Posted on 10/05/2008 6:52:19 PM PDT by TruthWillWin
It started out 16 months ago as a mortgage crisis, and then slowly evolved into a credit crisis. Now it's something entirely different and much more serious.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
I find it almost unbelievable that you could do a segment about the financial breakdown and fail to even mention Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, the hubs for which the sub prime risky loans must pass before they are sold on the investment markets.
I suppose if you did mention them then it would have been necessary to tell the story of how the sub prime risky loans came to be because of rule changes by Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin in 1990's.
If Fannie/Freddie were mentioned it also would have been necessary to tell about all the warnings and attempts at regulation and/or oversight that were made in 2001-2006 by the Bush Administration, Alan Greenspan, and other Republicans including John McCain.
You also would have had to mention and show testimony of numerous congressmen (almost all Democrats) denying that Fannie/Freddie had problems and effectively blocking any attempts for corrective actions.
There even was significant Fannie/Freddie reformed passed in the senate banking committee in 2005 All Republican committee members voted for the reform, all Democrats against. This bill never went to the full senate because it was far short of the 60 votes required to pass. Democrats united to insure its defeat.
To mention Freddie/Fannie and to provide accurate information as to who was trying to fix and who was blocking the fixes would have merely required you to check the achieved CSpan testimony from 2001-2006. There have been some that have done this and the information is now readily available on numerous utube videos, no wonder news from the major networks is becoming irrelevant.
Seems I recall you did find it appropriate to run a story 4 years ago just before the election that featured a forged document given to you by a non existing source Lucy Ramirez via Bill Burkett.
This is the worst financial breakdown since the depression. The press is not reporting on who tried to stop it and who tried to prevented it from happening. Seems one can only conclude that reporting the facts on the Fannie/Freddie meltdown would not be in line with your agenda.....protecting the Democrat party.
You should be ashamed CBS!
Why aren't you protecting the American people!
They don’t call it SeeBS for nothing.
“I believe, and I say it is true Democratic feeling, that all the measures of the government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.”
-William Henry Harrison, Speech, October 1, 1840
I watched. Spot on email and analysis. CBS’ selectivity of accusations and responsibility speaks volumes. Thanks for posting.
I gave a lengthy expose on this on these Free Republic pages almost two years ago and most of you wouldn’t accept that back then, coming back with the same Economics 101 pap the President spouted on Sept 24th.
The start of the subprime foreclosure crisis that has now snowballed to this global panic was the subprime loans given to illegal aliens, and the legal landlords of illegal alien dormitory houses.
If you compare the houses going into foreclosure in 2007 and early 2008 using the accurate data of foreclosures from Realtytrak.com and several others against the demographics of illegal aliens as presented by the Pew Hispanic Trust data, you will find a near perfect match down to the ZIP code - the nine-digit ZIP code, which means the neighborhoods. The few deviations were in states where anti-predatory lending laws restricted subprime lending with teaser entry rates and exponential ARMs.
Bottom line, unrestricted subprime loans to the illegal alien population of 12, 20, maybe 40 million illegals needing housing over the last 7 years (that’s the size of New York State or Texas almost overnight) was the necessary bottom of the Ponzi pyramid that is our current crisis. All those clever “instruments” - CDOs, bonds, traunches - needed mortgage paper to build the Ponzi pyramid on, and the illegal housing market was their manna from heaven (or better, Latin America).
But no pandering politician wants to admit that their open borders and amnesty schemes would have any consequences. The Dems wanted the new Hispanic voters, and the RINOs wanted the cheap labor. America be damned.
And your next president is promising to keep pandering while you suckers pay a new tax of at least $2700 for everyone in your family so the Wall Street guys can enjoy their $40 million golden parachutes.
Good letter.
I heard part of it and flipped the channel when I realized they were NOT going to address the Fannie/Freddie aspects...which are a major reason Credit Default Swaps (insurance for risky loans) were created.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/161199
This outlines the credit default swaps and is another aspect of the crisis
I’ve not read much about...puts it
squarely on the Dems. It’s most disturbing that the MSM is not reporting the government’s role in this debaucle.
Actually, this is one of the better articles on the derivative / CDS side of the crisis, which is also the least understood.
gosh, i wonder why they would not address fanny and freddy?
/s
remember it was 60 minutes that gave us billnhill?
I believed you. I had just sold my house to an individual with a credit rating that was the bottom of the barrel. I did not understand how he got the loan until posters on this board started talking about the impending crash in real estate financing.
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Agree. The problem with their report is with what they ignored. To not mention the Fannie/Freddie mess is like failing to mention Charles Manson when talking about the crimes his followers committed.
The start of the sub prime loan fiasco was when Clinton changed the loan standards to help the CRA program. Some of those that initially benefited very well could have been illegals, some were minorities, some were just poor. To say the entire problem was started by loans to illegals is just not accurate.
The CRA program had honorable goals, it just got out of hand and the Democrats were blinded to any problems out of fear it would hurt the CRA. Once companies realized a lot of money could be made doing these risky transaction the loans were made not only to the poor and minorities but anyone trying to make a quick profit. One of the big issues with this is the cover up and denial of problems by democrats when attempts were made to stop this problem.
This is the thing that isn't appreciated by the blame the Dims / Fannie / Freddi crowd. Sure, that contributed, but it is but the tip of the credit iceberg and it is the leverage and cross defaults created by derivatives that are amplifying a bad, but otherwise contained problem.
We wouldn't be in any of this trouble right now if we had just had underlying investments in mortgages. We wouldn't be in any trouble right now," says Partnoy. "You got Wall Street firms, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers. You got insurance companies like AIG. Merrill lost a ton of money on this [selling credit default swaps]" Kroft says. "Everybody's lost a ton of money. They're supposed to be the smartest investors in the world. And they did it themselves... They blew themselves up."
The Derivitives Credit Default is what is taking the country into depression....and the subprime credit default problems are but a small portion of that.
The financial health of our system, right here, right now,...are as good as they are going to be. It will get worse and worse. Recognize that and try to prepare as best as you can for you and your family.
The Derivitives Credit Default is what is taking the country into depression....and the subprime credit default problems are but a small portion of that.
The financial health of our system, right here, right now,...are as good as they are going to be. It will get worse and worse. Recognize that and try to prepare as best as you can for you and your family.
No disagreement there. What you are not giving proper emphasis to is the massive cover up when these problems cropped up. Every one is aware and angry about the greed of those on wall street. The incompetence of congress is what needs to be exposed. Problem is most of those involved in stopping any fixes to this are Democrats, many of them minorities. The press is not giving this attention because they are Democrats also.
Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't credit derivitives repackaged sub prime loans?
Per Wikipedia:
Fannie Mae and smaller Freddie Mac own or guarantee almost half of all home loans in the United States.
Their involvement in the housing crisis is very significant.
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