Bush raised red flags in April 2001. Dems said NO

[Starman]

Bush-haters have attempted to lay all the blame on the financial meltdown on George Bush.

Here are the remarks of Democrats pushing to continue making loans to unqualified borrowers.

Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, and others

"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not in a crisis." - Barney Frank [Democrat]

"The more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the treasury, WHICH I DO NOT SEE..."
We see entities which are fundamentally sound..." - Barney Frank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM

"We do not have a crisis at Freddy Mac and in particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mister Frank Raines ..." - Maxine Waters [Democrat]



[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPoksfSf2nA
[/URL]

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

 

[Arctish]

What did Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, and the others say about Lehman Brothers?

 

[KeepTalking]

Bush-haters have attempted to lay all the blame on the financial meltdown on George Bush.

Here are the remarks of Democrats pushing to continue making loans to unqualified borrowers.

Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, and others

"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not in a crisis." - Barney Frank [Democrat]

"The more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the treasury, WHICH I DO NOT SEE..."
We see entities which are fundamentally sound..." - Barney Frank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM

"We do not have a crisis at Freddy Mac and in particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mister Frank Raines ..." - Maxine Waters [Democrat]



[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPoksfSf2nA
[/URL]

You contend that Bush raised red flags, yet you show no red flags raised by Bush. Color me confused.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Those were the red flags used to mark the brush he was going to cut on vacation.

 

[untermensche]

I don't think anybody really blames Bush for more than being an ignorant tool of others.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Bush-haters have attempted to lay all the blame on the financial meltdown on George Bush.

Maybe a few people, the timing wasn't favorable. But W wasn't really responsible. Those dominoes belong to Phil Gramm, Bill Clinton, Greenspan, and the ratings agencies. In fact, W went against his party to sign TARP, instead of politics as usual, he helped keep the global economy from freezing into a massive Depression.

Here are the remarks of Democrats pushing to continue making loans to unqualified borrowers.

Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, and others

"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not in a crisis." - Barney Frank [Democrat]

"The more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the treasury, WHICH I DO NOT SEE..."
We see entities which are fundamentally sound..." - Barney Frank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM

"We do not have a crisis at Freddy Mac and in particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mister Frank Raines ..." - Maxine Waters [Democrat]



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPoksfSf2nA

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got into the ARMs very late into the game.

So where do you get to the part where W was raising red flags? Was it part of his "Ownership Society" campaign of 2004 where he ran on a campaign saying many more people owned homes now under his Presidency? W didn't cause the crash, but in the same breath, he hardly was foretelling of it. The Housing Market was the only thing driving the economy during his Presidency. He didn't want to touch that!

 

[Bronzeage]

I don't recall any Bush press conferences or speeches where he warned of an impending financial meltdown. It certainly would have been in the news.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I don't recall any Bush press conferences or speeches where he warned of an impending financial meltdown. It certainly would have been in the news.

Maybe Starman misspoke again and meant Ron Paul.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I don't recall any Bush press conferences or speeches where he warned of an impending financial meltdown. It certainly would have been in the news.

You don't remember it because it didn't happen. If it had happened, surely a clip would have been included in the op.

 

[untermensche]

I don't recall any Bush press conferences or speeches where he warned of an impending financial meltdown. It certainly would have been in the news.

Bush did nothing but preach for less regulation on business.

His administration turned a blind eye when it could have stepped in and done something.

But many morons thought home prices rising out of control was a good thing, of course for many it was an incredible gravy train.

Until the whole thing blew up.

 

[dismal]

Pah, everyone knows the melt down was caused by Clinton repealing Glass Steagall.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I don't recall any Bush press conferences or speeches where he warned of an impending financial meltdown. It certainly would have been in the news.

Bush did nothing but preach for less regulation on business.

Lets keep a couple things in perspective. The Derivatives market killed the economy and that was deregulated by the wisdom of Phil Gramm and signed off by President Clinton. So the wolves were regulating the wolves.

His administration turned a blind eye when it could have stepped in and done something.

They wouldn't want to because Housing and durable good sales, spurred on by record low interest rates were the only thing driving the weak economy. But it was Greenspan that felt we could trust the big banks and mortgage companies with the low interest rates for that long of a period of time.

W can be blamed for a lot of things, but I really don't see the economic disaster that was the '08 crash was heavily weighed on his actions or inactions.

 

[untermensche]

Pah, everyone knows the melt down was caused by Clinton repealing Glass Steagall.

