What is Digg?158 Comments
- highlymodified, on 10/19/2008, -6/+77Wait, lemme get this straight...
Big companies pay off crooked politicians to shape legislation as they see fit?
...AND America gets royally boned by such actions?!?!
NO WAI - shcforward, on 10/20/2008, -12/+49Hate to say it, but this is kind of inaccurate. The Dems blocked a lot of attempts to regulate / reform Freddie and Fannie because they ideologically supported the idea of giving loans to people who couldn't otherwise afford a house.
- dieboldcracy, on 10/20/2008, -3/+36WHY CAN"T PEOPLE SEE IT"S BOTH PARTIES!!!!!!!!! THERE IS NO LEFT AND RIGHT!!!!
- gracesw, on 10/19/2008, -26/+57So the Repugnants are totally guilty of the very thing they accused Obama of doing, and as a dem, he was innocent. Go figure!
- gotamd, on 10/19/2008, -11/+38You forgot the part where the Democrats were uniformly against regulating Fannie and Freddie. The Republicans at least needed to be bribed...
"All GOP members of the committee supported it; all Democrats opposed it." - prisoner24601, on 10/20/2008, -9/+36Let's re-read the article shall we?
"In the end, there was not enough Republican support for Hagel's bill to warrant bringing it up for a vote because Democrats also opposed it and the votes of some would be needed for passage. The measure died at the end of the 109th Congress."
Translation: Yes, some Republicans were "bought off" to ***join*** the Democrats who were overwhelmingly against this regulatory bill.
"McCain, R-Ariz., was not a target of the DCI campaign. He signed Hagel's letter and three weeks later signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill."
Translation: McCain (despite Obama's many statements that he always opposed all regulation) was actually on record in favor of it.
But hey, no point in actually reading the article before commenting right? I mean it has the word "Republicans" and seems to say something negative, so why waste the time here? - tsotha, on 10/20/2008, -8/+32GOP failure to regulate? That's spinning so fast I'm getting dizzy. Who was it that killed President Bush's proposal to regulate the GSEs and then McCain's two years later? Why, Christopher Dodd, Democrat. That's kind of hard for the Dems to get around, isn't it?
- inactive, on 10/20/2008, -3/+26end the fed.
- gotamd, on 10/19/2008, -13/+34Yep, pretty despicable. Just as despicable is the fact that they didn't even have to bribe the Democrats who already opposed regulating the GSE's.
- rotundo, on 10/20/2008, -3/+24You are correct. Anyone digging you down is playing partisan crap and doesn't give a damn about the truth.
I'm an Obama supproter, I read the article and yes: the GOP was bribed because they were trying to regulate. The Democrats were not bribed because they were already against the regulation. In other words, the GOP was right.
If that makes you uncomfortable, get your head out of your ass and realize that both parties have good smart people in them and need to be judged on _the_merits_of_their_arguments_ and not on which party they belong to. - johndavidjack, on 10/20/2008, -8/+29I'm going to laugh tomorrow when I check this thread, and see all of the diggers blaming Republicans for this. It's already evident, I mean, people above me have quoted the article itself, and still been dugg down...
Oh well, when in doubt, diggers blame Republicans, even though the entire government is quickly turning into a monumental failure.
I'll pose this question for anyone who wants to answer:
Say theoretically if Obama was the President, and the dems had a majority in Congress/Senate. What would they have done differently to prevent this collapse?
It'd be nice if even one party had the credibility to blame the opposing one, but it just doesn't hold up at all. Facepalm to Washington... - shig, on 10/20/2008, -7/+25"Obama has received $120,349 in political donations from employees of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae; McCain $21,550."
Oh yeah, Republicrats are totally guilty. - rotundo, on 10/20/2008, -3/+21Yeah, the headline is *****. It's a good article though, so I'm digging it up anyway. The fact is that in this case the Reps were correct in their attempt to regulate. It's a shameful that enough of them were bribed to prevent the regulation, but everyone here has to face the fact that the Dems were against it all along, even though it was a good idea.
That's coming from an Obama supporter. - Simus1, on 10/20/2008, -1/+18See VIDEO PROOF of House Democrats SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES about their opposition to regulation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs - gotamd, on 10/19/2008, -4/+18So...dugg down because I pointed out the fact that both parties are corrupt? See the article itself: "All GOP members of the committee supported it; all Democrats opposed it."
- Simus1, on 10/20/2008, -3/+16See below JOHN MCCAIN'S 2006 signed letter for more regulation. Obama refused to sign this letter.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&i ... - inactive, on 10/20/2008, -2/+12See, when you spend the last 8 years shrieking about the "socialist" "tax and spend" Democrats, and systematically dismantle regulaton across many industries, people tend to blame you when it is a lack of regulations that caused the crisis.
