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Title: Frank's fingerprints are all over the financial fiasco
Source:
The Boston Globe
URL Source: [None]
Published: Oct 3, 2008
Author: Jeff Jacoby
Post Date: 2008-10-03 19:38:35 by James Deffenbach
Keywords: None
Views: 517
Comments: 33
'THE PRIVATE SECTOR got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it." That's Barney Frank's story, and he's sticking to it. As the Massachusetts Democrat has explained it in recent days, the current financial crisis is the spawn of the free market run amok, with the political class guilty only of failing to rein the capitalists in. The Wall Street meltdown was caused by "bad decisions that were made by people in the private sector," Frank said; the country is in dire straits today "thanks to a conservative philosophy that says the market knows best." And that philosophy goes "back to Ronald Reagan, when at his inauguration he said, 'Government is not the answer to our problems; government is the problem.' " In fact, that isn't what Reagan said. His actual words were: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Were he president today, he would be saying much the same thing. Because while the mortgage crisis convulsing Wall Street has its share of private-sector culprits -- many of whom have been learning lately just how pitiless the private sector’s discipline can be -- they weren't the ones who "got us into this mess." Barney Frank's talking points notwithstanding, mortgage lenders didn't wake up one fine day deciding to junk long-held standards of creditworthiness in order to make ill-advised loans to unqualified borrowers. It would be closer to the truth to say they woke up to find the government twisting their arms and demanding that they do so - or else. The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and "redlining" because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites. The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to "meet the credit needs" of "low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods." Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans. The two government-chartered mortgage finance firms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, encouraged this "subprime" lending by authorizing ever more "flexible" criteria by which high-risk borrowers could be qualified for home loans, and then buying up the questionable mortgages that ensued. All this was justified as a means of increasing homeownership among minorities and the poor. Affirmative-action policies trumped sound business practices. A manual issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston advised mortgage lenders to disregard financial common sense. "Lack of credit history should not be seen as a negative factor," the Fed's guidelines instructed. Lenders were directed to accept welfare payments and unemployment benefits as "valid income sources" to qualify for a mortgage. Failure to comply could mean a lawsuit. As long as housing prices kept rising, the illusion that all this was good public policy could be sustained. But it didn't take a financial whiz to recognize that a day of reckoning would come. "What does it mean when Boston banks start making many more loans to minorities?" I asked in this space in 1995. "Most likely, that they are knowingly approving risky loans in order to get the feds and the activists off their backs . . . When the coming wave of foreclosures rolls through the inner city, which of today's self-congratulating bankers, politicians, and regulators plans to take the credit?" Frank doesn't. But his fingerprints are all over this fiasco. Time and time again, Frank insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in good shape. Five years ago, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing. Now that the bubble has burst and the "systemic risk" is apparent to all, Frank blithely declares: "The private sector got us into this mess." Well, give the congressman points for gall. Wall Street and private lenders have plenty to answer for, but it was Washington and the political class that derailed this train. If Frank is looking for a culprit to blame, he can find one suspect in the nearest mirror. Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com.
Poster Comment: Link was too long and would probably cause width problems so I broke it into two parts. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/28/ franks_fingerprints_are_all_over_the_financial_fiasco/
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#1. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
I've been having that problem as well.
I'm already making a stuffed Barney Frank plush toy to be thrown off of towers in spain. Wanna go in with me for a fiver?
And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot
bingo. curious (not) how the dem partisans are blaming all of this on the bush administration. wake up. both branches of the establishment party are to blame. this subprime mess began with a dem administration though.
Do You Know What Freedom Really Means? Freedom4um.com
Not really necessary ... I got the drift right off ... "Barney Frank" was really all I needed to see. When the Nation is satisfied to obey the mandates and laws written by fag Jews like Barney Frank and other perverts ... they deserve what they get and are lower than he is.
A once free nation established through Revolution is now forbidden from questioning the authorities without fear of being defamed, renditioned or murdered.
The Boston Globe? What were you thinking posting from them, kook?
And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot
No Barney, you, Clinton, Rubin, Phil Grahnm and the REP. controlled congress started the ball down hill in 1999.
Mark If America is destroyed, it may be by Americans who salute the flag, sing the national anthem, march in patriotic parades, cheer Fourth of July speakers - normally good Americans who fail to comprehend what is required to keep our country strong and free - Americans who have been lulled into a false security (April 1968).---Ezra Taft Benson, US Secretary of Agriculture 1953-1961 under Eisenhower
There were quite a few links in the original article if you are interested.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Why can't we throw them off bridges in this country? Wouldn't have to travel to Spain and could watch him splash. Or we could throw him off buildings and see him smack the pavement.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Thanks. I am pleased to find recently, more articles such as this are providing their source link. I know I'm not going to sit for an hour to format all the hyperlinks. LOL.
