Spread the wealth how.? Look at his past. Obama in this video, addressing his work with ACORN litigation against the banks and relating to the Community Reinvestment Act and the failure of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, as they relate to the current real estate and financial crisis, states that, and I quote:
"Subprime lending started out as a good idea, helping Americans buy homes who previously could not afford to. Financial institutions created new financial instruments that could securitize these loans, slice them into finer and finer risk categories, and spread them out among investors and around the country, as well as around the world. In theory, this should have allowed mortgage lending to be less risky, and more diversified."
"The original idea was a good one, which was, lets see if we can distribute risk more broadly, and make it easier to provide loans to people who otherwise might not be able to get one."
Listen for yourself. You cannot dispute the mans on words recorded live:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr1M1T2Y314&feature=related
Obama in this second video is campaigning at a convention of Acorn and I believe two other ???Community Activist's organizations. Ask if he will be their ally if he becomes President, Obama says, quote:
"Yes, but let me say that before I even get inaugurated, during the transition we are going to be calling all of you in to help us shape the agenda."
See and hear it for yourself. Obama promised that Acorn and other groups like it will setting his agenda if elected:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vJcVgJhNaU
Below is a link to C-SPAN video clips of the Congressional hearings at roughly the time McCains attempt at S.190. to fix Fannie and Freddie. See for yourself who said what.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
See also
http://www.newsweek.com/id/164732 from this web site. (oops!) stating that Freddie Mac was spending tax payer money to target Republicans in 2005 who were trying to regulate Fannie and Freddies fraud. Democrats were not targeted, as the were all in the tank with Fannie and Freddie to kill the regulations. Hear that, the article admits that Republicans were trying to regulate Freddie and Fannie, and Democrats were trying to stop it from happening as a means to facilitate the Community Reinvestment Act.
See also: http://www.newsweek.com/id/164972
Stating that Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act wasn't what caused the meltdown, and noting that "economists on both sides of the political spectrum have suggested that the act has probably made the crisis less severe than it might otherwise have been."
The Leadership Vacuum
In this economic crisis, whom can we turn to?
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The Bailout Felt 'Round the World
A look at how an American made crisis has shaken economies the world over.
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I like to think that the next great American leader will channel the soaring rhetoric of Shakespeare's Henry V in the famous St. Crispin's day speech at Agincourt. He or she will call us to our better selves, will inspire us to move forward and will bring us to a realization of our shared destiny. I know that is hoping for too much, but given such a speech, I think people would recognize and value it. Leadership is like that: you know it when you see it. Yet too often our leaders, fearful of their legacy, fail to rise to the occasion. That's certainly true today, as the world's financial markets remain gripped by fear.
It seems odd, given the numerous books and vast resources devoted to leadership training in business schools and in corporate America, that real leadership is so little in evidence. How is it that neither of the two candidates who will lead our country through this financial crisis have squarely addressed it? Where is the courage? Where is the leadership? What we get instead is a retreat to the uninspiring safety of predictable old political positions.
There may never have been an era when people have talked so much about leadership but exhibited so little of it. All too often, the actions of officials in Washington can be accurately understood as advancing their own narrow political interests and handing out blame. Many of the same politicians who are bashing former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, for example, are simultaneously demanding further cuts in interest rates.
There have been positive examples in the past to be sure. As Fed Chairman in the late 1970s and 1980s, Paul Volcker made tough and painful choices that at long last broke our economy from destructive inflation. In the 1990s, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin showed leadership in managing Mexico's tequila crisis and the Asian financial mess.
And it is true that Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are struggling mightily to stabilize credit markets and restore confidence. They have been creative and, to a degree, decisive, but the direction keeps changing and the game plan is far from clear.
In a financial crisis, such bold, decisive action can help to restore confidence, and control the panic. Too much experimentation, however, can be dangerous. A case in point: Franklin Delano Roosevelt was viewed as a great leader during the Great Depression of the 1930's, and he was a great experimenter. But most economists and economic historians now realize that FDR's experimentation and interference with markets probably prolonged the depression considerably. Still, FDR's words and actions did, at the time, inspire confidence and calmed fears. Those qualities of leadership—explanation and inspiration—are in short supply in the current crisis.
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