From who did Obama "inherit" the economic mess?
 

On MSNBC tonight, both Chris Matthews and President Obama stated that Obama "inherited" the economic mess from the Republicans. Of course, since this was MSNBC, that statement goes completely unchallenged.

Can one of the liberals here explain how the Democrats inherited this mess from Republicans? Here are some irrefutable facts...

The United States is a democracy, not a dictatorship. The legislative branch has more influence on the legislative agenda than the executive branch.

Since January 2006, the Democrats have controlled the legislative branch. When they took over the legislature from the GOP in January 2006 , the Dow was at 12,600, and unemployment was at 4.6%.

The president (Obama), vice president (Biden) and Secstate (Clinton) were all prominent, influential senators in the majority party. As such, it seems to me that they have a great deal of ownership of economic performance since their party took control.

The financial de-regulation that allowed things like derivitives, credit default swaps, and collaterized debt obligations, was passed by a republican legislature in the late 1990's, and signed into law by President Clinton.

Before the economy collapsed, the GOP introduced a bill that would have prevented Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from writing so many subprime mortgages. That bill was fillibustered by 2 senators named Chris Dodd and Barack Obama, 2 senators who got more campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie than anyone else.

The GOP, when they controlled the legislature for the 1st 6 years of the Bush presidency, allowed Bush to rack up a ton of debt. My point is, the GOP is not without fault here.

OK, what am I missing? How were the Democrats innocent bystanders to all this?

Look at liberal policies of taxing, spending, borrowing, and saying "yes" to every demand ever made by a labor union. What has that gotten us?

I don't get it, I just don't get where guys like Spence are coming from...

I consider myself a Clinton Democrat which is moderate. Full Disclosure - I did NOT vote for Obama. He was not ready

As someone in the financial sector I really think the deficit is mostly a result of 10 years of fighting 2 wars and rebuilding 2 countries and not because of the Bush tax cuts.

I also believe the financial mess is strictly from poorly regulated greedy sob's who probably bribed their accountants to look the other way. Shame on those CPA firms too.

I understand small business should not be regulated, but Financial Institutions should be. Lehman Bros, Madoff, etc. were allowed to do their thing also because of shoddy work by the SEC. No one approved the SEC to cut corners.

We invest our money with them, there should be a higher level of trust which van only result from regulation by the letter of the law.

Bottom line is Obama wanted to be president, he knew the state of the economy. By pointing a finger now he is waving the white flag.

stcroixman, the subprime mortgages contributed nothing?

Those wars started in 2002 and 2003, I believe. The economy did just fine until October 2008, when the subprime mortgages rocked Lehman Brothers and Bear Sterns, and the rest fell like dominoes.

I agree with you 100% that we need some smart regulation of these banks and financial instututions. I also feel that Sarbanes Oxley goes way too far, we spend a lot of time on meaningless compliance with that law.

P.S. I'm a moderare Republican who voted for Clinton and I think he was a pretty good president...

You can also trace a significant amount of economic decline to both NAFTA and China Free Trade which took away a significant amount of jobs in the manufacturing sector. Those jobs paid well compared to service industry jobs and also kept a significant amount of professionals employed in manufacturing companies.

The second hit from both of these policies is downward pricing pressure put on manufacturers "but I can get it for XXX cheaper from China" which in turn forces wages even lower. I'm happy to be working, but back to what I earned in 2006 with a significant increase in healthcare cost, more responsibility and longer hours.

I don't know why Obama can't just tax his "inheritance" at a confiscatory rate and then redistribute it.....:confused:

LMAO...

What were you doing watching MSNBC?

Depends...Quite often the Executive branch is quite assertive to ensure the Congressional agenda is in alignment with the President's objectives.

Hmmm, if things were so good why did the Democrats take over the legislature?

You're talking about 3% of the Senate...and not any of them sat on committees with direct impact to the economy.

I recall reading some time ago "The legislative branch has more influence on the legislative agenda than the executive branch." If you subscribe to this they it sounds like the GOP should be the target of your wagging finger.

I'm not aware of any Dem filibuster just before the economy tanked. Most of this story is from 2003-2005 and when looked at in detail reveals mistakes by both sides of the leadership. This has been discussed in detail in older threads.

That's because despite what they pretend to aspire to, the GOP has a really chronic debt problem. Google up the rate of debt change as a percentage of GDP for the past 60 years and look at the parties in charge.

