Originally Posted by ∅baMa∅ Tse Dung

he left-wing architects of the subprime mortgage collapse have yet to
be called to account.

Much has already been written about the possibly criminal conduct of
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.),

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/i...asp?indid=2384

who relentlessly gamed the political system to clear the way for their
cronies at government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make
billions at the expense of taxpayers, but very little has been written
about the role that their liberal friends and allies in the private
and nonprofit sectors played in bringing the U.S. economy to its
knees.

Funded by huckster John Paulson and predatory lending kingpins Herb &
Marion Sandler (who also gave generously to ACORN through the years),
the inappropriately named Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) laid
the foundation for the current financial crisis. (The photo above
shows actors portraying the Sandlers in a “Saturday Night Live” skit
soon after the market crashed in fall 2008.)
The media seems barely to have noticed that CRL’s puppet, Eric Stein,
is now leading the Obama administration’s push to Sovietize the
American banking system. Stein, who is now the U.S. Treasury’s deputy
secretary for consumer protection, was previously a vice president at
CRL.

The left-wing architects of the subprime mortgage collapse have yet to
be called to account.

Much has already been written about the possibly criminal conduct of
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.),

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/A...Freddi e.html

who relentlessly gamed the political system to clear the way for their
friends at government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make
billions at the expense of taxpayers, but very little has been written
about the role that their liberal friends and allies in the private
and nonprofit sectors played in bringing the U.S. economy to its
knees.

Funded by huckster John Paulson and predatory lending kingpins Herb &
Marion Sandler (who also gave generously to ACORN through the years),

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/g...asp?grpid=6968

the inappropriately named Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) laid
the foundation for the current financial crisis.

The media seems barely to have noticed that CRL’s puppet, Eric Stein,
is now leading the Obama administration’s push to Sovietize the
American banking system. Stein, who is now the U.S. Treasury’s deputy
secretary for consumer protection, was previously a vice president at
CRL.

http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/04/...-face-justice/


Peter Schweizer's book Architects of Ruin is the most concise and
lively book written for the layman on this mess.

http://frontpagemag.com/2009/11/10/a...avid-forsmark/


The Real Culprits In This Meltdown

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, September 15, 2008 4:20
PM PT

Big Government: Barack Obama and Democrats blame the historic
financial turmoil on the market. But if it's dysfunctional, Democrats
during the Clinton years are a prime reason for it.

Obama in a statement yesterday blamed the shocking new round of
subprime-related bankruptcies on the free-market system, and
specifically the "trickle-down" economics of the Bush administration,
which he tried to gig opponent John McCain for wanting to extend.

But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism,
that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped
create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like
a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered
institutions.

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they
had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that
sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was
either that or face stiff government penalties.

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President
Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-
intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership.
And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime
loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but
"predatory."

Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the
secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities
traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the '90s by Clinton
and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this
slow-motion financial train wreck.

And it was the Clinton administration that mismanaged the quasi-
governmental agencies that over the decades have come to manage the
real estate market in America.

As soon as Clinton crony Franklin Delano Raines took the helm in 1999
at Fannie Mae, for example, he used it as his personal piggy bank,
looting it for a total of almost $100 million in compensation by the
time he left in early 2005 under an ethical cloud.

Other Clinton cronies, including Janet Reno aide Jamie Gorelick,
padded their pockets to the tune of another $75 million.

Raines was accused of overstating earnings and shifting losses so he
and other senior executives could earn big bonuses.

In the end, Fannie had to pay a record $400 million civil fine for SEC
and other violations, while also agreeing as part of a settlement to
make changes in its accounting procedures and ways of managing risk.

But it was too little, too late. Raines had reportedly steered Fannie
Mae business to subprime giant Countrywide Financial, which was saved
from bankruptcy by Bank of America.

At the same time, the Clinton administration was pushing Fannie and
her brother Freddie Mac to buy more mortgages from low-income
households.

The Clinton-era corruption, combined with unprecedented catering to
affordable-housing lobbyists, resulted in today's nationalization of
both Fannie and Freddie, a move that is expected to cost taxpayers
tens of billions of dollars.

And the worst is far from over. By the time it is, we'll all be paying
for Clinton's social experiment, one that Obama hopes to trump with a
whole new round of meddling in the housing and jobs markets. In fact,
the social experiment Obama has planned could dwarf both the Great
Society and New Deal in size and scope.

There's a political root cause to this mess that we ignore at our
peril. If we blame the wrong culprits, we'll learn the wrong lessons.
And taxpayers will be on the hook for even larger bailouts down the
road.

But the government-can-do-no-wrong crowd just doesn't get it. They
won't acknowledge the law of unintended consequences from well-
meaning, if misguided, acts.

Obama and Democrats on the Hill think even more regulation and more
interference in the market will solve the problem their policies
helped cause. For now, unarmed by the historic record, conventional
wisdom is buying into their blame-business-first rhetoric and bigger-
government solutions.

While government arguably has a role in helping low-income folks buy a
home, Clinton went overboard by strong-arming lenders with tougher and
tougher regulations, which only led to lenders taking on hundreds of
billions in subprime bilge.

Market failure? Hardly. Once again, this crisis has government's
fingerprints all over it.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArti...06370789279709