Comments on: Stop the Scam!

By: donate cars

donate cars — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:13:03 +0000

I wish there was an easier choice for this.

By: Dag

Dag — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:50:20 +0000

Is there a way to become a content writer for the site?

By: Tanya B.

Tanya B. — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 21:12:49 +0000

Great Post, this stuff really is the next wave of the future.

By: todd

todd — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:28:53 +0000

Antifederalist – arguing about “intrusion” is one thing, claiming it is being done by liberals is another. Both sides want to meddle with the market – if our think the GOP doesn’t your way off. I would add that just because the constitution allows something doesn’t mean it isn’t an intrusion with the market. The free market and the US Constitution are two separate sets of ideas.

BTW, I find your highly elitist opinion about the masses and your opinion about the constitution quite interesting considering you handle as “antifederalist.” Antifederalists were opposed to the constitution and wanted more direct democracy.

By: Antifederalist

Antifederalist — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:19:30 +0000

Todd,
Military spending, setting tariffs, and control over interstate commerce are all powers delegated to Congress. Meddling in the mortgage market is not. I agree with Josey. By giving tax breaks, Congress IS trying to engineer the economy. In this case, they’ve failed so badly that they’ve frozen our credit markets. And TBH, the Founders gave us a REPUBLIC to insulate the country from what the masses want. Whether they like it or not, the USG should stick to ONLY what’s in the consitution and that’s it. If they don’t like it, there’s an amendment process. However, the unthinking masses quite often want what they want when they want it no matter what the constitution says. That’s why democracy and the rule of law are mutually exclusive. The masses are incapable of disciplined thinking…that’s why we have Democrats, and RINOs, and moderates, and neo-cons.

By: todd

todd — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:27:09 +0000

Josey – I guess the point is, what does the government do that does not distort the market? Like massive military spending, or charging or not charging tariffs or many other things that people would not even think about. I just am not sure where this market free of government distortion could exist. So the real arguments are actually about who the distortions help or hurt. I know it is dogma around here to believe it would be desirable, but I doubt most people would want to live that way even if it were.

By: Josey

Josey — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:41:59 +0000

Todd, a case could be made that the mortgage deduction actually is a distortion. I believe that some versions of the Flat Tax would do away with all deductions. Either way it is useless for most families because of the large size of the Standard Deduction. I do not deduct my sizable interest payments because the Standard Deduction is much larger and you cannot take both.

By: todd

todd — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:37:52 +0000

Antifederalist – the government gives mortgage interest deductions – is that “interfering with the market?” Would the larger financial industry even exist without federal deposit insurance and SEC oversight – no. I agree the government is at fault as well, but it doesn’t come down to big bad liberals using government to ruin markets, it is that the companies and their allies in government rigged things to serve their interests with toss-all to the rest of us. Now that the private profits have been made, they want to socialize the losses. Blaming it all on government just backs their excuse.

By: Antifederalist

Antifederalist — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:09:04 +0000

Todd,
That’s just a pitifully weak argument. Banks can get CRA credit for a lot more than just making loans to low-income individuals. Banks only worry about CRA credit when it’s time for a regulator to pour over their books. Banks get graded on their CRA performance. Those laons made for CRA credit are only a small portion of the mortgage market as a whole, as is admitted by the report. The problem lies, as Bernanke’s quote states, with the originate-to-distribute model. A model championed by government and the Government-Sponsored Enterprises Fannie & Freddie. That is where the government had the greatest hand in creating the housing asset bubble and it’s collapse. I remind you that the GOVERNMENT sets what Fannie and Freddie’s conforming loans look like, and as is typical with incompetent government, they failed to write sound underwriting standards and still allowed originators to get bad loans off their books. The government eroded sound underwriting…now as is typical of liberals, the government has created a problem with regulation, now they want MORE regulation to fix the problem they started in the first place. It’s best for them to just stay out of our business because they ALWAYS create a mess.

