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Devastating FNC Documentary Exposing Democrat Responsibility for Economic Crisis - Replays Oct 11 @ 9 pm EST

by lagomorph | October 5, 2008 at 12:59 PM
in

Is this the first volley in the October Surprise? 

David Asman of Fox News has put together a scathing, devastating documentary which completely exposes the Democrats' responsibility for destroying our economy including FDR, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and yes - Barack Obama, our favorite community organizer who was single-handedly responsible for ACORN forcing banks to lend to unqualified buyers which has now mushroomed into today's economic disaster. 

It's called Saving Our Economy: What'$ Next?   It airs in about 15 minutes, and will air again tonight. Check the link for local time. 

UPDATE:  These videos were taken down from YouTube.  If you didn't have an opportunity to watch this program in its entirety, you'll be able to to see it this coming Saturday, October 11, at 9 pm EST.

Saving Our Economy: What'$ Next?  Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

 

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Mindless liberalism... All sanctimony, no accountability!

Submitted by Tom Desrosier on Sun, 10/05/2008 - 14:14.

I'm glad Fox did this piece.  No one else is talking about who did what and when - that leaves the legacy media to do as they please to spin this whole thing.

What do you think of this post:

http://dare2believe.com/?p=347

Great blog you got here!  My compliments.

Tom

 

How silly

Submitted by gabriel on Sun, 10/05/2008 - 17:58.

In fact, the economy and stock market do better under Democrats than under Repubiicans.

This is about long-term trends, not short-term prosperity

Submitted by lagomorph on Sun, 10/05/2008 - 21:05.

It's about a philosophy of entitlement and "fairness" which has slowly, pervasively, crept into the national psyche.  As Amity Schlaes writes in her blog:

One thing I am concerned about however, and you see it in the presidential debates, is the morphing of homeownership from a right to an entitlement. Really bad policy could still lead to really bad outcomes, including a true recession or worse.

Home ownership is an earned privilege, not a constitutional right or an entitlement.  Schlaes presents a truly balanced perspective in her book The Forgotten Man, and gives credit to Roosevelt and the other Democratic administrations for trying to do what's good and what's right.  I don't want to whitewash Republican complicity in this crisis any more than Schlaes would, but sometimes in trying too hard to do what's good and what's right, we run the risk of unintended, unexpected, potentially disastrous results.  So while Republicans either did not "put their shoulder into insisting on the world-class oversight", or were thwarted by a Democratic majority Congress, at least Republicans are engaging in a self-appraising reality check right now.  I find it disingenuous and dangerous that Democrats are not engaging in similar self-correcting practices and instead, as Nancy Pelosi showed us a week ago in her viciously dishonest and partisan speech, are pointing the finger solely toward the hollow and overworn talking points involving  "the failed Bush administration policies" when in fact the problem goes back generations over many, many administrations and was furthered under Democratic leadership.  This is well-documented both by Fox News Channel and by Schlaes and other economists who understand the long-term genesis of this crisis and are now vocally articulating it to those who will pay attention.

To summarize, my point and the point of this documentary has to do with reigning in a policy of entitlement coupled with lack of oversight which has led to the creation of an overarching Corporate/Government Financial Complex paid for by "the people".  This has nothing whatsoever to do with short-term stock or economic gains under a specific Presidency.  If you haven't had an opportunity to watch all six episodes, I highly recommend them regardless of your political persuasion.  We're all in this together, brother, and higher taxes and more government are not going to bail us out next time.  The possibility of the Obama/Biden policies launching us into a deep economic depression are not Republican talking points - they are real possibilities based on what history can teach us from FDR's administration.

There are

Submitted by gabriel on Sun, 10/05/2008 - 22:53.

a great many truly excellent conservative economists.

Why is it that only the know-nothing cranks get cited in conservative websites?

Devastating??

Submitted by Jim Dandy to the Rescue on Sun, 10/05/2008 - 21:50.

To whom?  FOX and the GOP's credibility?

 I understand they have to try SOMETHING to untie the stone of catastrophic Economic collapse under Conservative, tax-cutting, ownership society, free-market, trust-Wall-street policies pushed foward by Bush and years of GOP Congresses, but does anyone here realy think America's goiing to allow this rewrite of History to go forward?

We HAVE YOU ALL ON TAPE!!  As Jake (John Belushi) from the Blues Brothers used to say, Who you gonna believe?  ME, or your own two lyin' eyes??

Davis, Rove, Schmidt, Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, Ingraham et. al.  are going to bet this Election on taking it for granted that facts simply do not matter to Conservatives.  They may well be right. 

But they sure as Hell DO matter to Democrats and Independents, as the polls have been showing.

 

Community Reinvestment Act

Submitted by ShrikeDeCil on Sun, 10/05/2008 - 22:52.

No amount of lying will change the fact that prior to Jimmy Carter, the norm was for down payments to be in the 20% range. In that range, no amount of screwing with teaser rates or any of the other shenanigans cause a problem. If you personally go belly up, the bank doesn't go with you.

And yet ACORN was suing people for failing to meet the THIRTY PERCENT quota of zero-down loans. That's thirty percent of your mortgages being guaranteed money -out- (the bank's money goes to the seller immediately), but not so guaranteed money in. Especially when the mortgagee decides "Screw it, my equity in this fiasco is $3000 at this point, I'm just going to default and walk on this."

 

It was a guaranteed time bomb. 