Nobody has said they were innocent bystanders...but the economy was under Bush's watch for 8 years and he left Obama with a massive recession. I'm not sure this is really in dispute.

Generally speaking, in the media Presidents get to take credit for success and blame for failures regardless of the trends or systemic actions that actually drive them. Examples of this may be the tech boom, 9/11, lack of terrorism after 9/11, the 2009 recession etc...

I work in Sales and I'll tell you the best factor that determines the success or failure of a salesperson is the TIMING of when they take their job given the product and market needs.

I think you confuse the word "liberal" with "irresponsible". Borrowing beyond your means isn't a Liberal tendency, it's an irresponsible tendency that both parties too often suffer from.

I come from the pragmatic center where we try to balance ideology with observation.

-spence

"The proper bafflers are the ambiguists. Their flashes of insights are frequent enough; but in the end the fog closes down. They are great ones for the facts, against the fundamentalists, and great ones of "conscience," against the cynics. They insist on the values of pragmatism against the absolutists; but they resent the suggestion that they push pragmatism to the point of relativism of moral values."
"For the pragmatists there are, properly speaking, no truths; there are only results."
-- John Courtney Murray, S.J. (September 12, 1904-August 16, 1967)

Neat quote but it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

My firm does Sarbanes Oxley work. The word is it is on the chopping block. It is needless BS to the businesses. The best thing that could happen is a flat corporate tax (10% ) like in Ireland, but only for the portion of goods/services made or performed in USA. That will bring back jobs.

I am tired of every politician saying he/she will create 5 million good paying jobs. Exactly how? By giving out tax credits? Cut the tax and cut out the stupid credits.

There are millions out there who would accept 30K($15/hour)- 40K($20/hour) to work in a blue collar job I mean that respectfully too as my day did it for 40+ years, but not everyone is a President or CFO. With the economy hurting, any job is a good job.

I think the blame for the economic mess we are in goes to both parties. As far back as the Clinton administration Rubin and Summer were pushing for less regulation over the financial markets. Under then HUD Secretary Cuomo the regulations regarding qualifying mortgages for Fannie and Freddie and the FHA were greatly relaxed to included sub-prime and other things which we now regret. The Republicans were no better. Phil Gramm pushed through regulations exempting the electronic trading of off exchange energy derivatives form the review of the CFTC. Even after Enron these transactions were not subject to reporting or review. Under Bush, the light or no touch continued at the SEC and other regulatory agencies. The investment banks were able to lobby the SEC to have credit default swaps deemed not to be insurance and removing any review from state insurance administrators. Unregulated credit default swaps are what brought AIG down.
Bottom line: Wall Street has both parties in their back pocket and we as an electorate need to curb their power. I am all for capitalism and innovation but time and time again we have found that left to their own devices greedy participants will hurt the economy and the average taxpayer gets the bill.

to one who claims....

I come from the pragmatic center where we try to balance ideology with observation.
-spence

it wouldn't.....:)

Not in the context you used it.

-spence

thanks for the chuckle this morning anyway....pragmatic center :rotf2:

Spence -

"if things were so good why did the Democrats take over the legislature?"

Read a history book. It wasn't because of the economy, it was because of the Iraq war.

"You're talking about 3% of the Senate...and not any of them sat on committees with direct impact to the economy."

Spence, please put down the Kool Aid and think straight for 2 seconds. The chairman of the house banking committee was Barney Frank, the chairman of the Senate Banking committee was Chris Dodd, both Democrats. My point was (which you carefully avoided),is that the Democrats inherited a robust, thriving economy in 2006.

"I'm not aware of any Dem filibuster just before the economy tanked. "

None of us know everyihtng. In 2006, the GOp introduced legislation to regulate Fannie and Freddie, Senators Obama and Dodd fillibustered. I doubt it would have saved the economy anyway...

"Nobody has said they were innocent bystanders..."

Please Spence. Please. Obama blames EVERYTHING on the previous administration, and has said REPEATEDLY that the previous administration (NOT THE PREVIOUS CONGRESS) drove the car into the ditch.

Spence, you're going to say with a straight face that Obama and the Dems haven't placed all of the economic blame on the GOP?

