Posted by
Rich Baker on Friday, October 10, 2008 12:44:38 PM
Here are a few things that are driving me nuts this week.
- Scapegoating. In America we always have a need to blame someone for our problems rather than own up to them. The problem is, rather than do any soul-searching and assign blame where it is due, learn a lesson from those mistakes, and move forward, we scapegoat. It's easier and politically expedient. Rather than look at the roots of the financial problems, the media, the democrats and a gullible electorate are blaming George Bush and, amazingly, John McCain. Financial experts have been saying for some time now that the etiology of these problems was 1977 with action taken by Jimmy Carter in the form of the Community Reinvestment Act of 19771. It "encouraged" lending institutions to increase lending to lower income urban areas in an attempt to improve standards of living. The act had little in the way of teeth, but laid the ground work for the legislation that would follow. In 1989 Congress passed the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery Enforcement Act (FIRREA). This act required all reviews of under the CRA to be made public in a sort of banking report card. In 1991, under George H.W. Bush, Congress passed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991 which said that the CRA reviews were to be taken into consideration when a bank submitted an application for a deposit facility. Poor performance on a CRA meant that banks might not get the approval they sought which in effect held a gun to the heads of the banks: "You want this application approved? Go make some risky loans." President Clinton then made changes to the CRA that made the loan documentation requirent for a CRA review less stringent. The effect was that banks could more easily show their performance against the CRA standards. During this period, loans to whites increased by 67%; to blacks by 300%; to hispanics by more than 200%. Urban areas saw loans increase by 137%; suburban areas by only 37%. This is not in itself bad, except for the fact that many of the people borrowing were not qualified to take out loans in the amounts or terms that they did. They were rolling the dice; to stay solvent, their home prices had to increase pepetually, and interest rates had to stay low or the adjustable rate mortgages would bankrupt them. The lessening of lending standards during this period paved they way for the subprime mortgage crisis. Now mix in a real estate community who was all too eager to get people into a home so they could make their commisions, and the problem got much worse. When the tech bubble burst, it seemed like every laid off techie went out and got their real estate licence. By 1999 lending instutions were internally concerned about the possibilty that a decline in housing prices and an increase in interest rates would cause an economic collapse, but to continue to grow their businesses they had to keep issuing these loans. All of this was before George W. Bush's inauguration in 2001. Fannie Mae, being one of the largest lenders in the US, was actively cooking their books at this time and the seeds sown by Carter and watered by Bush(1) and Clinton were now beginning to grow and bear fruit. In 2004 Dennis Hastert wrote legislation to review and regulate Fannie Mae. John McCain signed on to this bill and even gave a speech on the Senate floor about the dangers of economic collapse if Fannie should go south. A total of 5 republican Senators signed onto the bill; no Democrats did. Certainly not Chris Dodd or Barack Obama who had their hands in the cookie jar at the time. Some - notably Barney Frank, who is openly gay and had an affair with a male executive at Fannie Mae, defended Fannie as having no problems what so ever. He as late as this summer said that historically it wasn't the best investment, but going forward was solid; 6 weeks later it collapsed completely. In any case, Hastert's Senate Bill S190 was allowed to die and we missed our last chance to make changes and avert probably not all, but at least some of this disaster. So - you can see that there's plenty of blame to go around, but to lay it at the feet of GWB,John McCain and the Republicans in general while absolving the Democrats is ridiculous. Again, this is scapegoating - and the Democrats are scapegoating the Republicans and John McCain at OUR expense so that they can win the election. Since they're unwilling to accept responsibility for their role in this mess, how can we trust them to fix it?
- Celebrities ranting about politics. Maddona hates Sarah Palin? So f-ing what? Maddona doesn't even live here any more. Roseanne has an opinion? There's a surprise- coming from someone who thought it was a joke to butcher the National Anthem, I'm only surprised she waited so long to vent her spleen. Matt Damon is worried about Sarah Palin? Memo to Matt - when Obama raises my taxes, the first thing to get cut from my budget is money to see your films, you wank.
- Pouting Republicans. I am volunteering for th McCain campaign and I am tired of people saying "I supported Ron Paul, not John McCain." Fine, waste your vote then, but keep your mouth shut if Obama wins and the United States Of America becomes the United Socialist States of Obama. WAKE UP PEOPLE! Obama won't destroy America - it just won't look anything like America when he's done putting his radicals in places of power. Check out these links if you doubt Obama wants to mold himself in the image of a radical. See any similarities?
- The Media. When this is all said and done, I hope that the damage the media has done to it's own reputation takes root. If nothing else, this election process has killed whatever was left of journalistic integrity in this country. When we can't trust the media, we can't trust the people they support, and that is undeniably Obama. How the media folks can cry about a right wing bias on Fox News while keeping a straight face about their supposed fair and balanced approach is beyond me. It just further proves the point that Ann Coulter, Gregg Jackson and others have made about liberals and progressives - they never let facts stand in the way of their arguments. The problem lies with the people in America to busy, too disinterested or too ignorant of the tactics of the Big Lie to see through the morass and vote based on reality. 30 second sound bites could elect Obama - and that is a sad commentary on the state of politics in this nation.
- People voting Obama because they're black too. I work with a black woman who, when I asked her who she was thinking about voting for, gestured to her self and said "who do you think? Obama...McCain's just not speakng to me." We talked for a while about it, and after listing off a number of issues I see with Obama she said, "I hear you, but I'm just not feelin' it." Then I asked her how she felt about abortion, especially partial birth abortion - which Obama supports with both arms. That was the one that got her. "You need to go now. I didn't need to hear that." she said. You see, in the end I agree with Michelle Obama about one thing - you shouldn't vote for someone because you like them, or they're cute - or because they're black. Vote for them because they stand for what you stand for, or close to it. A vote for Obama is a vote for unrestricted, full access to abortion including partial birth abortion. What's next? Forced abortion? Genetic selection? I don't really want to live in GATTACA but that's where we're heading.
Sigh. That's enough for today.
1http://www.answers.com/topic/community-reinvestment-act-of-1977