Clearly

Submitted by gabriel on Sun, 10/05/2008 - 22:58.

You don't have much of a clue about this topic. CRA had zilch to do with the current subprime crisis.

Let me educate you. When did the mortgage defaults start?

Another question. How did CRA cause the crisis in Europe?

Yet another question. Did the CRA cause the crisis in Japan in the 1990s?

Clearly

Submitted by stix1972 on Sun, 10/05/2008 - 23:46.

You have non idea what yoyu are talking about.  Ask people that know what they are talking about.   Ask people in the stockmarket and banking business, which both my brothers are.   Ask lawyers that see that people like Obama under ACORN sued banks to make them make these bad loans becuase of "fairness". 

 

And you do know that banks in Europe and the US are connected and lend money to each other???   They have the same bad loans bundeld to them.
 

Remember we are in a Global Economy, waht happens here happens everywhere.

 

CRA had nothing to do with Japan.  They had the same probelm we did in the late 90's of the .com bubble.  They gave money to companies that did not have any kind of assets.  Adn just as Bush got into office, the .com bubble burst.

 

It makes me laugh that you think CRA had nothing to do with this, you are naive.  It is not the only thing, but it is what got the ball rolling and after it started it was not going to stop. 

 

The Housing bubble had to burst sometime as my brother has been saying for years.

Brokers

Submitted by gabriel on Mon, 10/06/2008 - 00:06.

are good for selling stocks. Not so good to understand the economy. Same with bankers.

Here's a pop quiz, what % of CRA related loans were subprime?

While you research that try reading this: http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/10/my-views-on...

There's nothing wrong with not having a clue. It's just embarrasing when you show that to the whole world.

 

 

Barry Ritholtz is in the investment business

Submitted by Goldwater has been sold out on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 23:37.

and one of the shrewdest, most independent voices on financial issues.

From independent financial blogger Barry Ritholtz:

 

Let's clarify the causes of current circumstances. Ask yourself the following questions about the impact of the Community Reinvestment Act and/or the role of Fannie & Freddie:

• Did the 1977 legislation, or any other legislation since, require banks to not verify income or payment history of mortgage applicants?

• 50% of subprime loans were made by mortgage service companies not subject comprehensive federal supervision; another 30% were made by banks or thrifts which are not subject to routine supervision or examinations. How was this caused by either CRA or GSEs ?

• What about "No Money Down" Mortgages (0% down payments) ? Were they required by the CRA? Fannie? Freddie?

• Explain the shift in Loan to value from 80% to 120%: What was it in the Act that changed this traditional lending requirement?

• Did any Federal legislation require real estate agents and mortgage writers to use the same corrupt appraisers again and again? How did they manage to always come in at exactly the purchase price, no matter what?

• Did the CRA require banks to develop automated underwriting (AU) systems that emphasized speed rather than accuracy in order to process the greatest number of mortgage apps as quickly as possible?

• How exactly did legislation force Moody's, S&Ps and Fitch to rate junk paper as Triple AAA?

• What about piggy back loans? Were banks required by Congress to lend the first mortgage and do a HELOC for the down payment -- at the same time?

• Internal bank memos showed employees how to cheat the system to get poor mortgages prospects approved that shouldn't have been: Titled How to Get an "Iffy" loan approved at JPM Chase. (Was circulating that memo also a FNM/FRE/CRA requirement?)

Caseshillerpricedeclines_2

• The four biggest problem areas for housing (by price decreases) are: Phoenix, Arizona; Las Vegas, Nevada;  Miami, Florida, and San Diego, California. Explain exactly how these affluent, non-minority regions were impacted by the Community Reinvesment Act ?

• Did the GSEs require banks to not check credit scores? Assets? Income?

• What was it about the CRA or GSEs that mandated fund managers load up on an investment product that was hard to value, thinly traded, and poorly understood

• What was it in the Act that forced banks to make "interest only" loans? Were "Neg Am loans" also part of the legislative requirements also?

• Consider this February 2003 speech by Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozlilo at the American Bankers National Real Estate Conference. He advocated zero down payment mortgages -- was that a CRA requirement too, or just a grab for more market share, and bad banking?   

The answer to all of the above questions is no, none, and nothing at all.

The CRA is not remotely one of the proximate causes of the current credit crunch, Housing collapse,and mortgage debacle. As I detailed in Barron's, there is plenty of things to be angry at D.C. about -- but this ain't one of them.

What does "Subprime" _MEAN_?

Submitted by ShrikeDeCil on Sun, 10/05/2008 - 23:30.

 It means loans that are inherently riskier than "Prime" loans. It isn't rocket science.

 

 

Typical Libs

Submitted by mikek on Mon, 10/06/2008 - 23:49.

Typical liberals, they write these comments without even watching the video.  Their comments don't address a single substantive issue that was raised there.  They just use typical liberal tricks instead.  Jim Dandy, not a single mention of anything in any of the videos, just a lot of trash talk that has no basis in fact and has nothing to do with the post.  Gabriel: You throw out a bunch of questions as though that's supposed to mean something.  Do you not know how to construct a counter-argument?  How about answering your own foolish questions and tying them back to the assertions made in the videos?  Then when someone actually responds to the foolish questions with actual answers, you do the same thing:  Don't address the answers; throw out more foolish questions; and throw in an insult or two for good measure.

And liberals wonder why they get no respect from conservatives.