- thereisnostate, on 10/20/2008, -4/+14The root of this whole financial crisis is the government's artificially manipulating of interest rates. Society needs to mature out of the need for a tyrannical government structure continuously ***** with them.
- Simus1, on 10/20/2008, -0/+9Friends, shcforward and rotundo are correct on this one.
It is impossible to dispute video of House Democrats who blocked regulation several years ago SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs - MBellan, on 10/20/2008, -0/+9I'm Dizzy
- IMVirulent, on 10/20/2008, -1/+9Read the story itself. It is all true but this headline is misleading and ridiculous. Yes, 9 of 17 targeted Republican senators seemed to cave from Fannie lobbying, but ALL of the democrats opposed the bill calling for greater regulation. Only Republicans supported it but without the 9 turncoats and without ANY democratic support the bill died on the vine. How is this the republican's fault? (And Barack Obama received $120,000+ from Fannie & Freddie executives.) WAKE UP PEOPLE...our 2 major political parties are the Gottis and the Gambinos. There is no "reform" anywhere in sight. We need to break the political duopoly: the ballot blocking, the debate lock, the cozy relationship between our two party Congress and corporate payola. The only REAL change will come from somewhere outside of these two corrupt / corruptible parties that have seized our government and regularly engage in behaviour that might be called treason 200 years ago.
- shig, on 10/20/2008, -0/+8Partisan Blindness Syndrome.
- rotundo, on 10/20/2008, -1/+9Read the article. You don't understand what happened. The only reason the GOP was bribed was because they were the ones trying to do the right thing in this case.
- Simus1, on 10/20/2008, -1/+8No, Drogoganor. It is not rubbish. Please review video proof here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs - robbielaney, on 10/20/2008, -0/+7Tell me exactly what the "Banking Oversight Commitee" headed up by Chris Dodd (D-CT) was supposed to do. I mean shouldn't they be taken off in shackles at this point?
- axpdocbrown, on 10/20/2008, -0/+7Burried as inaccurate. It's already been widely established that the GOP wasn't the only party (and i don't mean 'party' like political party) involved. There were about 10.
More to the point, BUSH tried to actually pass this regulation 3 years ago, tyring to move freddie and fanny under the authorization of the government, and he was blocked by a whole army of liberals...
Honestly the finger pointing game is getting tired... - Lioncourt, on 10/20/2008, -1/+8FTA:
"Obama has received $120,349 in political donations from employees of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae; McCain $21,550."
"All GOP members of the committee supported it; all Democrats opposed it."
Did I miss something? Buried for misleading headline. Both parties are to blame. - Mujokan, on 10/20/2008, -1/+8This is a really complicated issue.
McCain signed on to this bill the year after it was submitted, and had been sitting with the GOP dominated committee with no movement, after a report on accounting problems at the GSEs. Here is his statement when he became a co-sponsor.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=109- ...
However, it wasn't a great bill. Here's a comprehensive account of the problems with it.
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.22705/pub_de ...
(One quote from the link: "While H.R. 1461 does make some improvements in the regulator’s enforcement authority, the authority of the regulator remains inferior to that of the federal bank regulators. Given the demonstrated failure of internal controls at Fannie and Freddie, the huge potential risks they create for the taxpayers and the economy generally, and their enormous and carefully cultivated political power, the supervisory structure for the GSEs should be stronger--not weaker--than that in place for banks.")
The Republicans controlled Congress at this time. Numbers in the Senate were 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats. The House was 232 to 201 at the start of the Congress. It's true that Democrats potentially could have filibustered this bill, but we'll never know as the Republicans couldn't get enough support from their own members to make it worth putting up for a vote.
My opinion is that while this bill might have helped, it had serious problems; that Republicans were more responsible than Democrats for its failure to make it out of committee; and that in any case, the GSEs were only a relatively small part of this crisis. That's not to say it wasn't worth trying to do something about their accounting problems, though.
I also have to note that, in case someone brings it up, loans to minorities under the CRA had very little to do with any of this. - inactive, on 10/20/2008, -3/+10"Democrats in a short-sighted attempt to make housing "more affordable" artificially pushed banks and loan organizations into giving loans to people who the banks ordinarily would not have loaned to."
OK here's the hard part: Prove it.
See, the banks are actually pretty good at managing risk. The trouble comes when you get laws like the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act which removed those risk barriers.
Quote from wikipedia on the act:
"Economists Robert Ekelund and Mark Thornton have criticized the Act as contributing to the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis, arguing that while "in a world regulated by a gold standard, 100% reserve banking, and no FDIC deposit insurance" the Financial Services Modernization Act would have made "perfect sense" as a legitimate act of deregulation, under the present fiat monetary system it "amounts to corporate welfare for financial institutions and a moral hazard that will make taxpayers pay dearly"."
