James Kennedy and Alan Greenspan, on the effect of mortgage equity withdrawals (MEWs) on the growth of the US economy.



Notice that in both 2001 and 2002, the US economy continued to grow on an annual basis (the "technical" recession was just a few quarters). Their work suggests that this growth was entirely due to MEWs. In fact, MEWs contributed over 3% to GDP growth in 2004 and 2005, and 2% in 2006. Without US homeowners using their homes as an ATM, the economy would have been very sluggish indeed, averaging much less than 1% for the six years of the Bush presidency. Indeed, as a side observation, without home equity withdrawals the economy would have been so bad it would have been almost impossible for Bush to have won a second term.

The Economic Blue Screen of Death - Thoughts From The Frontline - Investment Strategies Analysis Intelligence for Seasoned Investors.


 Conservatives Can't Escape Blame for the Financial Crisis




 Q When did the Bush Mortgage Bubble start?

A The general timeframe is it started late 2004.

From Bush’s President’s Working Group on Financial Markets October 2008

“The Presidents Working Group’s March policy statement acknowledged that turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007.”



Q Did the Community Reinvestment Act under Carter/Clinton caused it?


A "Since 1995 there has been essentially no change in the basic CRA rules or enforcement process that can be reasonably linked to the subprime lending activity. This fact weakens the link between the CRA and the current crisis since the crisis is rooted in poor performance of mortgage loans made between 2004 and 2007. "

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/20081203_analysis.pdf


"Another form of easing facilitated the rapid rise of mortgages that didn't require borrowers to fully document their incomes. In 2006, these low- or no-doc loans comprised 81 percent of near-prime, 55 percent of jumbo, 50 percent of subprime and 36 percent of prime securitized mortgages."

Q HOLY JESUS! DID YOU JUST PROVE THAT OVER 50 % OF ALL MORTGAGES IN 2006 DIDN'T REQUIRE BORROWERS TO DOCUMENT THEIR INCOME?!?!?!?

A Yes.




Q WHO THE HELL LOANS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO PEOPLE WITHOUT CHECKING THEIR INCOMES?!?!?

A Banks.

Q WHY??!?!!!?!

A Two reasons, greed and Bush's regulators let them

Conservatives on the Wrong Side of History on Mandela, Most Other Things


When has the American right ever—ever—been on the right side of history?

The answer is almost never.


...Do you support the American Revolution? I should hope so. You would not have, however, had you been a conservative in 1785. American Loyalists, perhaps 20 percent of the white population of the day, were devoted to king and crown for mostly the usual reasons: They were older, better established, had more money, were scared of change.


How about the abolition of slavery? I reckon you’re on board with that. Well, Lord knows you wouldn’t have been if you’d been among the 1860 conservatives who started a war over it (and whose apologists today insist the Civil War was not about slavery).

In terms of domestic politics, few polemical tasks are easier than demonstrating how wrong conservatism has been about pretty much everything in all of American history. Eradication of child labor? Why, an imposition on business owners to run their factories as they saw fit, you socialist! Giving women the right to vote? Women?! They simply don’t possess the logical faculties to be entrusted with such a responsibility, and anyway where will it end—I suppose you’ll be suggesting that black people get the franchise next? Segregation. Miscegenation laws. Immigration. Civil rights. The environmental movement. Conservatism’s record: wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Conservatives on the Wrong Side of History on Mandela Most Other Things - The Daily Beast

Abraham Lincoln Might Have Been a Republican, But He Damn Sure Wasn’t a Conservative

Lincoln also instituted the first “income tax,” and told the Southern states claiming “states’ rights” when it came to slavery that they were completely full of crap.

Could you imagine a Republican today creating a tax and telling states that their claim of “states’ rights” on an issue was absurd?

Abraham Lincoln might have been a Republican, but that was before Republicans became “conservatives.” See, there’s a difference between what Republicans were and what conservatives are. Conservatives have always been conservatives. Decades ago, racist conservatives aligned with the Democratic party. Today these same conservatives call themselves Republicans.


Anyone who knows anything about history knows that long ago Democrats were the party of racists. But those who are honest about history also know that over time, the political ideology of both parties switched.

This isn’t hard to prove – just look at reality. What groups align with the fringe of the Republican party? The KKK, neo-Nazis and people who seek to glorify the confederacy. In other words, racists. You don’t see members of the KKK, Nazi groups or confederate sympathizers siding with modern day Democrats. Oh, no – they vote Republican.


...
Nothing about Lincoln made him a conservative. He fought against “states’ rights,” he created a tax, he bucked tradition, he embraced change and he did all of this by using the power of big government.

Abraham Lincoln Might Have Been a Republican But He Damn Sure Wasn t a Conservative

Jan 9, 2015

The private sector has added 11.2 million jobs over 58 straight months of job growth, extending the longest streak on record

Dubya LOST 1+ million PRIVATE sector jobs in 8 years. Even stopping in Dec 2008, PRE his great recession, it was a pathetic 4 million. That 'loser' Carter had 9+ million in a MUCH smaller economy... Weird right?

