Someone try to justify this.

Completely wrong. Securitizations gave companies like Merryll and Countrywide the false sense of security in investing in subprime mortgages on the grounds that the risks were diversified. As such, this practices was a factor leading to the shoddy underwriting practices that helped fuel the bubble.

Clinton wasn't president during the bubble, Bush was. Your attributing more blame to Clinton is baseless partisan scapegoating.

More regurgitated RW propaganda. The CRA didn't even apply to huge nonbank mortgage investors and CRA loans were only a small portion of the subprime market.

In 2000, because of a re-assessment of the housing market by HUD, anti-predatory lending rules were put into place that disallowed risky, high-cost loans from being credited toward affordable housing goals. In 2004, these rules were dropped and high-risk loans were again counted toward affordable housing goals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae

Your RW sources scapegoating the CRA and Clinton didn't tell you about that?

Your baseless accusation of my plagiarizing is both false, demonstrates your willingness to fabricate facts about things you know nothing about, and resort to ad hom because you cannot legitimately defend your position.

The cap gains rate on stocks were cut almost 50%, from 28% (where Reagan had them) to 15% under Bush. At a time when earned income was taxed at up to 35%, plus FICA taxes. That is a huge tax benefit in my book.

Earn money and pay FICA and a tax rate up to 35%? Or flip a house after a year, pocket the gain, and pay a max CG rate of 15% (after the up to $500,000 exemption)?

What is the tax code incentivizing people to do?

No doubt some, as the uber rich legally bribe off their (mostly) Republican tools with campaign contributions.

But it was the mortgage brokers and banks pocketing huge bonuses and fees for processing dubious loans, and home speculators flipping houses that were driving the bubble.

You can make baseless speculative scapegoats for the "origins" of the bubble. Blame it on Adam and Eve.

But what you cannot deny is that there was no bubble until the early 2000s. It was in that time period when it became more an more evident that housing prices were getting absurd. Now I admit that it is easier to see things in hindsight and that it would be expecting a lot from our leaders to have recognized that problem and taken action.

But instead of having strong regulators, at the very worst times we had the party of the 1% in control, with "Mr. Ownership Society" at the helm and the "business can regulate itself" republicans controlling Congress. And they sat on their hands and did nothing.

Though I appreciate those facts are not as convenient to partisan cons seeking to blame Clinton and the CRA for all the worlds ills.

The conservatives' hatred of Clinton is almost obsessive. A Democratic tax raiser, probably the most evil of villains the 1% could imagine, which the conservatives claimed would wreck the economy and destroy jobs. Instead, Clinton presided for the best economy in the last 50 years, and turned a then record deficit into a surplus to boot. That's why conservative vilify him and try to blame him for the housing crisis, ignoring evidence that there was no bubble on his watch and it was the Republicans who controlled Congress and thus passed the bill repealing Glass-Segall.

Just as inane. Shoddy and un- or under-regulated mortgage practices are what enabled the bubble to grow to absurd levels, and its collapse caused the mortgage crisis.

Unregulated lending and speculative investment don't mix, especially when you throw in tax incentives. We learned it the hard way in 1929 and 2000 and then again in 2008, and I'm sure as long as there is greed and bucks to be made, we'll have to learn it again some day.

 

Income inequality is not a issue in the United States.

I can't, on the other hand, say the same for nation such as Venezuela, or China.

 

Define "fair share".

- - - Updated - - -

Be born to a rich daddy and get rid of the estate tax. That's what you want, isn't it?

 

The biggest reason I will never get what I want is because the uber rich can legally bribe politicians to protect their interests and fund a massive RW propaganda media campaign.

 

Between 2001 and 2007, there were more than 300 rules or purposed rules introduced by HUD. 70 or more dealt with the area of mortgages.

Sounds more like mis-regulation than un-regulation to me.

 

OK on the spelling. I've never claimed to be a good editor or speller.