By: todd

todd — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:18:57 +0000

Antifederalist – problem with you theory is that Community Reinvestment Act, the program that seeks to get mortgages for low-income borrowers, were actually less likely to be foreclosed on than other mortgage loans and were only a small share of foreclosed loans
http://www.traigerlaw.com/publications/traiger_hinckley_llp_cra_foreclosure_study_1-7-08.pdf

I would also add that the housing for everyone has not been just a goal of leftists but of many on the right as well, as a population that owns property is likely to act quite different than one that does not.

We are know finding out that the FBI has been conducting an investigation of massive fraud on Wall Street. How about we put the blame were it belongs, on the people who created this environment by deregulation and wanton disregard for public good.

By: Antifederalist

Antifederalist — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:49:45 +0000

Maximus,
It started well before greed. The government made the financial environment for greed very attractive. First, the leftists in Congress have been pushing the communist goal of housing for everyone for quite some time now. Second, in the New Deal and the `70′s, the leftists set up Fannie and Freddie to get mortgages off the books of banks so they could continue to make more and more mortgages. This puts great demand pressures on the housing market, artifically driving home prices up. This is how bubbles are created. Additionally, the idiot Greenspan kept interest rates artifically low to drive lending even harder. When Clinton got into office, Fannie and Freddie started buying junk mortgages, encouraging the origination of junk loans because banks knew they could get them off their books and lend again. So, now the fairy tale that housing prices will always go up, fueled in part by the idea that lefists would never give up on their goal of a house for everyone, has been shown to be false. Despite obvious flaws in left-wing-created distortions in the housing market, they’re STILL at it, trying to get the uncreditworthy poor into homes.

So, Max, as always, it’s the GOVERNMENT’s fault. They encouraged the housing bubble and greed. The answer is to get government OUT of the housing market altogether, because al they do is distort the market and create asset bubbles.

By: Maximus

Maximus — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:38:50 +0000

Josey,
All the traditional banks played this game at some point. They may not have given sub-prime loans, but they participated in the “creative” bundling of those mortgages as they went up the line to Wall street. If there is no bailout, the credit markets freeze, for everybody, including the big banks.
Democrat talking points right now are that Republicans (Bush, McCain, Gramm) caused crisis because they have supported deregulation. This is a bunch of hooey! The crisis was caused by the greed of homebuyers getting in over their heads, and the greed of finance gurus that created the cbo’s and other consolidation tricks to bundle mortgages on a large scale and hide the bad loans. Lots of people thought they were getting something for nothing and now we all are on the hook.

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:53:14 +0000

It is all up to McCain. If he votes yes, the Democrats and many Republicans will go along. If McCain votes no, the Democrats will not go along.

Many liberal Democrats are just as upset about the bailout as many conservative Republicans, perhaps for some different reasons, but also for some of the same reasons: unfettered authority for the treasury secretary, lack of accountability, the moral hazard that is obvious, rewarding Wall Street gamblers at the expense of Main Street regular people.

If it is a socialist plan, then why is our one socialist U.S. senator, Bernard Sanders of Vermont, opposed to the bailout? This opposition isn’t entirely ideological.

On the other hand, failure to pass the bailout could cause the credit markets to seize up totally. Already today Bank of America refused a loan to McDonald’s. It’s hard to get car loans or mortgages. If no one can sell cars, for example, thousands more auto workers will be laid off. At least that is what we are told…

After reading all the articles in today’s Wall Street Journal and New York Times and Forbes and Business Week and I don’t know what to think.

By: Josey

Josey — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:54:41 +0000

Kim, those 3 banks will attract capital because they know how to correctly use it. If well run banks get in a short-term bind then maybe the government should help them, not the firms that destroy capital.

By: RPr

RPr — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:45:55 +0000

Using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to purchase illusory short-term security, the government is actually ensuring even greater instability in the financial system in the long term.