am hoping for another Great Depression---- wipe the fucking slate clean and just start over. What a choice we have this election. Sorry, but I am just pissed off after watching those two 'debate'.
Damn Will I must be having an effect of you! For you to trash Bush, your either drunk or off you meds
You know I am only trying to help with a heads up.
They need to revamp that line of attack, or it will keep falling on deft ears.
"If you're against it, you are a goddamn racist that only cares for the rich"
I still don't think you understand the importance of the underlying legislation. I don't think you understand why the Republicans did not protest to loudly. It had nothing to do with racism, or class envy. It was a survival strategy.
I don't know about Texas, be here in Miami the poor areas were a drain on the rest of the community. The crime the drugs and the trash were all more than we could handle and the way out was to help raise the people out of third world like poverty. It was either that, or go in with tanks and troops to wipe them out. Which policy would you try?
Not to mention the lose to the community in brines and talent that were just rotting away under the piles of trash.
Remember the slogans, "a mind is a terrible thing to waste". Well for us here it was more than just a slogan, just the lost economic output that we were wasting was more than whatever it cost us to improve that community.
It's just too bad that no good deed goes unpunished. Greed and graft took over and turned gold to shit.
I have trashed Bush many times, no doubt long before you ever did. The term 'compassionate conservative' causes my hair to catch fire. I just don't trash him for the same reasons you do. The ONE thing for which I give him credit is sticking with war, even while bumbling through much of it listening to incompetents out of misplaced 'loyalty', which has always been his greatest failing. I recognize that wars are always filled with bumbling. His expanded entitlements, and I include his collusion with Dems on Affordable Housing as an entitlement just like Medicare prescription, have always made me sick. But in the end, I still believe he will be regarded in history positively overall .
You are telling me that the people in Florida had to have the federal government intervene in the private affairs of business and individuals to end blight and poverty? You do know the the amount of blight and poverty is pretty constant, Great Society or Affordable Housing boondoggles be damned. Any short term improvement is reliably followed up by worsened conditions for EVERYONE. Making things 'easier' for those who lack the intellect, determination or willpower only makes their numbers grow and wastes more talent and potential than anything else ever could--- including drugs which are a symptom, not the cause of the failures. Dependency on government is the enemy.
Now you have a whining, dependent underclass who would never look within themselves for the reasons why they are failing and for the things that would lead them to succeed. It's the fault of a bloated federal government and the rich fat cats that put them in a home they can't afford! Damn them, give me more! And now we have McCain proposing more of the same? If a person buys a house at what anyone with half a brain knew where overinflated values (overinflated because too many people who had no business buying houses were buying houses with government assistance) and now they can't afford them because of adjustable rates and much more realistic values---- so let's give them a NEW mortgage at current value with NEW fixed rates and let the rest of us eat that shit sandwich for them? You really think that is going to result in a better Florida? Better if you are a Socialist with no desire to be free to succeed or fail on your own merits, maybe. Not for me.
"Making things 'easier' for those who lack the intellect, determination or willpower"
No one said anything like that. What we found here in Miami when the Cubans took over was not a population that was incapable, but one that had been beat down, and held underwater. I am not trying to assign blame, I'm just stating the facts as we found them. The fucked up part was that "now" it was our problem, and we were expected to pay the bill.
What we did was teach people to swim, not just set up lifeguard station. We did that too, but the important part was we taught people to swim on their own. It worked great 25 years or so. You could not recognize some of those areas today, if you woke up out of a long sleep.
For the most part there was nothing wrong with the people, it was the system that held them down...
Like the Shi'a and the Kurds in Iraq.
"Now you have a whining, dependent underclass"
No we don't, we have an ownership society who own stock in their own neighborhoods! Big difference. And a very right wing solution at that, with a little liberal big government to boot.
But this is what my argument is all about. The old system worked just fine for the last 25 years, but we had a manufacturing economy then. When that disappeared, they tried to "leverage" home values and "services" to make up the difference, that's when the party got started.
"Better if you are a Socialist with no desire to be free to succeed or fail on your own merits, maybe"
No about the current plan, I have no idea. I'm with you, nothing good can come of it.
My plan calls for a structured lowering of payroll taxes. Little by little to inject money directly into peoples paypackets every week, That way they will need less credit, and can pay the current inflation while at the same time protecting their jobs, by allowing employers to keep 1 to maybe 5% of the discounted payroll tax to cover the cost. It's just a rough idea I haven't worked out all the kinks yet.
