« C’mon, third double in a row • Home • Me in MI »
Who you gonna believe: me, or your own eyes?
February 25th, 2009 Posted in Policy and PoliticsBill Clinton, a week ago Monday:
“Do any of them seriously believe if I had been President, and my economic team had been in place the last eight years, that this [financial meltdown] would be happening today?”
The New York Times in 1999, warning of a potential foreclosure crisis:
“The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people . . .”
Asked and answered, albeit in reverse order. Which is not to say there aren’t plenty of people across the political and financial spectrum who deserve blame. Wouldn’t it be nice if at least one of them said, “Yeah, I really should have been managing a McDonald’s rather than a hedge fund/congressional committee/regulatory agency/bank/Fannie Mae?”
on 
on 
on 
4 Responses to “Who you gonna believe: me, or your own eyes?”
By Ilya Lozovsky
on Feb 25, 2009
Loans to low-income people made by Fannie Mae are not the cause of the current financial crisis. Sub-prime loans are the ones that have been defaulting at huge rates — and they do not meet Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac guidelines.
Blaming poor people for the financial crisis has — unsurprisingly — become a Republican talking point. It has been thoroughly debunked:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-m-abromowitz/when-in-doubt-yell-fannie_b_127688.html
http://www.businessweek.com/investing/insights/blog/archives/2008/09/community_reinv.html
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=04&year=2008&base_name=liberals_and_the_shtpile
By Tony
on Feb 26, 2009
Well played, Ilya, though I don’t think anyone is blaming poor people, a caricature that weakens your otherwise thoughtful rejoinder.
By Jim Ratajski
on Feb 28, 2009
Funny, my brother in law sent me that info (from 1999) about a week ago. Now here you are commenting on it. Clinton is a Narcissist. NPD disorder (my opinion anyway). Obama is as well. For starters, just look at their childhood background. They both fit the “model” of what shapes a Narcissist. Tony have you ever seen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVnRzn4rjbY
By Blakelock
on Jul 24, 2009
Jim R.
You are falling short in your psychoanalysis.
Have you ever read a book?
I’ll give you eight years to prove you wrong, then you have to wisen up fella. There’s no excuse for not knowing nothing if you’re commenting here.