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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Vosilla who wrote (121260)	9/20/2012 11:51:59 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

Jim has implied for years the GOP of the Bush years were just minor participants to the dealings of Greenspan and Clinton.. Yet so much coincidentally happened in those crucial couple of years post 9/11 when the GOP had no opposition. Suddenly RE values started appreciating to the sky as early as 2002 and were readily apparent by the end of 2003 something had changed dramatically. Yeah all you needed was a photo ID and a pen to sign on the dotted line to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars no questions asked. First I have nothing to gain by defending Greenspan. He is who he is. I am neutral on him. Secondly, I was in RE sales in the 90s in not so honest LA. Not full time but enough to know what was going on. There was the the rare mortgage broker who had a tie in with a small bank who could get 'difficult' loans thru by 'special' means..........and even then, it was like pulling teeth. And those deals were the exception not the rule like they became under Bush. What happened under Bush was like an industry wide New Year's party every day of the year.........every rule in the book was thrown out the window. It was under Bush that 'special' mortgage instruments were created that hooked in sucker after sucker and proceeded to screw them. It was under Bush that wall street came up with its 'special' financial derivatives. Bankers did whatever they could to make the loan. So what caused the change? One of the major changes between the 1990s and 2000's was the election of the Bush administration; that and the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the lack of regulation under Bush pretty much did the trick. From a WA Post by one of MM's favorites: The repeal of Glass-Steagall may not have caused the crisis — but its repeal was a factor that made it much worse. And it was a continuum of the radical deregulation movement. This philosophy incorrectly held that banks could regulate themselves, that government had no place in overseeing finance and that the free market works best when left alone. This belief system manifested itself in damaging ways, including eliminating regulation and oversight on derivatives, allowing exemptions for excess leverage rules for a handful of players and creating dangerous legislation. washingtonpost.com Could Greenspan have slowed things down by raising rates? Sure. But that would have been a rather crazy move given the fact that the economy wasn't doing all that well under Bush. Housing was booming but the rest of the economy was pretty anemic. Truthfully, Greenspan was between a rock and a hard place. Frankly, I don't think Jim wants to get honest about this issue because he was a fan favorite of Bush during those years.

To: John Vosilla who wrote (121260)	9/20/2012 4:37:32 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

I think it wasn't by chance that the zero-down, no-doc, stated income loan originated in the Bush years of regulators being assigned to grease the wheels for banksters and other criminals and feed the mortgage backed securities schemes of the higher level bankster criminals. I think both Bush and Greenspan actually BELIEVED that unchained capitalism would correct itself before anything too serious happened, and they were both wrong. They had never learned the Midas lesson that greed just engenders MORE greed. The really sad thing is, too many out there STILL believe it. A lesson not taken.

To: John Vosilla who wrote (121260)	9/20/2012 8:54:34 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

RE:"Jim has implied for years the GOP of the Bush years were just minor participants to the dealings of Greenspan and Clinton" Sorry if you read it that way but not exactly the truth. Certainly both sides and Bush did little to stop the bubble. No one wanted to flush the punch bowl. Everyone up in DC was doing buttslaps. House prices were going up. Party time! OTOH, I still think AG had the power to stop it by raising rates. Apparently he was senile by then or something. I certainly was against going into Iraq and even stated the I word for Bush. -----------------------