You're claim that I am blaming the housing bubble solely on GWB is demonstrably false as proven by my posts. I've pointed out many things that were a cause of the bubble that are independent of him. My posts on GWB are a response to your refusal to apportion any blame to the president and party who controlled the Govt at the time, your admitted ignoring of evidence proving the bubble blew up on his watch, and ignoring evidence of their inaction or worse, malfeasance, in the middle of the bubble.

- - - Updated - - -

Could be. We certainly didn't have them clamping down on predatory mortgage practices. To the contrary, they repealed that restriction. Can't get in the way of the benefactors making big bucks, right? And besides, business can regulate itself.

- - - Updated - - -

To the 1%.

 

They repealed those regulations and initiated more rules which insured that application process were less discriminatory and conducted more fairly. Predatory lending becomes a consequence, not a cause.

They can with the correct regulations on the books, which isn't what the government agencies are doing. They're repealing old provisions and adding more conflicting ones in its place.

As far as I see, more goods and services are being created for everyone to enjoy and people on the bottom are much better of than they were a decade(s) ago.

Perhaps people should be more grateful, or stop being so envious.

 

What anti-predatory rules did the Bush administration institute after they repealed them?

I'm not aware of any.

I agree it's never perfection. But the solution isn't a hands off "business can regulate itself" policy that the Republicans follow.

I'm sure you do see it that way. The evidence tells a different story.

Perhaps. Because for heaven's sake, the 1% getting 20% of the nation's income and 40% of the nation's wealth just isn't enough for you, is it?

Income and wealth disparities become even more absurd if we look at the top 0.1% of the nation’s earners– rather than the more common 1%. The top 0.1%– about 315,000 individuals out of 315 million– are making about half of all capital gains on the sale of shares or property after 1 year; and these capital gains make up 60% of the income made by the Forbes 400

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertl...of-the-nation-earn-half-of-all-capital-gains/

 

In the late 80s when GNMA pools began to be securitized on an institutional level (aw I bet you think securitizations were invented during the EVIL Bush Admin, sowwy), they were merely a way to standardize the risk characteristics by chopping up somewhat financially unwieldy GNMA pools. Securitizations, similar to "junk bonds" are misunderstood securities, they are simply turning less liquid and variable chunks of loans into more liquid, the equivalent of closed end mutual funds consisting of individual mortgages/debt that share certain risk characteristics, their risk characteristics are easy to define based on the mortgages/debt contained in the bonds. If a pension needs the AAA tranch to balance a portfolio, they get that; if they need the A tranch they get that. No subterfuge at all. Now if there were falsely stated tranches that contained higher risk mortgages, that -would have been- a crime under existing law. Not aware of such, and think the govt's attempt to shift blame to rating companies is a red herring, but rest assured, blaming the securitized vehicles themselves is the equivalent of blaming regular old corporate bonds or mutual funds for the stock market going up or down. If there was an oversecuritization problem, I believe that is also something of a red herring. Have dealt adequately with the different derivatives/swap issues.

My better graph says not so, that the bubble began in the 80s. I knew this way back when I asked you for a longer term graph. Of course you made me dig one up because looking at the big picture going back and indexing housing prices CLEARLY shows your repetitive contention "that the bubble began in 2000" is wrong to the point of absurdity. Thanks for wasting my time proving something I already knew though.

Not the point, but yeah the CRA did apply to FNMA and FMAC. BUT the point was exactly as I have stated previously, that CRA combined with other factors to create a lax approval environment. Tell commercial bankers all over the country to go out and make shaky loans at the end of a gun barrel long enough and that is going to erode best practices in approval. I wasn't even involved in the mortgage dept yet had to sit in weekly and sometimes extra interminable CRA meetings, it was that big a deal in every bank in the country. Of course the left wants to deny this because laying even part of the blame on any redistributive welfare programs for any bad social outcome is verboten, I understand this perfectly. Old hat.

Ah I see now, that makes the leftosphere because it was during the Bush admin and camouflages the Clinton admin role. Let's be sure to "cram it all" into a mere 8 years because that's all Bush was in office!" A hoot. A nonevent IMO, the rules were only in place for 4 years. Most of the main factors were in place much longer. If you want to argue this, come up for reasoning as to why regulations put in place and removed a mere 4 years later were any material factor, Burden's on you there.