"I come from the pragmatic center where we try to balance ideology with observation. "

Thanks, I needed a good laugh. Spence, every post you have ever written can be summed up thusly:

liberal = good
conservative = bad.

The only "middle" you occupy is the middle between Ted Kennedy and Mao Tse Tung.

I think the center tends to be inherently more pragmatic by it's very nature, not in a pure sense mind you (there's still room for idealism) but with a nod to reality when illuminating a path forward.

Glad I could make you laugh.

-spence

I'm sure that's what you see when you(and the "we") place yourselves on a pedestal in the "center" and look around and begin to illuminate forward paths....:)

reminds me of "WE are the ONES we've been waiting for"... creepy...


you didn't make me laugh as hard as my 12 year old who located the "yo mama so ....." joke app for her iPOD......

Spence, if you are in the "middle" as you claim, that must mean that there are some issues on which you think conservatives are right, and liberals are wrong.

I'm in the middle (slightly right leaning). I think conservatives are right on the economy, abortion, and national security. I think liberals are right on gay marriage, gun control, minimum wage, and the need for some regulation on Wall Street..

So Spence, on what issues do you side with conservatives?

I suspect that you think you're in the "middle" because you fall somewhere between Keith Oberman and his newphew Rachael Maddow. But remember, those 2 don't exactly cover the entire spectrum, just the entire spectrum at one network.

actually...he's in the "center"...which is the optimal point from which to look down :)...and illuminate the path forward with balanced ideology(just a tinge) and with observation while nodding at reality...or something...think about it :uhuh:

it was actually a brilliant quote:hihi:

I don't care who broke it!
all i want to know is who's gonna fix it? :smash:
THAT'S all the matters

i'm tired of getting the chit end of the stick

I think it's important to figure out "what" broke it, so that we don't repeat the mistake. And "what" broke it is subprime mortgages (which in many cases banks were pressured to write by liberal social engineering policies) and a de-regulated financial sector that came up with crazy ways to rate those mortgages as "safe" investments, and then sell them and leverage them.

As for who will fix it? Not the liberals that the idiots in CT and MA elected to keep doing more of the same. In CT, the liberals have been running the show forever. Between income tax of the gazillionaires in Fairfield county, as well as the revenue we get from the 2 most profitable casinos in the world, CT has PLENTY of revenue. Revenue shortfall is not our problem...crazy spending is our problem.

When my state income tax is 10% (currently 5%), and my property taxes are $10,000 (currently $7700), that's when I move. And that day is coming.

Damn liberal mindset
"Over 75 percent of white Americans own their home, and less than 50 percent of Hispanos and African Americans don't own their home. And that's a gap, that's a homeownership gap. And we've got to do something about it." —George W. Bush, Cleveland, Ohio, July 1, 2002

CLOWARD - PIVEN STRATEGY

Strategy for forcing political change through orchestrated crisis

First proposed in 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and his wife Frances Fox Piven (today Piven is an honorary chair for the Democratic Socialists of America), the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven's early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. "Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in his 1972 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system's failure to "live up" to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist "rule book" with a socialist one.

The "ownership society" was a big plank in the 2000 Bush platform. I remember reading a Bush speech from then praising all the efforts of the financial institutions to provide loans to low income borrowers.

What seems to be getting lost is the issue wasn't necessarily low income housing (i.e. where liberals -- and President Bush -- might want to defend populist interests) but also people with moderate to high income who took out massive ARMs to buy into housing they simply couldn't afford. I know first hand of some friends who were making at least 250K a year and blew it because of their own recklessness...ultimately loosing their house.

As has been discussed at length in older threads, this was a massive and systemic problem largely driven by sub prime and prime loans being bundled together without adequate regulation.

Plenty of blame to go all around...

-spence

Community Organizing
 

Frances Fox Piven Rings in The New Year By Calling for Violent Revolution
Posted on December 31, 2010

She’s considered by many as the grandmother of using the American welfare state to implement revolution. Make people dependent on the government, overload the government rolls, and once government services become unsustainable, the people will rise up, overthrow the oppressive capitalist system, and finally create income equality. Collapse the system and create a new one. That‘s the simplified version of Frances Fox Piven’s philosophy originally put forth in the pages of The Nation in the 60s.

Now, as the new year ball drops, Piven is at it again, ringing in 2011 with renewed calls for revolution.