"I still believe he will be regarded in history positively overall ."
You might also remember that the Honorable Jeb Bush was the governor of Florida, the epicenter, ground zero, for the crisis.
Maybe it's different in Texas, but the tax revenue from South Florida, Orlando, and Tampa pay the bills for the other 10,000 little counties that even I cant name, but all the signs proclaim the area "God's Country". And of course very Republican. These people seem to have no problem with the situation when the $$ were rolling in..
Welcome to Paradise.
" (overinflated because too many people who had no business buying houses were buying houses with government assistance)"
You, I, see a disconnect here. I don't mean you, maybe its different in Texas...here we were building 1000 news homes a week, and there are at least ten new towers downtown, and a bunch more on the beach. This was not low income housing. Some of the bigger "communities" would take hours to drive through. And the towers are some of the most expensive real estate in the world.
I don't know who your trying to blame for the "crisis" but I think you got your target on the wrong direction.
I think I agree with madtom, and President Bush, plus many Democrats that home ownership, "the Ownership Society" as Bush put it is a good thing. I think that the current problem was that lending limits were pegged to what was going on with real estate prices in California and Florida, and that people bought way beyond their means in other places where big ticket houses wouldn't sell so quickly when people found out that they couldn't afford the mortgage.
People also used the rise in home value to raid the equity.
It just turned out to be fools gold. Nothing new.
But lets never waste an opportunity to blame the poor for something.
.
"let them eat bread"
First time, and low income loans were defaulting at an acceptable and normal rate. Nothing new here either.
What you and MT both fail to recognize is that the incredible run up in home prices in some areas produced a bubble that could and would not have existed without the regulations and programs stemming from well intentioned (political pandering) government meddling. How many times do we have to be taught that lesson? When government makes people dependent, failure is certain to follow. When government intervenes in the natural selection of winners and losers, crashes will follow. It fits the definition of insanity--- doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome. Maybe the coming default on social security will break the cycle, assuming the nation survives that slow motion train wreck we seem to be able to ignore.
The supposition that it is a good thing to take people out of struggle to reach the 'dream' by providing them with a home may give some of us a warm and fuzzy feeling, but it came at great cost for all of us and will put the vast majority of those 'helped' right back where they were with far less opportunity to bring themselves out on their own merits. Jobs, opportunity, education, credit are all going to suffer for a generation because the government wanted to help (pander).
How did low income housing create the real estate bubble?
The number of buyers increased at an unprecedented rate as the Fair Housing Act and the 'Ownership Society' took hold. Those in homes already, sold at inflated prices and bought new homes, at inflated prices. The no down, no principal loans made it possible to 'qualify for more money. More money means more demand. More demand means higher prices. Higher prices encourages more risk. At some point, just as in a Ponzi scheme, the bottom of the pyramid runs out of participants (victims), the prices can't be sustained and neither can the system built upon the assumption that prices would continue to rise. Do you have a better explanation for the doubling of home prices in some areas? Did incomes double? Did the population double? Then what was the explanation for the demand that drove up prices and created the bubble if not the effort to make everyone a homeowner, ready or not?
Greed?
"Do you have a better explanation for the doubling of home prices in some areas? "
Supply and demand and wall street.
How about this for a reason: executive pay and bonuses based on asset value of the bank vault. More assets you bring in, the higher the bonus. Where could they find assets? How about we originate loans, then sell them as securities and pass the problem to the next guy, while at the same time taking millions in bonuses.
That aside, did you hear the wired news today, that Fannie and Freddie aren't as broke as they first thought. that they have somehow made it through to today without touching one cent of the cash infusion the government pumped in? Did Bush jump the gun?
absolutely, Wall street and the greedy fuckers who were willing to take the socialist way out instead of the American Way--- the way I did. work your ass off and save every fucking dime until I had the 20 percent down, a credit record of 5 years and a handshake that honest people recognized as honest. Capitalism comes with a cost--- that means there will be poor and obscenely prosperous people, but the cool thing is that can change in a generation and the obscenely rich can watch as the poor take their place through the good and bad decisions of each to his own talent and hard work. That has changed in my children's young lifetimes, maybe for their lifetimes, and that really is starting to piss me off. I would rather take a Great Depression, if that was the cost of the wrong road taken. I would gladly take it. Others have given far more for the effort.
Did Bush jump the gun? You are a sadistic fuck, MT--- but that he did it at all has put him at the bottom of the list of those who I would task to clean my shit list, if I had one.
Post a Comment
<< Home