The 95% Illusion: Obama's Promise of Tax Cuts - Page 3

**kenskiv** · 10-15-2008, 01:37 PM

The people are stupid yes...

But they were allowed to exersize that stupidity because the banks were greedy for paper...

If the banks didn't allow sub-prime loans to individuals then we wouldn't be in this mess...

I'd like to think that our lending institutions operate under moar prudence then our fellow civilians...
I mean come on...

And no, I don't put all the blame on the banks...deregulation help them along just fine...Cough Regan cough***

Think about this...
My son won't take my neon out for a joy-ride after drinking a 12 pack of beer...

If, I don't buy him the beer and give him the keys to the car...

Strange anology i know, but put it in perspective for a minute...

**Evil_Merlin** · 10-15-2008, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Broken5hift

i agree with you and ken on this. the programs should never have been created let alone touted by bush as pulling america's lower class up and giving the underprivileged a chance at the american dream of owning a house (video of this has been posted). Im not surprised the pieces of shit signed anything they had to, to get into the homes, just the same its infuriating people are stupid enough to sign things that they are told too without being able to figure out on their own they cant swing it.

Actually the programs were started under Clinton. Bush started warning about said programs in November of 2001.

**AMEX** · 10-15-2008, 01:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evil_Merlin

Actually the programs were started under Clinton. Bush started warning about said programs in November of 2001.

no bush started and promoted the programs to get blacks and hispanics into houses. do you need me to post the video again?

**Awesome-0** · 10-15-2008, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by psi chick

how is it not their fault?

Notice I used the qualifier "entirely"

kthx...read my other posts

**kenskiv** · 10-15-2008, 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evil_Merlin

Actually the programs were started under Clinton. Bush started warning about said programs in November of 2001.

This is incorrect!!!

**Awesome-0** · 10-15-2008, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Broken5hift

i agree with you and ken on this.

I agree but these loans should not have even been an option for homebuyers in the first place

**teh_sysadmin** · 10-15-2008, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evil_Merlin

Actually the programs were started under Clinton. Bush started warning about said programs in November of 2001.

Why does everyone forget this fact?

**teh_sysadmin** · 10-15-2008, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenskiv

This is incorrect!!!

You're wrong.

**Evil_Merlin** · 10-15-2008, 02:56 PM

Ahem:

The Roots of the Subprime Mortgage Mess Have Clinton All Over Them | The Sundries Shack

1994, the administration pushed through some fundamental changes to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. The goal of these changes was to make sure that banks were “serving low and moderate income geographies” and making sure that these banks “economically empowered persons of low and moderate income”. Regulators were then given more power to punish banks that did not comply with the new rules These changes led directly, I believe, to the explosion of subprime mortgages and contributed heavily to our current financial debacle.

The changes did two basic things. First, the government changed the measure by which the regulators decided whether a bank was in compliance with the act or not. Prior to 1994, the ratings were determined in large part by what efforts banks were taking to reach into these neighborhoods - what advertising they were doing, how many bank branches they opened, what sort of outreach they made into offering loans and mortgages. The new rules made the rating dependent on outcome-based numbers - how many mortgages were signed, how much money was loaned, and so on. Those numbers were broken down on racial lines, as well as by neighborhood, and by financial status. In other words, for a bank to get a good rating under the CRA it had to actually start writing mortgages to low-income lenders instead of simply offering mortgages and advertising its services. This was not merely a matter of paperwork. As the Comtroller said in 1994, non compliance would bring out “the full panoply of all our enforcement armorarium”. In other words, the government had a couple brand-new hammers and they intended to use them if banks didn’t make low-income loans.

The second thing that happened is that the Clinton administration made it easier for groups to make complaints against banks for perceived under-performance. That put an immense amount of pressure on banks to cut deals with largely left-wing political groups who them turned that money toward more advocacy and dodgy loans. As a rather prescient article in the City Paper put it:

Crucially, the new CRA regulations also instructed bank examiners to take into account how well banks responded to complaints. The old CRA evaluation process had allowed advocacy groups a chance to express their views on individual banks, and publicly available data on the lending patterns of individual banks allowed activist groups to target institutions considered vulnerable to protest. But for advocacy groups that were in the complaint business, the Clinton administration regulations offered a formal invitation. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition—a foundation-funded umbrella group for community activist groups that profit from the CRA—issued a clarion call to its members in a leaflet entitled “The New CRA Regulations: How Community Groups Can Get Involved.” “Timely comments,” the NCRC observed with a certain understatement, “can have a strong influence on a bank’s CRA rating.”

