I am fine with just saying BOTH are to blame for where we are as well as both parties....most here don't feel that way though. BTW...I really wanted to like Romney...but I plain just don't trust the guy or Ryan for that matter...never seen two politicians lie or change their mind so much on the issues they are supposedly running on
I don't trust a government takeover of healthcare, be it republican or democrat. If there is going to be, it is a state issue and not a federal one. They both lie or stretch the truth. That is the state of politics. The 5 trillion number keeps coming up but 6 independent sources say its not true. Does that make it a lie. For every " fact " that is posted, there is another that will debunk it. Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2
Well you can thank the Republicans for coming up with the idea of mandated healthcare a long time ago. It used to be considered a conservative idea. I guess we'll have to see how that deal works out.
Well hell T I know why, several tax breaks that benefited Corporation to move overseas, People having to take jobs that paid half of what they made with no benefits. You want to know what caused the Housing market to crash, Kids fresh out of high school or collage with no jobs still living at home, Young Adults moving back in with their own familys living off their parents income, 80% of the country owing 20,000.00 in credit card debt because thats what their making their house payment and medical bills with. I could go on and on. You would think after 8 years he would of had a grip on things.
little girl...Do yourself a favor and take an economics class. The worst thing a Government can do on the onset of a recession is spend less money. It actually needs to spend more to stimulate the private sector and national debt becomes a long term issue to deal with. The point you seem to be missing is that if the Bush era had been more fiscally responsible the government would have had much more flexibility to deal with the recession when it hit. They put everything on a credit card and lowered taxes at the same time.
We will have to agree to disagree on this issue. I'm not changing your mind and your definitely not changing mine. I say a bad nafta plan started the outsourcing issue. Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2
If you think kids living at home had even the slightest thing to do with the housing crash you have been badly mislead at best. Bank deregulation and a big push to let unqualified individuals get mortgages so they could live the American dream had everything to do with the housing crash. It artificially fed the market for housing, housing that too many could not afford. 110% mortgages! The government was forcing banks to make bad loans or else they would yank their ability to use fed funds. Junior moving in with mom and dad had nothing to do with it. Do a little research into Barney Frank and his henchmen.
It absolutely is (or was) considered a republican/conservative idea. That changed when Obama was the one pushing it. Anyway, something people never talk about is that Romney's "state" healthcare plan is subsidized nearly 70% by the federal gov't.
That is true...I'm not saying all the money has been spent in the best ways...both sides have contributed to this mess and i'm not sure either has the answers in how to fix things...whoever wins the election I sure hope they figure it out
The securitized sub-prime lending race (which was not "forced" by the government, what the gov't did do was fail to intervene [Federal Housing Finance Reform Act 2005]) was driven by greed of private lenders. A number of banks actually hedged by betting against these loans... shocking... So, the housing bubble burst, (again, shocking!). So lets look at how all this was created. There are these things called mortgage backed securities. Basically it's a stock, that people can invest in. The return was solid and steady. There came a time where there weren't enough MBS to sell (all the qualified people already had mortgages) , and demand was high, so lenders took more risk in order to provide the market with this desired commodity. Everyone and their brother was getting involved in these because they provided (until this time) a safe, and steady rate of growth. Banks started loaning more money, to riskier people, and selling the securities as a way to lessen their risk. A lot of these "riskier" loans were made in the form of ARMs (or adjustable rate mortgages), more on this.... Well... because MBS were so popular they were in every piece of the market. Investment banks were heavily encumbered by these MBS, as well as individuals and other businesses. It only took a few years for these risky loans to show up (ARMs). And boy, did they ever. When people started defaulting on these sub-prime loans (some of which required no income verification at all - due to lack of regulation) a few things happened. First, foreclosures began showing up. This increased the supply of houses on the market. Typically these houses get sold for very little, and therefore builders have a harder time selling homes, and homeowners near these lose value due to "comparables", and average home sale price in a particular area. So, these obviously led to a very volatile market for homes and home sales. People lost jobs, homeowners were going under water on their mortages (which further complicated the foreclosure mess), and this was just a start to it all. The subprime mortage lending was enough to cause problems, but the MBS is what caused the widespread issue. Since the MBS was such a great investment, just about everyone you can think of invested in them. When the ARMs from the subprime fiasco began adjusting and people began defaulting, the price of these MBS started to plummet. This caused many businesses and individuals to lose billions and billions of dollars. When this happened, the economy constricted. This was the start of the recession. Businesses tightened up, people stopped spending, and jobs were lost by the millions. There are several places blame could be pushed in regards to the subprime lending mess. That's not the point of this post though, really. Happy to have a discussion about it though. Clinton started it, true, Bush did nothing to fix it, also true. Absolutely, however, the subprime lending coupled with MBS, led to a downturning economy that constricted and led to lost jobs and high unemployment. Granted this is WAY more complex than what this post addresses, but it gives a little insight. It'd take you a long time to track all the backtrails to find all the vital and blameworthy parties involved. It wasn't an overnight process, but years in the making. In the end, it was driven by greed, not by gov't condition. It was, however, failed gov't condition that allowed it to happen.
