On Feb 6, 4:11 pm, (Way Back Jack) wrote:
On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 12:57:31 -0800 (PST), marcia

wrote:
Get it out of the pockets of
the right-wing bankers who tanked the economy

Didn't realize that Franklin Raines of Freddie and the other idiot at
Fannie were right-wingers.

Not to mention the Fed. Govt, pressuring the right-wing bankers to
make home loans to deadbeats.

And it was Jimmy Carter's "Community Reinvestment Act" that started
the ball rolling. Willie kept it rolling when he rewrote regulations
that would have prevented much of the abuse.

You are aware of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
of 1996 (PRWOR, aka "welfare reform") that took place under Clinton,
limiting the amount of time an individual can be eligible for welfare,
and enforcing work and/or education requirements on most recipients,
right?

Yeah, a conservative Congress compromised with Willie into changing
AFDC into TANF, but abuse still prevails.

Abuse will always prevail whenever humans are involved. You don't
think there was any abuse by wealthy bankers of the $350 billion
tossed at financial institutions?

Yeah, I know: Whatever goes wrong, it's always the liberals' and never
the conservatives' fault (or vice-versa). That's why I typically stay
out of the political threads.

It's my understanding (I'll have to find a cite because I haven't
discussed this in awhile) that the Community Reinvestment Act
mortgages actually out-perform standard commercial mortgages. I've
read the act, and it *clearly* states loans are to be made using sound
business practices. The real problem loans were the ninjas (no income,
no job or assets) -- the no-documentation loans -- that were popular
prior to the real estate bubble popping. You really can't blame that
on either party.

Also, the Democrats had nothing to do with the banks converting all
those bad ARMS and ninja loans (most of which were *not* part of
government mandates) into complex derivatives that now can't be
disentangled for refinancing. Nor did the Democrats have anything to
do with financial institutions leveraging their investments 40:1,
which is *way* beyond typical accepted practice (ask Greenspan).