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The Roots of the Financial Crisis: Who Is to Blame?
public integrity ^

Posted on 05/07/2009 9:58:05 AM PDT by FromLori

The top subprime lenders whose loans are largely blamed for triggering the global economic meltdown were owned or bankrolled by banks now collecting billions of dollars in bailout money — including several that have paid huge fines to settle predatory lending charges. These big institutions were not only unwitting victims of an unforeseen financial collapse, as they have sometimes portrayed themselves, but enablers that bankrolled the type of lending that has threatened the financial system. These are among the findings of a Center for Public Integrity analysis of government data on nearly 7.2 million “high-interest” or subprime loans made from 2005 through 2007, a period that marks the peak and collapse of the subprime boom. The computer-assisted analysis also reveals the top 25 originators of high-interest loans, accounting for nearly $1 trillion, or about 72 percent of such loans made during that period.

(Excerpt) Read more at publicintegrity.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government
KEYWORDS: economy; mortgage; origins; roots
Shows where the campaign contributions went!
1 posted on 05/07/2009 9:58:06 AM PDT by FromLori
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To: FromLori

Click only if you you don’t fundamentally reject the principle that “THE TRUTH IS NEVER TOO HORRIBLE”
http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php?t=249212


2 posted on 05/07/2009 10:02:31 AM PDT by VlPu
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To: FromLori

Hey they’re all guilty of spending other folks money.

The only protest I can do for the next 4 years is refuse to buy anything but necessities...and that’s just what I’m gonna do.


3 posted on 05/07/2009 10:04:57 AM PDT by exPBRrat
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To: FromLori

Who’s to blame? We are. Some have posited that no President since Eisenhower has actually tried to pay for the goodies he delivered; the rest have just borrowed. And we keep electing ‘em, and accepting the free stuff that our kids and grandkids will hafta pay for.

Others say that the Washington plutocratic oligarchs share the blame with America’s women, pointign out that, as in almost every other modern, representative democracy, the hyper-growth of government services, budgets and deficits corresponds with women gaining the right to vote. Politicians pandering to women voters who’re seeking not a leader, but a surrogate husband-and-provider, they’re the main cause of it all.


4 posted on 05/07/2009 10:21:57 AM PDT by flowerplough (It's never fun. I hate cheesecake. I hate emoticons. -Danny Donkey, Pearls Before Swine, 3/8/09)
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To: FromLori
1. Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve. They kept interest rates far below what a reasonable market rate would have been, which lead to massive misinvestment which wouldn't have happened if the market would have had to match willing, rational lenders to willing, rational borrowers.

2. Whoever would give a AAA rating to a stack of mortgages for people spending 60% of their income on variable rate, interest only, no money down loans during a time when rates were artifically and unsustainably low. The banks were selling crap and calling it fudge. Then Moody's and S&P called it top grade fudge - mmm, mmm, good.

3. Congresses and Presidents who pushed the community reinvestment act requiring banks to lend to bad risks. I put that third because there were a lot more bad mortgages being made that the CRA came close to requiring. It's like the government passing out glasses of poison and the banks asked for three instead the one they were legally required to drink because they had the secret dillution method only they knew about.

5 posted on 05/07/2009 10:37:40 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (No free man bows to a foreign king.)
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To: FromLori

“The Roots of the Financial Crisis: Who Is to Blame?”

Let’s see. The crisis hit the most heavily-regulated industries in the entire economy, i.e. the banks and Wall Street. It got its impetus from two government-sponsored entities, Fanny & Freddie. And the only way that much excess credit could ever be floating around is because the govenrment controls our money supply.

So...Uh...The Free Market?


6 posted on 05/07/2009 11:09:20 AM PDT by Tublecane
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To: flowerplough

“Some have posited that no President since Eisenhower has actually tried to pay for the goodies he delivered”

And not since Jackson have we had a balanced budget, if I remember correctly.


7 posted on 05/07/2009 11:10:20 AM PDT by Tublecane
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To: FromLori

This study only covers 2005-2007.

This started in 1993.

If the Feds force lending institutions to make bad loans, no one thinks these guys will figure out how to minimize the risk?


8 posted on 05/07/2009 11:18:18 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: <1/1,000,000th%

I’ve often wondered why we didn’t have more ‘crisis’ during non-election years...


9 posted on 05/07/2009 11:22:41 AM PDT by griswold3 (a good story is more compelling than the search for truth)
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To: griswold3

This issue hit the news in 1999, again in 2001, again in 2003, again in 2005 and again in 2007.

Each time the Dems claimed it was partisan politics on the part of Republicans.

It wasn’t until Senator Schumer brought it up in 2008 that investors were scared by it. And even then the market didn’t nosedive until the President was elected. Then it nosedived again when he took office and demanded more taxpayer money for his partisans.


10 posted on 05/11/2009 9:43:24 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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