I didnt expect you to agree. Let me give you a little insight. i have one buddy that is a bank president and another that was the head of the mortgage department for another bank. I have had extensive conversations with both as to how this whole mess played out. The Feds did in fact "force" banks to offer sub-prime mortgages. If the banks were not willing to do so, they were threatened with the loss of their ability to use fed funds. Hard to run a bank without $$. Then, when the bail-out money was offered. The one bank refused to take any. They did not need it. Again, the feds told them if they wanted to continue offering mortgages they would take the money. In return the feds took stock in the bank. The bank was told they could buy their stock back in a certain amount of time. When that time came, the bank was not allowed to buy their own stock back. (The price had not gone up much yet.) They had to wait another year and ofcouse the market went up so they had to pay the feds a premium price for their own stock to pay back a loan they never wanted in the first place. If you guys really knew what a Democratic led banking scandal it really was, even the libs would agree that it was absurd at best. If you simply want to go by the propoganda you are fed then you will continue to live in a dream that never existed. If you get out into the real world and talk to people that actually dealt with the inner workings of fed funds and the mortgage scam, you will not be too big of fan of it. Bottom line again was, the libs wanted everyone to live the American dream of owning a home. They were given 110% mortgages and did not even have to prove the ability to pay the loan off. The borrowers were not worried becasue their lib government at the time told them they would be taken care of. They believed it.
This is exactly the kind of stuff true concervatives are against. It is bigger government that got us into the mess and i see the same kinds of messes being in healthcare if the feds takeover and taking the best healthcare in the world and turning it into a fiasco of red tape and sub par healthcare. There is a HUGE difference in feds running a system and a state running a system with federal funds. Some obviously struggle with the distinction. Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2
Fletch, I was in the mortgage business for years with two major banks and as a broker so I know a bit about this subject as well. A good friend of mine was also high up in the sub-prime lending divisions with two major lenders. There is truth to your post but you seem to be leaving out that the majority of subprime loans were in house deals by banks who wanted to write them and Wall Street wanted to sell them as securities. The subprime loans which were backed by Fannie & Freddie consistently outperformed those which were privately securitized. I do agree that lending guidelines with Fannie and Freddie had loosen up too much though. The largest driver of the mortgage crises was caused by deals financials institutions WANTED to do because they made a lot of money on them until it all blew up in their face. Greed caused the crises.
I think it's funny (in a sad way) that you think my post is untrue. Notice I said it was "way more complex" than that, but the crisis was driven by greed, not the federal government. Banks made billions....
Never said you were not truthful. It is indeed far more complex than we will ever cover here. I understand it quite well thank-you. The crisis was indeed driven by greed. But, you are drawing a line between banks and government. The greed came from BOTH sides. But, some of the governments greed was pushed from the federal level onto local level lending institutions. Yes, some banks were making millions, and so were many of the politicians that were in their pocket. In fact, that was a primary driving force. And please, never feel sad for me. I am doing quite well through it all. Lets not forget that the politicians were even allowed to invest based on insider infromation at the time.
Here I think you've touched (very lightly) on one of the biggest problems of our political atmosphere today. Lobbyists (money). Personally I think lobbying should be illegal. I also feel like politicians should not be able to take jobs in industry their time in office affects. There should be term limits, and becoming a representative of the people shouldn't be a retirement plan. Money, greed, etc... are the real problem. The wealth of the congress grew 70% while everyone else was losing their ***. Both sides are involved.