This whole "affordable housing" talking point is a DEFLECTION and you've been duped. - GregOP, on 10/20/2008, -1/+8It was Clinton who was pushing Fannie & Freddie to loosen mortgage and loan requirements in the boom of the late 90's that put these financial institutions in such a mess today. Of course there was mis-management from within, but you also had the Clinton administration pushing these corporations and passing new legislation to try to get the minority home ownership numbers up. What did this do? Gave a bunch of people loans who should not have had one to begin with. Two sides to every coin.
LA Times Article from 1999 explaining the push the Clinton's had in the subprime mortgage market and how they touted it one of his "successes":
http://articles.latimes.com/1999/may/31/news/mn-42 ... - johndavidjack, on 10/20/2008, -0/+6If 'regulation' were to mean cutting funding/backing for bad business practices and shaky loans, I'm sure this wouldn't have happened to the degree it has.
Of course our government's purposed form of regulation was nothing of that nature. - sloppychris, on 10/20/2008, -2/+8So why would anyone want to give more power to politicians?
- plumcider, on 10/20/2008, -14/+20gracesw: Yup, and McCain is still lying about it:
http://digg.com/politics/Freddie_Mac_a_Democrat_St ...
gotamd: Are you implying that the fact that the republicans waited to sell us all like the cheap whores that they think we are somehow makes them morally better? - Mullinator, on 10/20/2008, -2/+8Democrafts were guilty of being short sighted. Republicans were guilty of corruption.
Take your pick... - RobTyree, on 10/20/2008, -7/+13Learn some economics. It's regulation and not letting the free market work that got us into this mess. More regulation certainly isn't the solution. Would you give an overdosing cocaine addict another bump to try and cure him?
Fannie and Freddie = regulation
Sarbanes-Oxley Act = regulation
Federal Reserve = regulation
Think about this for a second - 20 or 30 years ago, you had to have good credit and a sizable down payment to buy a house. For decades, banks had been successfully writing mortgages for customers using these same criteria - the banks got paid, and qualified people who worked hard, saved a down payment, and were responsible with credit bought houses. Then we create this wonderful piece of "regulation" called Fannie Mae which basically implies that the Federal government will back mortgages given to people who would not have qualified previously under the criteria that banks had been using successfully for decades to determine credit-worthiness. This in turn allows the banks to make loans that they would have previously considered "unsafe" investments. Now that all of those unsound investments are going south, we have a bad situation on our hands. It's important to understand that the free market had made mortgage loans work for decades - it was regulation of mortgages, in the form of Fannie/Freddie (along with some other unsound economic policies), that caused the problem. The free market was working fine until the government screwed it up with regulation.
When government gets out of the way and lets the free market fix this, only then will we have sound economic footing to start rebuilding our economy. - Mujokan, on 10/20/2008, -1/+7Also let me just add that the main message to take from this article is to do something about the damn lobbyists.
- truck87bp, on 10/20/2008, -0/+6Title should read: Wall Street bankrupt by Politicians failure to regulate Freddie.
- iceorchard, on 10/20/2008, -0/+6Hello JDJ you're right in your assumption that the Dems would have done even less to rein in excesses at these two Federally owned businesses.
I mean give our law-makers a break they were trained to twist the truth they're lawyers.
I think it's above our Lawmaker's heads to learn finance 101, and help American citizens and protect our beautiful county which has been transformed into a marketplace. - pantherfan, on 10/20/2008, -0/+6Open your eyes:
"All GOP members of the committee supported it; all Democrats opposed it."
"In the end, there was not enough Republican support for Hagel's bill to warrant bringing it up for a vote because Democrats also opposed it and the votes of some would be needed for passage."
Source: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/384063_fred ...
The lobbying focused on Republicans because the Democrats were already in their pocket. They had ALL the Democrats, and only needed a few republicans to kill it. Yes, the republicans who switched should be ashamed of their decision, but the failure was caused because no Democrats supported the bill. - dandybandit, on 10/20/2008, -0/+5Headline in no way accurately reflects content of the story. Based on number of diggs, I doubt many people actually read the whole thing...
- rotundo, on 10/20/2008, -1/+6Do you believe in health insurance?
Insurance works by grouping people together and playing averages. If you think it's unfair that some people take more out then they put in, then there's no point to insurance at all, because that's what it is.
However, if you think that there is a point to health insurance, then the best way to play the averages is to insure everyone with one system. Any argument for segregating the population in favor of people who are more or less likely to become ill, taken to its logical conclusion, brings us back to everyone paying their own way.