OK Glass Seagull. Some of my arguments are ad hom, yours certainly are as well. But you do much more straw, cherry-picking and taking out of context than I do, most of my content is specifically and directly responsive.

It's a -benefit-. Huge, though? No, and most certainly not grounds for the unwarranted claims that it fueled some speculative excess. It hinges on your bad bubble chart too, the real bubble on my better chart started long before the Bush tax cuts.

Most significant investors don't do all that much in the individual residential real estate market, but sure maybe 50,000,000 million working class folks staid up late, bought a Carlton Sheets course, and went out on a no money down rampage.

Aww, taking away the "all Republicans' fault" toy made him angry.

It was the BANKING/Government factors I have already cited, not some easy whipping boy mortgage brokers, not some "no money down" horde. Of course the real culprits want you to believe that bunk. Mortgage brokers have no juice at all compared to bankers and of course blame those "evil faceless speculators" whenever possible, haven't seen that in literally every govt caused or exacerbated financial crisis going all the way back right through the depression and way back into the banking crises in the 1800s. Suuuure, it's always those faceless, greedy je... I mean "speculators," never good ole Congressman Bob or President Grafterson.

We haven't even gotten into that intermediate govt mortgage meddling back in Reagan and way back further, but why bother, wouldn't do one lick of good I can tell now.

We're done on that, the bubble began in the 80s at the latest. Find some other way to blame smallpox and HPV on ole GWB.

http://observationsandnotes.blogspot.com/2011/06/us-housing-prices-since-1900.html

... and lefty reverts to form.

Oh, yeah, that's what I did all right... (yawn).

In politics, nothing is ever as black hat or as white hat as we want it to be. Learn that if nothing else. And WOW they REALLY get ornery when the "Blame Bush" chewbone is taken away, or if ANY blame of ANY amount is ever shifted to their side of the aisle. Political reality in the US is not Star Wars, never has been.

 

Critics have suggested that the complexity inherent in securitization can limit investors' ability to monitor risk, and that competitive securitization markets with multiple securitizers may be particularly prone to sharp declines in underwriting standards. Private, competitive mortgage securitization is believed to have played an important role in the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitization

What better graph?



The bubble began in the 1980s now? Did you make a typo?

I never wrote "the bubble began in 2000", you are falsely quoting me. I wrote that there was no bubble until the early 2000s. Which is irrefutably true.

What percent of subprimes were CRA? Blaming the CRA is a RW propaganda scapegoat. It has been debunked over and over.

Of course it was a "non-event" to you, because Bush did it.

Gee, why would predatory lending practices make a difference for all those folks put into ARM and teaser rate mortgages they couldn't afford?

heh heh

Seem like you have a perception problem to me.

Semantics.

Shoot you shoulda been around SoFla in the mid-2000s.

???

Nonsense. Mortgage brokers were making money hand over foot pushing these things. Bankers and derivative peddlers like AIG and investment houses and rating services everyone else in the merry go round were making (*)(*)(*)(*) loads of money, as were investors buying and flipping. It was like gold rush fever.

I agree the Govt played a role. It sat on its ass while housing prices rose to absurd levels.

Bizarre.

Is that adjusted for inflation?

Which you do not and can not rebut.

Just like you claimed I blamed Bush.

Educate yourself.

 

Already dealt with. You obviously want to ratchet those ridiculously high 70s/80s inflation rates into cramming the whole bubble into the Bush Admin. Not gonna happen, my graph is better, and demonstrates conclusively the looong term bubble I described in my very first post on this subtopic.

Securitizations aren't that complex or unpredictable, red herring. It is essentially like taking a bunch of regular old bonds and putting into a closed end product. The increase in CRA and broader subprime loans -did- present some ratings issues, but none of the stuff was sent out the door unlabelled, and the sophisticated institutional clients, who could look right at the underlying if they chose to do due diligence, knew exactly what they were undertaking. When S hits the fan, of COURSE they run around trying to pin the tail on some other donkey, and that's what politicians are best at also, taking credit for things they didnt do, shifting blame for things they did.