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data


 U.S. Economy Is Pulling Ahead, towing of Rest of the World & it's not a scam like Bush's sub-prime lending that caused the worlds biggest economic disaster


When hard-working people earn a living wage with benefits, they pay taxes instead of receiving government assistance and actually have more disposable income to spend on growing the (local) economy,

So many people refuse to recognize that poorly-paid workers have no choice but to be dependent on government and/or charities. More jobs with better pay (so people could churn the economy) would solve a lot of our problems.




Companies supposedly compete for people in a capitalist system, at least they used to. All this complaining you hear from companies saying they can't find "qualified" people is just a smoke and mirrors way of saying that they can't get the same people they got 10 years ago to rehire in for what they were making 10 years ago. If there were no minimum wage, believe me, it would be a race to the bottom

If $100 were distributed in the US among 100 people

Right wingers link


 http://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/war-on-the-rich-dumbest-idea-in-history-of-man.381770/page-41#post-10019842

 Another good one

http://afferentinput.blogspot.com/2007/12/if-america-had-100-and-100-people.html

Fin crisis one area blog

As for blame, this report identifies who the real perps were:

From the FHFA report 2010:

• Credit Scores: Eighty-four percent of single-family mortgages acquired by the GSEs during 2001 to 2008 were made to borrowers with FICO credit scores above 660, while 5 percent were made to borrowers with FICO scores below 620. In contrast, 47 percent of mortgages financed with private-label MBS originated during this period were made to borrowers with FICO scores above 660, while 32 percent were made to borrowers with FICO scores lower than 620.

• Loan-to-Value (LTV) Ratios: Over 82 percent of GSE-acquired loans had LTV ratios at origination of 80 percent or less, while two-thirds of mortgages financed with private-label MBS had LTV ratios at or below 80 percent, with that share increasing from 54 percent of 2001 originations to 81 percent of 2008 originations.

• Loan Payment Type: Eighty-eight percent of GSE-acquired mortgages were fixed-rate loans originated between 2001 and 2008 and ranged from 79 percent for 2004 originations to 96 percent for 2001 originations. Mortgages financed with private-label MBS were predominantly adjustable-rate loans; comprising more than 70 percent of mortgages financed with private-label MBS originated between 2001 and 2008.

You can blame Dubya's regulator failure based on the GOP's 'hands off approach' is the best and the private banks for the housing crash.

 FHFA Report Shows GSE Loans Outperformed Private-Label MBS Loans

 https://www.ncsha.org/blog/fhfa-report-shows-gse-loans-outperformed-private-label-mbs-loans



 There is plenty of blame to go around for the U.S. housing bubble, but not much of it belongs to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two giant housing-finance institutions made many mistakes over the decades, some of them real whoppers, but causing house prices to soar and then crater during the past decade weren’t among them.

The biggest culprits in the housing fiasco came from the private sector, and more specifically from a mortgage industry that was out of control. These included lenders who originated home loans, investment bankers who packaged them into securities, rating agencies that misjudged these securities, and global investors who bought them without much, if any, study.

In other words, America’s mortgage securitization machine was fundamentally broken. It created millions of mortgage loans that, even under reasonable economic assumptions, stood little chance of being repaid — and were not.




Also to blame, of course, were regulators, who gave the private mortgage market little, if any, oversight. The market’s watchdogs were lulled to sleep by a misplaced view that self-interested private financial institutions would regulate themselves. This flawed thinking was most pervasive at the nation’s most important financial regulatory agency, the Federal Reserve.



By Mark Zandi


http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-01-24/news/35438120_1_mortgage-loans-total-residential-mortgage-debt-subprime-and-alt-a

FOUNDERS QUOTES INEQUALITY

Why Thomas Jefferson Favored Profit Sharing
By David Cay Johnston

The founders, despite decades of rancorous disagreements about almost every other aspect of their grand experiment, agreed that America would survive and thrive only if there was widespread ownership of land and businesses.

George Washington, nine months before his inauguration as the first president, predicted that America "will be the most favorable country of any kind in the world for persons of industry and frugality, possessed of moderate capital, to inhabit." And, he continued, "it will not be less advantageous to the happiness of the lowest class of people, because of the equal distribution of property."

The second president, John Adams, feared "monopolies of land" would destroy the nation and that a business aristocracy born of inequality would manipulate voters, creating "a system of subordination to all... The capricious will of one or a very few" dominating the rest. Unless constrained, Adams wrote, "the rich and the proud" would wield economic and political power that "will destroy all the equality and liberty, with the consent and acclamations of the people themselves."

James Madison, the Constitution's main author, described inequality as an evil, saying government should prevent "an immoderate, and especially unmerited, accumulation of riches." He favored "the silent operation of laws which, without violating the rights of property, reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigents towards a state of comfort."

Alexander Hamilton, who championed manufacturing and banking as the first Treasury secretary, also argued for widespread ownership of assets, warning in 1782 that, "whenever a discretionary power is lodged in any set of men over the property of their neighbors, they will abuse it."

Late in life, Adams, pessimistic about whether the republic would endure, wrote that the goal of the democratic government was not to help the wealthy and powerful but to achieve "the greatest happiness for the greatest number."



http://www.newsweek.com/2014/02/07/why-thomas-jefferson-favored-profit-sharing-245454.html