In a chilling and almost unbelievable editorial again in The Nation (”Mobilizing the Jobless,” January 2011 edition), she calls on the jobless to rise up in a violent show of solidarity and force. As before, those calls are dripping with language of class struggle. Language she and her late husband Richard Cloward made popular in the 60s.

“So where are the angry crowds, the demonstrations, sit-ins and unruly mobs?” she writes. “After all, the injustice is apparent. Working people are losing their homes and their pensions while robber-baron CEOs report renewed profits and windfall bonuses. Shouldn’t the unemployed be on the march? Why aren’t they demanding enhanced safety net protections and big initiatives to generate jobs?”

“Before people can mobilize for collective action, they have to develop a proud and angry identity and a set of claims that go with that identity,” she writes. “They have to go from being hurt and ashamed to being angry and indignant.”

“The out-of-work have to stop blaming themselves for their hard times and turn their anger on the bosses, the bureaucrats or the politicians who are in fact responsible.”

she says, the “protesters need targets.”

When you say banks, you make it sound like all banks when it was the big banks.

Local banks were not pressured to write sub prime loans. Most local banks would not write a loan without twenty per cent down. Mortgage companies were the biggest culprit writing hundred percent loans or eighty-twenty percent loans, holding two mortgages.


If you want to know the root cause of the current subprime crisis, there are
three things you need to understand:
First, the problem was caused by politicians (primarily Democrats) pushing
their "entitlement" agenda in to the free market. It started with "The
Community Reinvestment Act" (CRA) which required banks to make high risk
loans to minorities and others who could not have qualified for a home loan
or business loan under normal circumstances.

Second, Bill Clinton further liberalized the CRA and signed a bill to repeal
the Glass-Stengal Act. This Act was put in place in the 1930s following the
bank failures during the Great Depression. It was designed to keep banks
out of the speculation business.

Third, George Bush proposed major changes in the CRA, FMAE and FMAC in 2003
that would have tightened requirements for these business loans and subprime
home mortgages. The vote went along party lines, the Democrats won and the
proposed changes were defeated.

Why does Spence want to keep blaming Bush?

That's very intellectually dishonest, either that or you're an idiot. George Bush never suggested that the way to increase minority homeownership was to throw out all known guidelines for deciding who gets mortgages.

Conservatives, like me, want minorities to own their own homes. We believe the way to accomplish that is for them to get off welfare, work hard and get good jobs.


I cannot stand that kind of dishonesty, suggesting that Bush liked the idea of subprime mortgages.

Spence, just because you know some well-fto-do folks that bit off morethan they could chew, means NOTHING. The problem, as everyone who can think rationally knows, was subprime mortgages. I'm not saying that wealthy folsk had no foreclosures. But what brought the system down was mortgages to poor folks who had no business getting those loans.

You keep telling yourself that it was something else. That way you'll make the same exact mistake.

This is why liberalism is a mental disorder. The complete, willful unwillingness to recognize irrefutable fact, unless those facts serve your current agenda. Unbelievable.

You are right, trhere is plenty of blame on both sides. But I have never, ever heard Obama suggest that liberal policies played any role. All he ever says is that the republicans drove the car into the ditch. Or am I wrong Spence?

Because he's aliberal, and liberalism is a mental disorder. I cannot provide better evidence than his last post.

I believe it starts from the top down. That being said, Bush left Obama an economy problem. Instead of fixing the problem, Obama made that problem a whole lot worse.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

It starts from the top down, but we have a republic, not a dictatorship, which means the legislature has more say in deciding the agenda than the president.

When the Democrats took control of congress in January 2006, unemployment was at 4.6%, the Dow was at 12,600, and the GDP had been growing like crazy since Clinton balanced the budget. In other words, what the democrats "inherited" in 2006 was a thriving, robust economy. Since 2006, the Democrats had control of all the committees.

It was Democrats who pushed subprime mortgages. In my opinion, the worst you can say about the GOP was that they proposed the de-regulation of financial markets in 1999 (I think it was 99) that Clinton signed. However, no one knew what was going on with those crazy mortgage-backed securities. If it was so clear that Wall Street was abusing the de-regulation, why didn't the Democrats propose to re-regulate Wall Street when they took control in 2006? Answer? No one had a clue what Wall Street was doing. But everyone knew that banks were being reckless by writing so many subprime mortgages, which was based on liberal doctrine that everyone is entitled to a home, even if they can't afford one.