He didn't repeal it. He signed the law repealing it.

But that is what turned the real estate market into a casino.

But the crisis occurred under Bush. Clinton had no way to help at that point, and it is likely Clinton would have stepped in when home prices began rising irrationally.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Pah, everyone knows the melt down was caused by Clinton repealing Glass Steagall.

He didn't repeal it. He signed the law repealing it.

That is splitting hairs a bit.

But that is what turned the real estate market into a casino.

What created the casino was the low interest rates, not Glass Stegall. That turned into an unsustainable path when the ARMs started being used too frequently (for people who couldn't afford a mortgage) and were completely based on a risk that housing prices would perpetually increase, allowing refinancing options. This heavily risk based mortgage which was eventually doomed to fail in the future at some point were sold off as AAA rated bonds (ratings agencies heavily asleep at the wheel or involved with the scandal), which freed up capital to create more crazy ass ARMs.

 

[untermensche]

Bush did nothing but preach for less regulation on business.

Lets keep a couple things in perspective. The Derivatives market killed the economy and that was deregulated by the wisdom of Phil Gramm and signed off by President Clinton. So the wolves were regulating the wolves.

That's great since my point about Bush was that he fiddled as Rome burnt. I didn't say he lit the fires.

His administration turned a blind eye when it could have stepped in and done something.

They wouldn't want to because Housing and durable good sales, spurred on by record low interest rates were the only thing driving the weak economy.

OK Jeb, in hindsight, was caring more about the economy than a clearly seen housing bubble the right thing to do?

But it was Greenspan that felt we could trust the big banks and mortgage companies with the low interest rates for that long of a period of time.

Interest rates weren't the problem.

Liars mortgages and credit default swaps were the problem.

 

[Bronzeage]

I don't recall any Bush press conferences or speeches where he warned of an impending financial meltdown. It certainly would have been in the news.

Bush did nothing but preach for less regulation on business.

His administration turned a blind eye when it could have stepped in and done something.

But many morons thought home prices rising out of control was a good thing, of course for many it was an incredible gravy train.

Until the whole thing blew up.

It was an incredible gravy train. Mortgage backed securities was an effective way to transfer the risk of a dodgy investment to to investors who could not check the numbers. It sounds insane when you say it out loud, but that was the way it worked. Loan officers and mortgage brokers could write loans without worrying about being repaid, because they knew the mortgage would be packaged with a thousand other mortgages and resold. It would not be their problem and they collect all fees and commissions up front.

Any system which collects the money first and shifts risk down the line is doomed to collapse. It's just a well disguised pyramid scheme.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But it was Greenspan that felt we could trust the big banks and mortgage companies with the low interest rates for that long of a period of time.

Interest rates weren't the problem.

Interest rates were the problem. They wouldn't have been able to finagle the ARMs with the really low interest rates as a starting point.

 

[untermensche]

Interest rates weren't the problem.

Interest rates were the problem. They wouldn't have been able to finagle the ARMs with the really low interest rates as a starting point.

I'm not sure what you're saying.

But the crisis was basically two-fold.

A bunch of bad, "liars", mortgages were issued. These mortgages were bundled with other investments that were given a high rating by ratings agencies.

At the same time these credit default swaps were being sold which were really just insurance policies.

The problem was there were a huge amount of insurance policies on bad mortgages.

When people began defaulting on mortgages the people who sold these insurance policies were not able to pay because so many went bad at nearly the same time. The bad, "poisoned" investments were carefully spread around to try to hide them.

I'm not sure how interest rates fits into the story but you may be right it may fit somewhere.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Interest rates were the problem. They wouldn't have been able to finagle the ARMs with the really low interest rates as a starting point.

I'm not sure what you're saying.

But the crisis was basically two-fold.

A bunch of bad, "liars", mortgages were issued. These mortgages were bundled with other investments that were given a high rating by ratings agencies.

At the same time these credit default swaps were being sold which were really just insurance policies.

The problem was there were a huge amount of insurance policies on bad mortgages.

When people began defaulting on mortgages the people who sold these insurance policies were not able to pay because so many went bad at nearly the same time. The bad, "poisoned" investments were carefully spread around to try to hide them.

I'm not sure how interest rates fits into the story but you may be right it may fit somewhere.

You can only fake a mortgage so much. If interest rates were higher, it would haven't been feasible give mortgages to those who couldn't close to affording them.