You can count on politicians to take any problem and make it much worse than it would have been without their "help." I dread to see the results of this idiocy they passed today.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. The nation would be much better off without being saddled with things like Barney Frank.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. What were you thinking posting from them, kook? A thousand pardons, mem sahib. I will try to do better in the future if you just won't give me 40 lashes with a wet noodle today.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. When Bonny Franks appears on my puter screen I feel the puter needs a sanitizing bath.
Thanks. O'Really and Frank acted like they were going to go at it just any minute, didn't they? They probably had a beer together after the show.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. And the politicians really started the royal screwing in 1913 when they gave the country to the bankers. Today's vote was just another in a long series of betrayals and treasonous acts.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. It has to be something really exceptional before I will. Sometimes you can do a view source and copy and paste that but it can cause problems with the width and things like that.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Makes me want to shoot out the screen until I think that it will cost me, not him, to replace it.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. I'll have to give that a try. Thanks !
You are very welcome.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
It's the second mouse that gets the cheese
Only in Affirmative Action USA could this negroe have ever accomplished this theft.
The CON-stitution is just a God Damned Joke, and most Americans are God Damned fools.
Just imagine, a brutha havin' a crook work in de campaign. Obummer might want to hire someone to keep an eye on that guy though, he might not be above skimming some off the top of what he takes in "for expenses."
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. frank does have one of the most digusting mouths i think i've ever seen.
Do You Know What Freedom Really Means? Freedom4um.com
Which one, Wilson or FDR? Blame is essential to masking the credit problem. Credit is a powerful tool which can be used to build bridges and railroads to keep the economy humming, or can be used to froth up an economy into an unsustainable monster. The politicians who diverted a tiny trickle to their favored deadbeats are only responding to the same incorrect market signals as the rest of us.
Money problems do not come from a lack of money, but from living an excessive, unrealistic lifestyle
C-L-I-N-T-O-N It all started under Clinton
It's the second mouse that gets the cheese
Wilson--was he a D? Woodrow Wilson signed the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. A few years later he wrote: I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men. -Woodrow Wilson Did Wilson really say this: The unhappiness of Woodrow Wilson Did the president lament the day he "unwittingly ruined" his country by creating the Federal Reserve? Andrew Leonard Dec. 21, 2007 | Did Woodrow Wilson bitterly regret his role in creating the Federal Reserve? Some readers of my post yesterday on Ron Paul and the Federal Reserve believe so. Two of them proffered an identical quote as evidence. I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world -- no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men. On the hundreds of Web sites on which this quote appears, it is typically taken as proof of Wilson's remorse at handing over control of the nation's money supply to a cabal of Wall Street money men. A common framing: "Woodrow Wilson signed into effect the Federal Reserve Act on December 23, 1913. And said the following just six years later." Even the Wikipedia page for Woodrow Wilson includes the quote, as proof that "Historians generally agree that Wilson hated the Federal reserve, and it made him, by his own word, "a most unhappy man..." Frequency of repetition doesn't make for reliable sourcing, however, and convincing documentary evidence that Wilson uttered such words, in reference to his role creating the Federal Reserve, is hard to come by. In fact, the available evidence suggests that the quote is an after-the-fact fabrication made by splicing together passages of different Wilson statements that have nothing at all to do with the Federal Reserve. Two separate portions of the quote appear in The New Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People," published in 1913. "The New Freedom" is a distillation of campaign speeches Wilson made while running for President in 1911. On page 185 there is the following section: A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom. And on page 201: We are at the parting of the ways. We have, not one or two or three, but many, established and formidable monopolies in the United States. We have, not one or two, but many, fields of endeavor into which it is difficult, if not impossible, for the independent man to enter. We have restricted credit, we have restricted opportunity, we have controlled development, and we have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world -- no longer a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men. Now, this is all good rabble-rousing stuff, but its relevance to the creation of the Federal Reserve is nonexistent. The speeches these quotes were adapted from were delivered before the Federal Reserve was created. And as for the melodramatic utterance: "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country," well, so far, the sourcing well is coming up dry. Some may question whether such historical nitpicking is relevant to the current presidential campaign. They may do so as they please. But if you want to engage in conspiracy theory, it's a good idea to get your facts straight. UPDATE: Via e-mail, John M. Cooper, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, and the author of several books on Woodrow Wilson, writes: "I can tell you categorically that this is not a statement of regret for having created the Federal Reserve. Wilson never had any regrets for having done that. It was an accomplishment in which he took great pride." Do You Know What Freedom Really Means? Freedom4um.com
There goes a widely believed, and quoted, urban legend.
