Subprime Suspects

sarahubbard101 the war is a whole nother issue but the mortgage meltdown was not caused by Bush or his policies. His error was not doing something sooner.

I guess that after 8 years in office, George W. Bush didn't do anything to cause problems!! What about the deficit caused by the Iraq war? It sure is easy to blame Carter or Clinton but not the current administration for this mess!! Wake up people!! After 8 years and he gets off Scott Free!! Figures!!

ricemanstm you may be surprised as to how many people were told they couldn't afford to buy and still were determined to anyway. The real sleazy lenders were the Countrywides that put people in sub primes that could have qualified for prime and the shady brokers that put poeple in option arms that had no business being in them. The buyers were buying though regardless of whether they could afford it or not.

All one has to do is look at the leverage of Bear Sterns....33:1 ...............which is for every million dollars in cash the had on hand, the borrowed 33 million dollars more. So if you have around 1 to 2 billion in cash and you borrow against that 33:1 -------------- you do the math.

In just 3 years, Barack Obama collected more than John Kerry did in 20 years. In fact, Obama has received FOUR TIMES more money from Fannie Mae per year than any other Senator over the last 20 years.
Obama received FORTY NINE times more money from Fannie Mae than did John McCain.
I guess you could say calling for the regulation of Fannie Mae doesn???t pay.
Did you know that Barack Obama worked for a lawfirm Miner, Barnhill and Galland that sued banks for not issuing enough subprime mortgage loans?
Obama was on the legal team that represented Calvin Roberson in a 1994 lawsuit against Citibank, charging the bank systematically denied mortgages to African-American applicants and others from minority neighborhoods.
Nobody likes discrimination, except bigots.
Everybody deserves a home, not a house of cards ready to fall, so why not focus on providing good inner-city schools with accountable teachers which will help people to get better jobs?

So, let me get this straight. We aren't having to buy mortgages from banks that lent money to people who couldn't afford to pay it back? So, all these houses are million dollar homes? Cool, we should make a bundle when the market goes back up. Where can I get one of these million dollar homes? Let me guess, Chicago?

In 2007 Fannie Mae had friends in the Senate???
Chris Dodd (D-CT) Sweetheart loan recipient
Barack Obama chose James A. Johnson to select his VP?
James A. ???Jim??? Johnson had also received a sweetheart loan from Countrywide Mortgage.
1985-1990, He was the managing director of the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers.
1991-1998, He was CEO of Fannie Mae when CRA was expanded.
Johnson is now a wealthy private banker and on the Board of Goldman Sachs which gave $700,000 to Barach Obama and raised another $500,000 through ???Bundling.???
Barack Obama gets advice on housing issues from Franklin Raines, who lives in a 7.6 million house.
Background on Raines:
1977-1979 In the Carter Administration when CRA was first enacted.
1980-1996 Vice-Chairman Fannie Mae when CRA was expanded
1996-1998 Clinton Administration OMB Director
1999-2004 CEO Fannie Mae
Raines recieved a $25 million golden parachute from Fannie Mae
He also got sweetheart loans from Countrywide:

in the end we are going to have 2 classes of people in this country, super rich and super poor no middle class what so ever

This an extremely good article. The bottom line is GREED. The people at the top are no better than the crack dealers serving 30year and life sentences. Just like they know it's wrong to sell crack to people and continue to do so, these people who allowed these risky loans to people with little to no income, knew it was wrong to give these loans. As long as everyone was taking home their big bonus checks, no one was considering the long term affects on these communities and the people in these communities. Money rules all. If the people at the top with the money didn't give the say so, none of this would've been possible. The bottom line is Fleet and Countrywide got into the act because they saw dollars signs and away to use the government.

Andrea M.I ask you why did our government allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to write these loans. Were our leaders that stupid or just asleep at the switch. Forget about keeping up with the Jonses why did Fannie and Freddie allow them to buy in the first place.

Freddie and Fannie have combined assets worth 3 trillion dollars.........the notion that the poor or minorities of America have 3 trillion dollars of buying power while comprising 13% of the population of a country of 305 million is LUDICRIS!! Three trillion dollars is larger than the entire German GDP which is one of the strongest economies in Europe with a population of over 80 million, and some of the best living standards.

