MHO on the USA Financial burn out

[shamasdog 1]

My thoughts on the bailout / wall street unscrew us package.

 

Greed which is the driving force of our capitalistic society has the ability to rear it’s ugly head and barf all over us from time to time.

 

Right now our biggest problem (out side of greed) is a vast number of bad home loans. Some brilliant financial genius sold the CEOs and CFOs of the world banks on the idea of overselling homes to people who don’t make enough money to pay for them and the government agreed and concurred fully. This is the used car lot mentality and they get busted by the state commerce commissions and attorney generals all the time for bad business practices, but hay it’s the BIG BOY this time, not the corner shysters.

 

Now that we seem to be stuck and our government wants the people who had nothing to do with the problem to bail out the high rollers, the shakers, the movers, I see a bunch of greedy people looking for a quick ticket out of the pits they caused and at our expense.

 

My thoughts - Bank X has Y number of bad home loans. This means they have houses sitting unoccupied. This is bad. This is Property losing value, Neighborhoods losing value and no money coming in to the banks. All Bad.

 

Quickest remedy, get someone in the house. This is Not rocket science nor a radicial idea, just plain common sence.

 

OK, available resident can’t afford the costs. Well what can they afford ? 75%, 50%, even 25%. Now the Bank has money coming in. We are one step up .

 

A house unoccupied deteriorates rapidly. The simple act of opening and closing doors moves the air, the house breaths, it lives. Thugs and criminals don’t occupy a house someone lives in. The grass gets cut, Utilities get paid,, you know how this part goes, the property is not depressed, nor is the neighborhood blighted, a lot of good people are better off. 2nd step out of the hole.

 

The government can then help out with some defered tax relief as long as the occupant keeps the property up and keeps the payments up. This is very important. We are now 3 steps up.

 

The loans need to be structured so a person can afford them. I’m not advocating an easy way to own a good house, I’m talking about a fair and even way to help all of us out. Another step out of the hole.

 

Just the thoughts of an old and grumpy person who knows NO ONE will ever bail me out for my bad decisions.

 

My name is Shamas O'Dognasty and I approve of this message.

 

Vote for me and I'll Set You Free ! !

[JONPAT 222]

This crises can be laid at the door step of Congress and the laws it has passed in the last decade to get us to this point.

 

They are lazy and for the most part have no fricken idea what consequences are for any of the laws that they pass. They have been co-opted by the monied class in America.

 

Now to expect the same doofi (doofuses) to solve a problem that they took over ten years to create, to fix this problem and do it in less than ten days. OUT FUCKING RAGES, they are to boughten off and inept to be able to solve any problem Let's face it , these are the guys that told us there were WMD in Iraq and that it would cost the USA tax payers only 40 billion to go when the war and get that country strayened out. For fucks sake, it it wall street and the bankers and othe 'monied' interest that are writing this bail out bill. Who you think they are looking out for, the 90% of the USA that don't have a million buck or more stashed already ?

 

They are going to take us to the cleaners one more time.

[sinbinjack 251]

I'm not laughing ,and this is supposed to be the funnies section.

[voracious 31]

Just wait until the baby boomers retire and their demand for social security and medicare kicks in.

 

The cost works out to something like 2 working people will be paying, in it's entirety, the support of 1 retired person.

 

I don't believe we will survive the crushing weight of it.

 

Congress knows, they have known, and as the writer in the paper said today "they just shrugged".

[joekicker 53]

Doofi. I like that.

[Bruce Mangosteen 538]

Here's my take on this mess:

 

Fannie and Freddie are nothing but socialist programs in disguise. Fannie was created by FDR in 1938 to offer government-subsidized loans to low income people. In other words, they were supposed to make risky loans, and if the loans defaulted the taxpayers would pay them, exactly what is being proposed.

 

The rest of the subprime crash was caused in large part by the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, signed into law by Peanuthead Carter. Here is a description of that program, and Clintoon's modification which forced banks to make riskier loans while loosening the reporting requirements on those bad loans:

 

http://www.ncrc.org/index.php?option=com_c...7&Itemid=80

Passed by Congress in 1977, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) states that "regulated financial institutions have continuing and affirmative obligations to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered." The act then establishes a regulatory regime for monitoring the level of lending, investments, and services in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods traditionally underserved by lending institutions. Examiners from four federal agencies assess and "grade" a lending institution's activities in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.

 

If a regulatory agency finds that a lending institution is not serving these neighborhoods, it can delay or deny that institution's request to merge with another lender or to open a branch or expand any of its other services. The financial institution regulatory agency can also approve the merger application subject to specific improvements in a bank's lending or investment record in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.