Spence is 100% right when he says there is blame on both sides. I'd love to know what Spence thinks when he sees Obama, time and time again, putting all the blame on the Republicans, who had been out of power for almost 3 years when the economy collapsed. If Spence is right (and he is), then Obama is either an idiot or a liar, and there simply isn't another option. (In my opinion, Obama is BOTH an idiot and a liar).

Ummm, I think that's why they called it a "bubble" as it had yet to burst.

I love it, so the GOP is responsible for de-regulation "the reason why nobody knew what was happening" but it's the insane liberals that really must be under it all...

Think of a big reason why the economy in the mid 2000's was doing well to begin with. A rise in International investment combined with low rates made credit easy to obtain and plenty of investors wanting to cash in on mortgage backed securities which seemed magical considering the housing market which continued to grow. Everybody was in on this, not just the minorities or poor, in fact they represented a fraction of the market.

This drove the bubble that eventually got as big as it could and housing prices -- across the board -- started to decline rapidly for everyone, which resulted in the sub-prime ARM's to ratchet up their rates. Many of which were a result of predatory lending and people not knowing what they were really getting into.

If properly regulated perhaps this could have been controlled (there still would have been a lot of sub-prime foreclosures) but considering the risky loans had been bundled with good loans (and sold off as AAA) nobody knew where the risk really was...and everybody pulled out.

Crash...

When the Dem's took Congress in 2006 they inherited this time bomb waiting to go off.

Not a lot of liberal ideology here, unless you think the entire house of cards was build to satisfy some government mandate, largely during a period where the GOP held both the Executive and Legislative branches of our government.

Oh wait, didn't President Bush push hard for more sub-prime lending because he felt that home "ownership" was good for America? Wasn't this conservative thinking? That the people owning their own home is more stable and responsible than looking for a government handout?

"Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the federal Home Loan Banks -- the government-sponsored corporations that handle home mortgages -- will increase their commitment to minority markets by more than $440 billion, Bush said."

Source: Bush aims to boost minority home ownership - CNN

And shortly after the rate of sub prime lending goes through the roof.

The primary Dem opposition to reform (in 2003 and 2006) was driven more by the accounting scandals rather than concerns over sub-prime lending. Some of their issue were valid, some not...but I don't believe much of this reform would have had an impact on the derivatives market and mortgage backed securities.

And when Dems took over in 2007 they immediately pushed for more regulation to help ensure the same issues wouldn't arise again. Bush, focused on the present, was pushing taxpayer funded subsidies to help mortgage holders in over their head! What a RINO :hihi:

The net is you're basing opinion off of a portion of the story...only a crazy person (i.e. mental disorder) would do this in good faith.

First thing in 3 weeks you've said that's made any sense.

I don't believe Obama was sworn in until Jan 2009. By your reconing that would make today January 2nd 2012!

It's called politics.

If you want someone to blame for this mess blame your neighbor for pulling equity from his house to buy a boat he can't afford, the short-term'ism of our markets, shady lenders out to make a quick buck, politicians trying to hold their power, Wall Street, a lack of personal responsibility etc... etc... etc...

Like I've said, there's plenty of blame to go around...

-spence

[Spence -

"didn't President Bush push hard for more sub-prime lending "

No, he did not. He pushed banks to make loans to minorities that could be paid back, based on traditional qualifying criteria. Spence, let's put it out there, OK? If you have evidence to suggest that Bush was a fan of reckless mortgages (subprime), either post it, or admit that you made it up. For the 10th time, Bush was so alarmed by the recklessness of subprime mortgages, that he wanted to regulate Fannie and Freddie, with rules that they couldn't buy those crappy pieces of paper. The Democrats blocked that legislation. I'm sorry, Spence, if that fact doesn't support your personal agenda, but it's a fact nonetheless.

"And when Dems took over in 2007 they immediately pushed for more regulation to help ensure the same issues wouldn't arise again. "

Can you support that please? You may well be right, I have no knowledge. But you seem to take great liberties, at times, in creating your own realities which promote your agenda. If you can't back that up, please admit you made it up.

"I don't believe Obama was sworn in until Jan 2009. By your reconing that would make today January 2nd 2012!"

Do you ever, ever get tired of being 100% wrong? When I say the "Republicans" were out of power, I mean because they LOST CONTROL OF CONGRESS IN JANUARY 2006.