In 2005, John McCain warned of the pending mortgage collapse. He co-sponsored a bill???The Housing Enterprise Regulatory Act of 2005.
(Google it at www.govtrack.usBillS-190)
The bill would have regulated Fannie May and Freddie Mac, but again the Democrats blocked it and it never became law.

In 2003, the Bush Administration proposed a new agency to oversee and regulate Freddie Mac and Fanie Mae, (the government sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry) This would have been the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the S and L crisis a decade ago.
The Democrats stopped it???supporters of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae said efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under the proposed agency might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower-income families.
Barney Frank (D-MA)
???The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies (Freddie and Fannie), the less we will see in terms of ???affordable housing.???
Melvin Watt (D-NC)
??????and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get ???affordable housing.???
Someone else tried to stop the economic time-bomb before it went off???
Guess who?
Barack Obama? NO
John McCain? YES

I find this article somewhat offensive. Nobody is blaming the poor, at least I'm not. I do however blame stupid people for getting themselves into mortgages they couldn't afford. I blame banks for pushing mortgages on people they knew couldn't afford it. I blame Freddie and Fannie for pushing bad loans, from people they knew couldn't afford, onto banks who normally wouldn't have taken or given those loans to those people. I blame Congress, specifically the Democrats, for blocking any attempts to regulate Fannie and Freddie to keep this form happening. I blame Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Maxine Waters for telling everyone "everything is fine people, nothing to see here. Move along." However, I do HOLD PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE for their actions. If you make 1500 a month, sorry, you can't afford that 500000 dollar house. Especially if you don't put anything down. Nope, this economy exploded and imploded all in the name of political correctness. This article is partisan at it's best and worst.

Well thanyou very much for your Class Warfare article. The truth is that while the "Poor" are not exclusively to blame, taking shortcuts to get something they want (as happens with me or anyone) to the tune of getting a house and a mortgage beyond their means to maintain or pay for is at best a very poor decision on their part. If I had bought a $1000000 home on my salary, I'd be causing a problem because I cannot affort such a house either in terms of upkeep or payments. I'd be risking forclosure and bankrupcy. Hmmm, sound familiar. Lending money to someone that can't afford to pay it back is stupid and wrong. It is an attempt to trnasfer wealth, pure and simple.

Wait so Fannie Maes MyCommunity Mortgage that targeted low income families and underserved neighborhoods weren't a risky program? Lets see 106% of the selling price, Debt to income ratios up to I think it was 65% pre tax. This program existed it was created by Fannie Mae under Franklin Raines ( you know him one of Obama's campaign advisors). The risk for default here was extreme and yet it was out there to help low income families now maybe if the Democrats had allowed oversight mortgages like thins would never had been made because someone you would have hoped would have seen the risk.

Uh, sorry, but people that bought homes that they couldn't afford as part of this petty "keeping up with the Jones'" mentality that Americans have been sucked into in recent decades are most certainly largely to blame for this mess. Now they want to play the victim card? Living beyond your means and then expecting someone else to clean up the financial mess created is unacceptable. If you can only afford 100K worth of home, then that is what you purchase, not a 400K McMansion. Or, you rent, like I do, and live within your means. Everyone who played a part in this real estate mess needs to take responsibility for it. Many of these "victims" should thank their lucky stars that they're not in a debtor's prison right now, and will hopefully learn a valuable lesson from all of this.

I find this article somewhat offensive. Nobody is blaming the poor, at least I'm not. I do however blame stupid people for getting themselves into mortgages they couldn't afford. I blame banks for pushing mortgages on people they knew couldn't afford it. I blame Freddie and Fannie for pushing bad loans, from people they knew couldn't afford, onto banks who normally wouldn't have taken or given those loans to those people. I blame Congress, specifically the Democrats, for blocking any attempts to regulate Fannie and Freddie to keep this form happening. I blame Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Maxine Waters for telling everyone "everything is fine people, nothing to see here. Move along." However, I do HOLD PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE for their actions. If you make 1500 a month, sorry, you can't afford that 500000 dollar house. Especially if you don't put anything down. Nope, this economy exploded and imploded all in the name of political correctness. This article is partisan at it's best and worst.