Note..."I"... Therefore it never happened. I love historians, the roots of revisionism. Wilson was owned and operated by the Jews at all times. The Federal reserve and all such orchestrated by Col House, the Texas Jew that led Wilson around by the nose. Uttenmeyer another Jew paid off Wilsons blackmailer to the tune of many thousands of dollars. They owned Wilson.
not that it matters ultimately as we know both parties are owned, i'm just curious to know, was Wilson a democrat?
Do You Know What Freedom Really Means? Freedom4um.com
He's got that weak, faggy mouth like Rock Hudson had.
The stupider people are, the more surprised they are when you kill them.
uh, not hardly. did you see Hudson in Giant with Liz Taylor? nothing weak or faggy looking about that man. i was shocked to learn he was gay and i have good gaydar.
Do You Know What Freedom Really Means? Freedom4um.com
Hudson had a weak, faggy mouth. It's especially easy to see in MacMillian and Wife.
The stupider people are, the more surprised they are when you kill them.
Link was too long and would probably cause width problems so I broke it into two parts.
#2. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
#3. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
Wall Street and private lenders have plenty to answer for, but it was Washington and the political class that derailed this train.
#4. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
Link was too long and would probably cause width problems so I broke it into two parts.
#5. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
#6. To: James Deffenbach, all (#0)
#7. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
...Frank blithely declares: "The private sector got us into this mess."
#8. To: nikki (#1)
I've been having that problem as well.
Lord Acton
#9. To: Dakmar (#2)
I'm already making a stuffed Barney Frank plush toy to be thrown off of towers in spain. Wanna go in with me for a fiver?
Lord Acton
#10. To: James Deffenbach (#8)
There were quite a few links in the original article if you are interested.
#11. To: christine (#3)
bingo. curious (not) how the dem partisans are blaming all of this on the bush administration. wake up. both branches of the establishment party are to blame. this subprime mess began with a dem administration though.
Lord Acton
#12. To: noone222 (#4)
Not really necessary ... I got the drift right off ... "Barney Frank" was really all I needed to see.
Lord Acton
#13. To: Dakmar (#5)
The Boston Globe?
Lord Acton
#14. To: James Deffenbach (#12)
#15. To: Jethro Tull (#6)
Lord Acton
#16. To: Kamala (#7)
No Barney, you, Clinton, Rubin, Phil Grahnm and the REP. controlled congress started the ball down hill in 1999.
Lord Acton
#17. To: nikki (#10)
Thanks. I am pleased to find recently, more articles such as this are providing their source link. I know I'm not going to sit for an hour to format all the hyperlinks. LOL.
Lord Acton
#18. To: Cynicom (#14)
When Bonny Franks appears on my puter screen I feel the puter needs a sanitizing bath.
Lord Acton
#19. To: James Deffenbach (#17)
Sometimes you can do a view source and copy and paste that but it can cause problems with the width and things like that.
#20. To: nikki (#19)
Lord Acton
#21. To: Jethro Tull, James Deffenbach, all (#6)
#22. To: Flintlock (#21)
Aside from paying himself over $100 million in bonuses, Raines escaped criminal charges for his cooking the books at Fannie
#23. To: Flintlock (#21)
Lord Acton
#24. To: Cynicom (#14)
#25. To: christine (#3)
this subprime mess began with a dem administration
#26. To: purpleman (#25)
Which one
#27. To: purpleman (#25)
#28. To: christine (#27)
"I can tell you categorically that this is not a statement of regret for having created the Federal Reserve. Wilson never had any regrets for having done that. It was an accomplishment in which he took great pride."
#29. To: christine (#27)
"I can tell you categorically that this is not a statement of regret for having created the Federal Reserve. Wilson never had any regrets for having done that. It was an accomplishment in which he took great pride."
#30. To: Cynicom (#29)
#31. To: christine (#24)
frank does have one of the most digusting mouths i think i've ever seen.
#32. To: Turtle (#31)
(Edited)
He's got that weak, faggy mouth like Rock Hudson had.
#33. To: christine (#32)
i was shocked to learn he was gay and i have good gaydar.
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