Apparently the Community ReInvestment Act cited was altered in 1975 (i believe) when then prez Clinton directed his Sec of Treasury Reich to make it easier for peeps to qualify for mortgage loans. Sadly, although many (including GWBush) raised or claim to have raised warning flags since 2003 concerning the direction of the mortgage lending market, nothing was done, any efforts were seemingly met with the evil eye...."you just don't want poor people to have a house". Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are among those that appear to have had their hands on the wheel...(see video on You Tube 2004 session Democrats Defend Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac from Regulations) but there are plenty of helpers and those who stood silent or had their pockets open receiving money from the mortgage industry. They should, Democrat and Republican, fired and fined. Now we have to clean up the mess. I am not wholly in favor of this "free lunch" bailout. I am, however, a bit nervous like most people since I don't know the extent of the fallout. I do not expect that the government will bail me out if I cannot meet any of my debt obligations. I'm not in the correct socio-economic strata...yet.... Consider for a moment the social engineering involved in having the government, through regulation/deregulation of lending institutions and legislation like the Community ReInvestment Act and more, put every American (citizen or not) into a home...whether or not he/she can afford that home. While declaring that this financial activity is "private enterprise" and simply execution of capitalism (freddie mac and fannie mae), the truth is sadly revealed when the GOVERNMENT jumps in to "save" these "private" financial institutions from themselves and their ignorant, greed-soaked decisions by buying up/guaranteeing all this "bad paper",
with TAXPAYER money. And it appears that, at least, some of the lenders who resisted freeing up funds to the "sub-prime" market may have been tagged as prejudiced and/or discriminatory and "pressed" to join in the movement...be "patriotic"... or else suffer exposure to the media as being EVIL, MONEY-GRUBBING ELITIST.
Plenty of hands in the cookie jar on this one....OUR cookie jar. Not many choc chips left.
Fear not...the sun will rise in a little while...things always look better in the sunlight.