I believe in the free market for most things. For health insurance, a collectivist system works better. Different things require different solutions. Any other approach is lazy brained. - Llamazorz, on 10/20/2008, -1/+6well stagmire, we don't need to look at any one regulation to see the cause of our problems, what we need to look at is the entire economy and see how different regulations effect different areas.
Drogoganor said, we have tried decades of failed Friedman theories, and in fact we actually never have. and if so id like to know when? Capitalism is like distilled water when it has no regulation and allows the people to control the economy and make its decisions. Once you add even just a very small bit of government regulation or interference, it is like a drop of oil or food coloring that contaminates the entire pool of pure water. The regulation end up effecting all aspects of the economy(pool).
Now stag you asked for a single regulation. I can attest that the Federal reserve act of 1917 is in direct correlation to the ability of Lehman and Bear Sterns to buy up commercial paper. In our economy with a highly inflated fiat currency, there is simply to much credit going around. The more the fed inflates our currency, the more credit becomes available, its basic. That credit is artificial, like the currency(fiat) its based on. If we didn't have an artificial fiat currency, we couldn't have the massive amounts of credit we have now. If we had a solid commodity based currency, we would have no inflation and banks couldn't do all of these so called bad deeds. They couldn't take unnecessary risk because their credit would always be constrained by the currency. Those companies you mentioned Lehman and Bear took excessive risk, one they would have never even contemplated if the money was real.
We cant say pure capitalism doesn't work if we have never tried it. We also cant have people blaming free markets when the markets are not even free. So our solution is freedom and liberal economics. I'm going with the Chicago and Austrian school of economics, they seem to be the only folks who completely saw all of this happening and have discreet plans on how to get out of this mess. - mvader, on 10/20/2008, -0/+5Wait a minute...
What do you disagree with in his statement? It is all fact. (Well, I disagree that it was the Repubs' fault when ALL THE DEMS WERE AGAINST IT ALREADY).
If you cannot afford a house (meaning you have a decent down payment, good credit, and a stable job), then you cannot afford it and should continue to rent. Life is tough. Deal with it. Don't expect the government to bail you out. (They will of course, because they want your votes, but they shouldn't) - inactive, on 10/20/2008, -13/+18The biggest bank bailout in all of history and you dorks are still pushing this free-market religion *****.
- SpykerSpeed, on 10/20/2008, -1/+6So... because the Republicans took more money they were more guilty? How about admitting that both parties suck ass, MxM111.
- Richandler, on 10/20/2008, -0/+4When a company is backed by a government it is going to abuse it's policies and payoff people to look the other way. It has happened since government has existed.
- inactive, on 10/20/2008, -0/+4 So I'm inferring from this article that the democrats were either fools from the beginning or bought off much earlier on, where as many republicans took much more persuasion.
- Bezukhof, on 10/20/2008, -3/+7Yep, Fannie and Freddie are basically the unfortunate outcome of soft-hearted liberalism. I'm really not convinced that this is even remotely the root cause of our problems today though. In the beginning of this decade, we did (via our representatives in the executive branch) three things: in the face of an oncoming recession due to the dot-com bust, we cut taxes, went to war, and then started printing+borrowing money like crazy to "pay" for those tax cuts, war spending, and to delude ourselves into thinking that the market was fine when it wasn't. We had a historically low 2% freakin interest rate in this era.
If you make money that cheap, everyone and their loser uncle will, and did, take out loans for everything. Then you staff the SEC with people who hate the SEC and the idea of regulations in general, so that all the banks can conveniently hide all their risk off the books with CDOs and CDSs. Basically the fed was the gasoline that was dumped on the fire, the SEC was the flue left wide open for unlimited oxygen supply, and Fannie and Freddie along with all the other investment banks were just jerks sitting around the fire(of our future) getting warm occasionally poking it with a stick. - bjornski, on 10/20/2008, -1/+5It's the Global Capitalist party.
Now don't worry your little head about it, and go buy some Chinese made merchandise. It's your patriotic duty to spend.
Both parties are owned and operated by corporate America.
Well, if we could call them Americans. We've got an Australian and people who relocate half of their wealth off-shore to avoid taxes. I'd hardly call them Americans either.
Now go do your job as a sonsume....... I mean voter, and support your candidate. - bernandoo, on 10/20/2008, -0/+4FTA: "Freddie Mac's payments to DCI began shortly after the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee sent Hagel's bill to the then GOP-run Senate on July 28, 2005. All GOP members of the committee supported it; all Democrats opposed it."
It was a Republican sponsored bill with Republican support. The lobbyists didn't need to go after the Dems because they were already against the bill. It was and always will be the dems fault for failing to regulate FNMA and Freddie. Nice try, though. -
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