 

In the spring of 1995, the federal agencies released new CRA regulations. The regulations outline how federal agencies are to assess the activities of lending institutions in traditionally underserved neighborhoods. The federal agencies conducting CRA examinations are: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (http://www.occ.gov) that examines nationally chartered banks, the Office of Thrift Supervision (http://www.ots.treas.gov) that examines savings and loan institutions, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (http://www.fdic.gov) and the Federal Reserve Board (http://www.federalreserve.gov) - both of whom examine state chartered banks.

 

The CRA regulations had been revised as part of the Clinton administration's initiative to create performance-based and objective standards. The new regulations attempt to satisfy community activists by focusing more attention on the lending, investment, and service records of banks. The regulations also attempt to reduce the amount of paperwork required of lending institutions. Gone are previous paper trail generating requirements such as documenting participation by a bank's board of directors in reviewing CRA compliance. In their place, are examinations that are suppose to flexibly assess lending activities in low- and moderate- income neighborhoods of institutions of various financial capacities.

 

The CRA regulation establishes various tests for lending institutions of different sizes and a strategic plan option. Under each test, examiners rate banks according to their lending records and responsiveness to community needs. Banks receive a score based on their evaluations of “outstanding”, “satisfactory”, “needs to improve”, or “substantial non-compliance.” The last two scores can result in delays or denials of mergers, acquisitions, or expansions of services.

 

<snip>

 

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 established a less frequent exam cycle for small banks of under $250 million in assets with passing CRA ratings. Small banks with outstanding ratings will be examined once every five years and those with satisfactory ratings will be examined once every four years. Banks with passing ratings can be examined more frequently if regulatory agencies believe a compelling reason, such as deteriorating CRA performance, makes it necessary to do so. Community groups should contact the regulatory agencies if they believe that a particular small bank should be examined before its lengthened time cycle.

 

Now, before you question my source, here is what they say they are:

http://www.ncrc.org/index.php?option=com_c...&Itemid=104

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition is an association of more than 600 community-based organizations that promote access to basic banking services including credit and savings, to create and sustain affordable housing, job development and vibrant communities for America's working families.

 

Our members include community reinvestment organizations, community development corporations; local and state government agencies; faith-based institutions; community organizing and civil rights groups; minority and women-owned business associations as well as local and social service providers from across the nation.

 

Basically, this is an association of grassroots organizations whose job it is to pressure banks to make more and more bad loans in poor neighborhoods. A peek at their board of directors (http://www.ncrc.org/index.php?option=com_c...4&Itemid=92) leaves little doubt that these are not a bunch or right-wing Republicans. One tactic they use is, when a loan is turned down as too risky, they file a lawsuit to force the bank to make the questionable loan anyway under the provisions of the CRA, provisions that are under the free interpretation of various judges.

 

One such organization is a well-known far-left community action organization called ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Amongst other activitiies, this multi-state organization filed numerous lawsuits designed to coerce banks into making what amount to bad loans by threatening to get the CRA rating of those banks reduced, which would threaten their creditworthiness and restrict their ability to operate in various ways. Before he became a state legislator, this organization benefitted from the legal and personnel training skills of an attorney and community organizer named Barack Obama.

 

As you might imagine, the LMSM has suddenly developed amnesia concerning this item of Obama's resume. However, every once in a while something mistakenly gets by. Here the LMSM actually reports that Obama was on ACORN's staff, a slipup they probably regret now: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16738869/

 

In 1995, while working for ACORN, Obama was on the legal team who won the CRA suit many credit as seminal in the process that led to the present subprime crash, Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank. http://clearinghouse.wustl.edu/detail.php?...rby%7CcaseName;

 

Given these sorts of credentials, it is no wonder that Obama should be a prime recipient of contributions by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He's #3 on the list in fact, right after Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship which (interestingly enough ) amongst other things administers low-interest loan programs for disaster victims and small businesses considered bad credit risks. http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/07/to...s-of-fanni.html

 

Anyway, bottom line is that the government (especially certain members of it whose party affiliations should be pretty obvious by now) is pretty much to blame for this shit. If they intervene now that will pretty much represent ponying up the money to cash a check they wrote at our expense in the first place.

 

This situation is nothing more than a failure of leftist/socialist government intervention in US financial markets, and, after the government has righted the ship, it must STOP MEDDLING in the free markets, and the political left should STOP using political correctness, lawsuits, and slogans like "NO REDLINING!" to force banks to make loans to people who provably can't pay them back.

Edited October 1, 2008 by Bruce Mangosteen

[kimchikid 0]

HEY WHERE IS THE DAMN PUNCHLINE??????????????????

[whilliam_mancon 2]

I just agree with sinbinjack and kimchikid.

 

 

This is the funny section, you took a wrong turn!

 

 

[xen 0]

There is absolutly nothing funny about about the situation that not only the States but the rest of the world finds itself in. A lot of people are going to get hurt by this situation .

 

It is no joke. Wrong section .