You see, Spence, this country is not a totalitarian dictatorship. It's a democracy with seperation of powers and checks and balances. In our system of government, the LEGISLATURE, not the executive branch, writes legislation.

I also see that once again, you cowardly dodged my other question, which was this. If you say there's blame on both sides (although you go on and on and on about the GOP, I haven't seen you post anything you think the libs did wrong), what do you think of Obama repeatedly saying it was all the Republican's fault?

Spence -

I read that CNN link that you posted. If you had read that link before assuming that it supported your inane conclusion that Bush pushed subprime mortgages, you'd see that the bill called for the feds helping minorities come up with down payments. The bill would have subsidized down poayments for folks that could afford the monthly payment, but who didn't yet have a large enough down payment.

You see Spence, the notion that sufficient down payments be part of a mortgage is NOT what the subprime mortgages were about. That's traditional financial underwriting.

Spence, when the GOP proposed the bill to regulate Fannie and Freddie, here is what senator John Mccain said in support of the bill...

"If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.”

Here is the link...

The Squeaky Wheel: S. 190 - “Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005”

Here was Barney Frank's response to the proposed bill:

""These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

Here is a link...

Barney Frank's Fannie and Freddie Muddle - Sam Dealey (usnews.com)

And Barney Frank gets re-elected over a brilliant patriotic hero like Sean Bielat!! Kudos to the voters in Frank's district...

Spence, you also say it's just "politics" that Obama puts all the blame on the GOP, even though you think there is blame on both sides. I agree, it's just politics, and most politicians do stuff like that.

But remember, Obama campaigned on some vague notion called "change". He had no accomplishments he could point to, so he promised that HE would be the one to bring change to Washington, HE would be the one to put "politics as usual" aside, He, and only HE, could do things differently.

So I really, really love it when Obama defenders say things like "all politicians do that". Because that should NOT be an acceptable excuse from someone whose entire campaign was based on the promise of "change".

Your response???

You're missing the biggest piece. There was a market for the bunding of these loans. Global cash needs to go somewhere and the US housing market was the place to be. The more demand for mortgages resulted in more demand to sell mortgages and it created a vicous cycle. Big banks were packaging and selling, but sophisticated investors were BUYING. Everyone should have known better but, its like fishing in an endless bluefish blitz, eventually you lose all your plugs. Funs over.
Was it Bush's fault? Not directly, but he was the president at the time so he'll get the blame. Was it republican policies? I have seen NO reregulation initiated by repubs that had any impact to the recession. None.

I've posted this link before - excellent read

Angelo Mozilo - 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis - TIME

Nobody is going to propose lending to people who "can't" pay it back. What the politicians on both sides did was encourage lending into the poorer and minority communities to expand home ownership. This is where the sub-primes exploded as people refinanced into ARMs.

If it's a fact then it should be easy to find a link to a Bush proposal to ban Freddie and Fannie from taking sub-prime loans. Please help me out here because I can't find one...

H.R. 1427, 313-104

Earlier you said I was 100% right. I can't be both...

Yes, I did see School House Rock. Loosing Congress didn't mean that Bush was out of power, just as the GOP taking the House doesn't mean that Obama is not still ultimately in charge. i.e. the buck stops there.

It's always funny when people throw words like "cowardly" around in an Internet discussion without knowing much about the other people.

The fact is (search able in old threads) that I've mentioned mistakes by Democrats many times. And have pretty much described this as a systemic problem in every instance, counter to the assertion that liberal ideology and (gasp) Barney Frank are the root cause of the financial meltdown. This simple isn't founded in the reality you claim is the basis for a clean bill of mental health.

Obama gets to point the finger at the Republicans because he's the President and they're doing it to him. Hell, Obama wasn't even sworn in yet before the GOP was branding it his recession, and has blamed Obama for not being able to magically fix it every since.

Do we really think that a hallmark of Republican party -- lower regulation -- is the answer to preventing a similar calamity with our economy? I'm not sure I know anyone who seriously thinks so.

-spence

From Spence "Yes, I did see School House Rock. Loosing Congress didn't mean that Bush was out of power, just as the GOP taking the House doesn't mean that Obama is not still ultimately in charge. i.e. the buck stops there" The king of blame Bush.:rotf2:LMAO