The Clinton administration’s get-tough regulatory regime mattered so crucially because bank deregulation had set off a wave of mega-mergers, including the acquisition of the Bank of America by NationsBank, BankBoston by Fleet Financial, and Bankers Trust by Deutsche Bank. Regulatory approval of such mergers depended, in part, on positive CRA ratings. “To avoid the possibility of a denied or delayed application,” advises the NCRC in its deadpan tone, “lending institutions have an incentive to make formal agreements with community organizations.” By intervening—even just threatening to intervene—in the CRA review process, left-wing nonprofit groups have been able to gain control over eye-popping pools of bank capital, which they in turn parcel out to individual low-income mortgage seekers. A radical group called ACORN Housing has a $760 million commitment from the Bank of New York; the Boston-based Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America has a $3-billion agreement with the Bank of America; a coalition of groups headed by New Jersey Citizen Action has a five-year, $13-billion agreement with First Union Corporation. Similar deals operate in almost every major U.S. city. Observes Tom Callahan, executive director of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, which has $220 million in bank mortgage money to parcel out, “CRA is the backbone of everything we do.”

It’s not a real mystery to see what happened next. Lending institutions, under the gun to give out loans, started extending loans to people who would not have qualified for them otherwise. Those loans, called subprime because they are made to people who are not prime credit risks, carried higher interest rates (because the lender needs to make sure that it makes money out of a loan that is far more likely to go into default) and other costly attachments that mitigated the risk to the lender and the people whose money the lender was using for these loans (i.e. folks like you and me). The more pressure that was put on banks from these advocacy groups and government regulators, the more subprime mortgages they issued to keep their CRA score high enough to remain in compliance.

Now, the Clinton administration is not solely responsible for our current financial woes, but it did contribute greatly to the explosion of subprime mortgages, which helped drive us to where we are now. If we’re going to eventually untangle this mess, the CRA and Clinton’s 1994 regulation expansion is a good place to start.

**kenskiv** · 10-15-2008, 03:08 PM

Listen noobs...I know Clinton cracked the door...

But Bush opened the floodgates...
Face it...Bush = Failure...

McCain will = 90% of that failure,,, we cannot afford more failure... regardless of rhetoric...

10-15-2008, 01:37 PM	#21 (permalink)
kenskiv SOT 4TROOFz SON Mod Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: In your closet Posts: 25,081	The people are stupid yes... But they were allowed to exersize that stupidity because the banks were greedy for paper... If the banks didn't allow sub-prime loans to individuals then we wouldn't be in this mess... I'd like to think that our lending institutions operate under moar prudence then our fellow civilians... I mean come on... And no, I don't put all the blame on the banks...deregulation help them along just fine...Cough Regan cough*** Think about this... My son won't take my neon out for a joy-ride after drinking a 12 pack of beer... If, I don't buy him the beer and give him the keys to the car... Strange anology i know, but put it in perspective for a minute... __________________ SOT - Happy in the pants

10-15-2008, 03:08 PM	#30 (permalink)
kenskiv SOT 4TROOFz SON Mod Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: In your closet Posts: 25,081	Listen noobs...I know Clinton cracked the door... But Bush opened the floodgates... Face it...Bush = Failure... McCain will = 90% of that failure,,, we cannot afford more failure... regardless of rhetoric... __________________ SOT - Happy in the pants