I've had my say on this subtopic, and to the broader topic, will leave it with one final observation. I am of the strongest possible opinion that the most damning factor in the mortgage collapse is the unwise federal insurance of mortgages for decades. It equates to cheap stimulation and incumbency insurance sold to the public as "sound public policy." No one was willing to undo or step back from this over the years, and we rode the tiger right up until the end. Without government insurance, I am convinced that the debacle that has evaporated ~40% of our collective net worth could not have happened. Next stop... student loans.

Watching everything govt sticks its hands in turn to grafty sh-t for my entire adult and professional life has led me to the belief that putting money in a cage with diarrheic scat-tossing chimpanzees is better than running it through a government sieve of waste, fraud and corruption. I don't care if Bill Gates or Elon Musk or whomever builds a diamond encrusted bridge to the moon with all the money they get via voluntary transactions, whatever they do with it will be better than the squandering incompetence of government.

 

Fair share is $12,381 for every man, woman and child in the USA. How many of your 99% are paying their fair share?

When your 99% have achieved "education, no crime, no drugs, good health, mobility, focus, and hard work" and still the system has refused to allow them to reach their potential, then perhaps you have a point. But right now all you have is political BS...

 

Spoken just like a child. There is no person, rich or poor, standing in my way to achieve more in life. It is 100% my personal actions and efforts which will benefit me. Conversely it is 100% that a lack of personal actions and effort from me will pretty much guarantee me a spot on your whining poor me squad...

 

IMO that is not a fair share at all.

Levying a $12,381 tax on a poor person means they go without basic needs. A $12,381 tax on a billionaire isn't even a rounding error.

But thanks for illustrating the 1% apologist view of "fair". It is enlightening.

 

Spoken just like a 1% apologist. Never mind the trickle down policies that redistribute the nation's income from the middle class to the 1% to the tune of about $1.4 trillion a year.

It's all those lazy middle class folks fault.

Thanks again for illustrating the 1% apologist view of the world. Always enlightening.

 

If arguendo, trickle down doesn't work to get money into the hands of the people who need more of it, how do you reckon putting the money through a govt sieve will be any different... other than those who happen to have one of the do-nothing govt jobs or fat, wasteful contracts? Why would govt trickle any better than markets? IME, govt uses what it gets to sell graft, not enrich anyone's lives, and throws out mere cracker crumbs to the proles to buy their votes. How on earth, given a basic knowledge of govt v private sector action over the last several thousand years of human history, could anyone believe that government will do a better job of trickling?

If one isn't 1. a govt employee including overpaid school teachers and a host of overpaid fed, state, municipal employees; 2. an academic relying on govt grants, 3. someone who relies on govt contracts, 4. a union member relying on illicit federal labor laws (and just like there are very few Kochs and Thurston Howell types in the 1%, there are MANY worthless 60k-80k a year govt employees and such in the 99%)

then it's hard to make any rational claim that money extracted from the 1% will get into the hands of the 99% any more than one can claim that trickle down works. In fact, the greatest likelihood of taking from the 1% is that govt will graft it right back out the side door to other favored members of the 1%. In actuality, the "99% 1% hoax" is just a carefully crafted ruse to extract money from the 1% who don't buy govt graft, and give it to the 1% who will play ball. Ever think of that?

Govt needs the 99% to -remain in place- to keep fooling into the above scenario, they know that if the 99% ever gets more, they will become more content, and start voting for third parties because let's face it, most rational people hate the parties we have. The day that the 99% ever starts to change is the day that two party govt gets booted out. So let me ask you, are they going to let that happen?

Personally I think the loud part of the left knows the deal full well, knows the above, but are members of one of those numbered groups listed above, and that all their faux compassion towards some "99%" is really good ole self-interest at preserving their own paygrade, advancing it, and maybe getting their cousin or sister a grant or job at the trough. There's nothing more disgusting or criminal to me than people like that, people who would use the power of govt to steal without admitting they are self-interested. They are vermin.

