Palin, Sounding Like Ron Paul, Takes on the Fed

WSJ ^ | September 23, 2009 | Alex Frangos

[SeeSharp]

You have to be a blind idiot if you don’t think that there are predatory lenders.

Really? How does that work? Somebody puts a gun to your head and says "borrow my money or I'll shoot"?

[section9]

I think what she’s getting at is that government created the environment, through the easing of lending standards, for rating agencies to do what they did. On this I agree with her. That said, your point about predatory lenders is well taken, and points to the continued need for regulation to protect the public.

Best,

Chris

[Pessimist]

Thank God someone with a sufficiently large megaphone finally said it.

Now watch the libs go wild...

[GBA]

Speculators spotted new investment vehicles, jumped on board and rating agencies underestimated risks. So many to be blamed on so many different levels, but the fact remains that these people were responding to a market solution created by government policies that ran contrary to common sense,” she said.

Sarah Palin gets it! And we need to hear more and more of this from her!!!

[Pessimist]

Predatory lenders who took advantage of poor gvt policy.

Someone will always pop up to take advantage of the gvt’s intervention in the otherwise free market.

[SeeSharp]

Fair enough. She was a good campaigner. Always on message.

[Claud]

Now this is a woman whose instincts are dead-on. Trust me. She has decided to run against the entire political class, including the Obamists and that Ass Clown G.O.P..

Absolutely. This is SO beyond R vs. D right now, who both conspired to create Bailout Nation.

Someone has to step up and tap into the Ron Paul energy and enthusiasm...and I don't trust the feckless GOP to do it.

You're right...if Palin is tacking that way, she shows razor-sharp political instincts.

[liberlog]

I think I’m in the odd position of agreeing with all the posters on this one. The Feds set this up by encouraging and even demanding unreasonably loose lending conditions. The banks and capitalists were all too happy to take the money and run.

[section9]

No. Look, there exists a need for government oversight on Wall Street, for example, and in the banking industry, to protect the public. That’s why we have the SEC, for example.

NINJA vehicles should simply never have been allowed to see the light of day, yet they were. Government, of course, was primarily responsible for their existence. But you can’t argue that lenders didn’t know what they were doing when they let these mortgages loose on the market. They did. Lenders aren’t stupid. You can’t be one of the Freak Brothers and get your mortgage liscence, at least in FL.

All that said, NINJA and other high interest vehicles were creatures of an era in which government policy encouraged home ownership for people who couldn’t afford it. Period. That’s what Palin was getting at. There are simply poeple who took advantage of that time in history because of lax regulatiory standards.

Best,

Chris

[Always Right]

All he has done is prolong the crisis. If he hadn't intervened we'd be in recovery by now.

You don't recover from a complete collapse of all financial institutions.

[RobbyS]

Well, they said she should bone up. This is her position now. During the campaign she was constrained to say what the McCain campaign told her to say. Plus a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since. IAC, what she says does sound a lot like Dr. Paul and while I differ with much he says, his criticisms of the Fed are dead on.

[zerosix]

Blaming the "predatory lenders," guess who was writing her speeches - you guessed it, John McCain staffers!!!!

The reason she sounded so much like John when she was "scripted" was that her "handlers were helping her" and when or if she veered off the McCain rant mantra, she was spanked (public "leaks" over her wardrobe, children, etc.)

[Jedidah]

Ron Paul’s economics without the goofiness of Paul himself.

I like it.

[SeeSharp]

No. Look, there exists a need for government oversight on Wall Street, for example, and in the banking industry, to protect the public. That’s why we have the SEC, for example.

Actually I think the SEC was a big part of the problem. Its mere existence gave investors confidence in some pretty exotic securities which I don't believe would have been marketable otherwise. I think Wall Street and the banks can be better policed by the market without any government "oversight". The SEC doesn't really police effectively yet it gives the false impression that it does.

[dfwgator]

The SEC is the Fox guarding the Hen House.

[agere_contra]

Your post was so intemperate and offensive that I reported it for abuse. Please don't attack other FReepers.

The only truly predatory lender is the same as a predatory borrower - one who borrows or lends in the sure and certain knowledge that the American Taxpayer will foot the bill

[Claud]

Really? How does that work? Somebody puts a gun to your head and says "borrow my money or I'll shoot"?

There's no force, no, but the whole thing was dripping with snake oil from start to finish. We were offered pre-quals of almost twice what we could realistically afford--it was pretty darn tempting, except we had already crunched the numbers and knew that was ridiculous.

Look, I'm not completely excusing those who took bad loans. But the idea that mortgage lenders have some God-given right to pry as much money out of you as possible is asinine. Yes, people should not have gotten Option ARMs and all that. But when you don't have reliable people to ask for advice, when you're just starting out--do these suits have some God-given absolute right to wave these great new products in front of your face without ANY indication how they might blow up on you in five years?

The price for liberty in society is that people have to police *themselves* morally. And that includes mortgage companies.

[Antoninus]

Bump. I’m not a Ron Paul supporter on foreign policy, but he’s really touched a nerve with the Federal Reserve thing. I’m glad someone with a real megaphone like Palin has taken up the cry.

[Smokin' Joe]

“Lack of government wasn’t the problem, government policies were the problem. The marketplace didn’t fail. It became exactly as common sense would expect it to,” she said. “The government ordered the loosening of lending standards. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates low. The government forced lending institutions to give loans to people who as I say, couldn’t afford them. Speculators spotted new investment vehicles, jumped on board and rating agencies underestimated risks. So many to be blamed on so many different levels, but the fact remains that these people were responding to a market solution created by government policies that ran contrary to common sense,”

A concise and imho accurate summation of the problem.

NOTE: THe marginaliztion of Sarah Palin continues, with the attempt to isolate her using Alinsky tactics as a fringe element in the Republican Party by equating her with Ron Paul, who has already been isolated using similar tactics--by Republicans.

By equating Ron Paul with the most crackpot of his supporters, the press and the Republican Party have effectively shoved him off to the side, and by the transitive property of political bullsh*t have managed to decry and deny all he has said.

I have been saying this for years, and will again repeat it:

By marginalizing our "extremists", Republicans have shifted the middle of the road to the left. The Left has long made use of their extremists to make the policies and positions of the leftist mainstream seem more reasonable in the public eye, and instead of counterbalancing the Left with their own more "extreme" elements (like those who believe the Federal Government in particular and government in general should be reduced to Constitutionally authorized proportions), the Republican Party has been in an increasing rush to discard the people and positions they espouse long before the onset of negotiations, effectively shifting the 'center' of political discourse to the Left.

It is this lack of resolve and willingness to discard their own which has enabled the socialism which has manifested itself in our nation up to the advent of the current administration, which has, in turn, siezed every asset it can in an effort to deliver the coup de grace to the American way of life.

Now, more than ever, we need to back our own, especially Conservatives, especially our 'extremists' as the media and even some Republicans will seek to label them.

[raptor29]

Sarah, continue to speak your mind, speak the truth, and steer clear of Washington insiders. You DO NOT NEED any ‘advisors’ from that element. These are not complicated issues, keep them simple. They only get complicated when insiders attempt to cover for all their lobbyists’ interests. Screw all of them and speak the truth.