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10-15-2008, 02:56 PM	#29 (permalink)
Evil_Merlin SOT Post Whore Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Medford, MA Posts: 5,574 gXboxLive Leaderboard: 31^st	Ahem: The Roots of the Subprime Mortgage Mess Have Clinton All Over Them \| The Sundries Shack 1994, the administration pushed through some fundamental changes to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. The goal of these changes was to make sure that banks were “serving low and moderate income geographies” and making sure that these banks “economically empowered persons of low and moderate income”. Regulators were then given more power to punish banks that did not comply with the new rules These changes led directly, I believe, to the explosion of subprime mortgages and contributed heavily to our current financial debacle. The changes did two basic things. First, the government changed the measure by which the regulators decided whether a bank was in compliance with the act or not. Prior to 1994, the ratings were determined in large part by what efforts banks were taking to reach into these neighborhoods - what advertising they were doing, how many bank branches they opened, what sort of outreach they made into offering loans and mortgages. The new rules made the rating dependent on outcome-based numbers - how many mortgages were signed, how much money was loaned, and so on. Those numbers were broken down on racial lines, as well as by neighborhood, and by financial status. In other words, for a bank to get a good rating under the CRA it had to actually start writing mortgages to low-income lenders instead of simply offering mortgages and advertising its services. This was not merely a matter of paperwork. As the Comtroller said in 1994, non compliance would bring out “the full panoply of all our enforcement armorarium”. In other words, the government had a couple brand-new hammers and they intended to use them if banks didn’t make low-income loans. The second thing that happened is that the Clinton administration made it easier for groups to make complaints against banks for perceived under-performance. That put an immense amount of pressure on banks to cut deals with largely left-wing political groups who them turned that money toward more advocacy and dodgy loans. As a rather prescient article in the City Paper put it: Crucially, the new CRA regulations also instructed bank examiners to take into account how well banks responded to complaints. The old CRA evaluation process had allowed advocacy groups a chance to express their views on individual banks, and publicly available data on the lending patterns of individual banks allowed activist groups to target institutions considered vulnerable to protest. But for advocacy groups that were in the complaint business, the Clinton administration regulations offered a formal invitation. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition—a foundation-funded umbrella group for community activist groups that profit from the CRA—issued a clarion call to its members in a leaflet entitled “The New CRA Regulations: How Community Groups Can Get Involved.” “Timely comments,” the NCRC observed with a certain understatement, “can have a strong influence on a bank’s CRA rating.” The Clinton administration’s get-tough regulatory regime mattered so crucially because bank deregulation had set off a wave of mega-mergers, including the acquisition of the Bank of America by NationsBank, BankBoston by Fleet Financial, and Bankers Trust by Deutsche Bank. Regulatory approval of such mergers depended, in part, on positive CRA ratings. “To avoid the possibility of a denied or delayed application,” advises the NCRC in its deadpan tone, “lending institutions have an incentive to make formal agreements with community organizations.” By intervening—even just threatening to intervene—in the CRA review process, left-wing nonprofit groups have been able to gain control over eye-popping pools of bank capital, which they in turn parcel out to individual low-income mortgage seekers. A radical group called ACORN Housing has a $760 million commitment from the Bank of New York; the Boston-based Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America has a $3-billion agreement with the Bank of America; a coalition of groups headed by New Jersey Citizen Action has a five-year, $13-billion agreement with First Union Corporation. Similar deals operate in almost every major U.S. city. Observes Tom Callahan, executive director of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, which has $220 million in bank mortgage money to parcel out, “CRA is the backbone of everything we do.” It’s not a real mystery to see what happened next. Lending institutions, under the gun to give out loans, started extending loans to people who would not have qualified for them otherwise. Those loans, called subprime because they are made to people who are not prime credit risks, carried higher interest rates (because the lender needs to make sure that it makes money out of a loan that is far more likely to go into default) and other costly attachments that mitigated the risk to the lender and the people whose money the lender was using for these loans (i.e. folks like you and me). The more pressure that was put on banks from these advocacy groups and government regulators, the more subprime mortgages they issued to keep their CRA score high enough to remain in compliance. Now, the Clinton administration is not solely responsible for our current financial woes, but it did contribute greatly to the explosion of subprime mortgages, which helped drive us to where we are now. If we’re going to eventually untangle this mess, the CRA and Clinton’s 1994 regulation expansion is a good place to start.