And I believe if somehow those above numbered groups (who are really the only guaranteed beneficiaries of stealing from harder working more productive people) disappeared somehow all of a sudden, other than a few naive young students out there and some true believers, 90% of the mouthy leftism would instantly disappear from public discourse, and we wouldn't hear all the 1%/99% Koch etc. nonsense. In fact, I think most of that issues from lardass academics in fat college jobs, overpaid teachers, govt contractors, and govt employees who while their empty workdays away concocting and proliferating it while waiting for their unearned 80k paycheck to come in the mail on Friday.

Good old fashioned self-interest, eh?

 

If a person desires to live in the USA then how is it you can rationalize that they don't need to pay for the government which they demand?

If people can only pay $3000/year or nothing then relocate to another country which does not have a government on spending steroids.

Or, they can greatly reduce their demands on government in order to reduce the cost of government.

Or, if so-called Americans don't have the cash then how about trading some productivity...there are a million ways to volunteer!

But your plan is provide no productivity, demand everything imaginable, and let others pay your way...if you had kids is this the way you trained your kids?

 

As usual you cannot answer simple questions or comment without political bias. Your trickle down diatribe cannot stop me from achieving whatever my actions and efforts reap. If it can't stop me how does it stop you and the whiners?

There is no redistribution of the nation's income to the 1%? Every single person is compensated according to their actions and efforts and competitive performance. It's obvious your 99% refuse to take personal responsibility...just whine and whine until your politicians hand over the check book.

Without any dislike towards any individual, IMO all of those who refuse to take personal steps to improve their situations, excluding those who are physically and/or mentally incapable of learning and working, are losers...failures...

 

Business employs the makers you know. Most makers couldn't make anything on their own. Upper management certainly does get a a massive stake, but everyone in upper management started at or near the bottom at some point when they started out. An insignificant portion were just given a position of high power. They all had to get their one way or another. Most workers are also easily replaceable. Upper management at times are also replaceable and guess who replaces them? Those from the middle and where does the middle start? On the lower rung and so on.

For some reason I get the impression that some people think everyone that runs a corporation just popped out of college or from the womb and were given a CEO job in their 20s or something. Go make an app with no college education and then sell your company for millions, so YOU can then become one of the angels that employs a whole bunch of people and pays them all the same. See how it works out and report your finding is fantasy land for us. Or instead go take some business classes and/or experience a little dose of reality by working for some corporations to see that most people don't deserve similar pay to those telling them what to do. Not all. But those that deserve more, eventually rise in the ranks, as they should. If you're a lowly worker your whole life feeling stepped on and under appreciated, there's a reason for that. Its ain't the "man" abusing you. Its YOU.

 

These people won't discuss this aspect of personal actions and efforts and the politicians are just whores so they'll perpetuate anything if they believe it will garner votes...in this case very low hanging votes. Iriemon and others seem to believe the 99% have been cheated by the 1% therefore it's justified to hate the wealthy. We should be celebrating great success and the wealth that sometimes comes with it instead of villainizing those with remarkable achievements. But...this seems to be the trend of our society today so politics and personal greed will continue to rule...

 

Celebrating is irrelevant.

The middle class has been subsidizing the rich through tax cuts for years now. On what planet is that justified? To "celebrate" the 1%?

For the record, I HAVE been cheated by the 1%. Mitt Romney pays less of a % of his income in taxes than I do.

 

Like I said, you and others refuse to talk about personal responsibility and your statements above are further proof of this.

Please explain what Mitt Romney has done during his entire life to keep you and others from achieving your full potential?

Celebrating is very relevant! Even you might be happier if the USA had 1000 Bill Gates and all of his successes and wealth...think about it?

The middle class has not subsidized anyone?? If you believe so then please explain your position?

 

UHHHHHHHH??????

 

I'm not in the 47%, so how personal responsibility plays into a wealthy plutocrat paying less than me is bullcrap.

Money is not tied to my happiness, buddy.

If the USA had more Bill Gates, Bill Gates would be less wealthy....

I said the middle class is subsidizing corporations and plutocrats.

 

We have a higher percentage of college grads than ever before.

So much for that 1% apologist theory.