Another GOP Attempt to Shift the Blame

Good Morning Bloggers - Well, it looks like the conservatives are trying to spin more webs to cover their butts after the economic downturn. I must admit though, the latest is one of their best. It's just complicated enough that might cause some people to believe it.

Unfortunately for them, it's also simple enough for others to dismiss it outright. Outgoing US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is now saying that "a failure to address the rise of emerging markets and resulting imbalances was partly to blame for the global financial crisis," according to a Financial Times interview published today.

Interesting! What failures? Who failed? The interesting part is that he leaves those answers to the reader; he is VAGUE throughout the interview. You're supposed to guess. He keeps saying "global" because he wants to leave the reader with the idea that it was a global mistake, and not due to our own domestic laws or decisions. In other words, Republican decisions.

Paulson told the Financial Times that "imbalances between fast-growing nations which save, such as China, and those who spent were at the root of the problem." What a fancy way to try and make us seem like an innocent victim! Paulson, you're a piece of work. I believe you no longer have credibility. You are now part of the problem and MUST GO!

Yes, we are the nation "who spent," and it's for that reason, along with extremely unregulated and overly-complex markets, WE are the culprits. WE created the worldwide imbalances due to our own laws and policies - or lack of them.

Name another nation on the planet that allowed for derivatives markets that gambled 50+ trillion dollars based on no real assets? I challenge anybody to come up with a better example of a more out-of-control, economically irresponsible country than us? I dare you.

WE didn't have to spend; WE were encouraged to spend based on changes to our legal and economic system. It was Republican "lazy capitalism" that created markets where people were ENCOURAGED to spend; that encouraged LARGE BUBBLES to grow, and eventually POP!

We became a nation of speculation, immediate gratification, and unsustainable returns. WE created the problem. "Global imbalances" is just another conservative Republican attempt to shift the blame. It's a FREAKIN SMOKESCREEN people!

"Excesses ... built up for a long time, (with) investors looking for yield, mis-pricing risk," Paulson told the Times. That's just DOUBLETALK people! Those were OUR "EXCESSES" created by a HUGE TRADE DEFICIT with the third-world (that politicians should have addressed long ago) and Republicans eliminating regulation creating highly capitalized and RISKY markets.

It was OUR FAULT no matter what Paulson says. WE LEAD THE CHARGE FOR EXCESS, no matter what Paulson says.

I'm tired of reacting to these people. I wouldn't have responded IF he had just described the WHO and the WHY! Instead, the whole interview was one big attempt to make the "deciders" look less culpable.

THEY are to blame, and they shouldn't get off the hook. They're trying to find ANY BS EXCUSE to escape it. Any reasonably intelligent person can read Paulson's interview and see the smokescreen.

One red flag is how the theory is only supported by the same conservative economists who got us into this mess, and who are also motivated to cover their butts and save their reputations. It's just one big elaborate SPIN!

None of it makes any sense. IF we had acted responsibly as a global market player there would NOT have been excesses. Not to mention, if the markets had been safe, the "excesses" would have been safe. It's as simple as that people.

The whole idea that global imbalances caused the crisis is just another example of conservative Republicans looking for a scapegoat for their own pathetic mistakes. It's a specialty of theirs. Pass the buck comes naturally to them. In other words, they're lying sacks.

It doesn't matter how "sophisticated" the argument sounds, it's BS!

Friday's Political Rant #1 - Michael

The Ominous Signs Keep Coming

Hello Bloggers - I've been saying it for a while, and I will continue to say it - the DOLLAR IS IN TROUBLE! Bloomberg is reporting this morning that the world’s biggest currency-trading firms say "the dollar’s appeal as a haven amid the financial crisis all but evaporated."

Come on people, do you need me to hit you over the head with a frying pan? If you want to grow your money over the next ten years, diversify your savings now or you will be stuck in cheap dollar investments. Think about it this way, people overseas invested in US/dollar investments because it was safe. Now it's not, got it? The dollar is one more victim of the nightmare that is George Bush.

"The U.S. currency slid to a 13-year low against the yen today and had its biggest one-day decline versus the euro after the Federal Reserve reduced its target interest rate yesterday to a range of zero to 0.25 percent, the lowest among the world’s biggest economies."

“Prospects ahead appear particularly ominous for the world’s reserve currency once global economic stability starts to build up.” The Fed’s debt purchases will cause the dollar to weaken to $1.4860 per euro, analysts led by Robert Sinche, New York-based head of global currency strategy at Bank of America Corp., wrote in a report yesterday."

Wow, it's happening even earlier than I thought. People are pulling their money out of the US faster now, and it will only get worse. I knew the dollar would collapse, but I thought people would wait until after the crisis calmed down a bit more. Oh well, at least the Republicans will have a harder time making the upcoming depression look like a problem for the Democrats. The earlier it hits the better I guess.

I don't know about my fellow Americans, but I'm looking at international investments, especially nations with strong natural resource holdings. It makes sense to look to nations/currencies that will BENEFIT FROM THE US SPENDING but NOT SPEND THEMSELVES.

Canadian-dollar investments/natural resource bonds look good to me. I'm also looking at Eurobonds. You can always come back home when things calm down. I'm only suggesting we don't get trapped. I'm looking north and overseas for my financial safety.

George Bush left so many problems, and according to most experts the only way to get out of the hole is to spend, so no matter what happens the dollar will suffer.

As always, I would like to thank my Republican friends again for electing MORONS who got us into this mess. Your HORRIBLE JUDGEMENT has led us to this crisis. I think you should all be BANNED FROM VOTING until we can repair the damage you've caused.

The signs keep coming people.

Thursday's Financial Rant #1 - Michael

Political Rant: Many Now Believe Bush/Paulson Scammed Us, Stole Billions

Good Morning Bloggers - Raw Story today is pointing to a letter from CONSERVATIVE Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) where he tells his Senate colleagues that he "intends to push for immediate legislation that would require Congressional authorization for any further payouts" related to the recent bailout package.

According to my sources in DC, many in Congress are beginning to believe that Bush and Paulson bailed out their friends on Wall Street, with few conditions to lend the money out. Many now feel that's all they really wanted. There are rumors flying around DC that they needed to save specific institutions and markets before leaving office.

Since investing the money they have done very little to encourage lending, and they appear to be holding on to the rest of the funds just in case something else goes wrong - an emergency buddy fund I guess? They are supposed to be freeing up credit. They were supposed to be demanding that banks lend money. What the hell is going on?

The ultra-conservative Oklahoma Republican told the Tulsa World, "It is just outrageous that the American people don't know that Congress doesn't know how much money [Paulson] has given away to anyone. ... It could be to his friends. It could be to anybody else. We don't know. There is no way of knowing. ... He was able to get this authority from Congress predicated on what he was going to do, and then he didn't do it." I agree. I'm beginning to wonder if they know anything up there. What is wrong with them?

I never thought I would say this, but I think Inhofe is right! I, like so many others, came to believe that the government was trying to stop a disaster when they passed the legislation. Facts on the ground since are showing that things weren't as bad as suspected, and if anything it's beginning to look like Bush and Paulson created the panic based on very little data.

It's beginning to look like we might have been scammed again, just like with the Iraq War - another crisis that helped Bush and his buddies. What did Bush say, fool me once shame on me, or some perverted version of it? Maybe he's not the idiot we all took him for? Maybe he's just a much bigger CROOK! Then again, we're supposed to TRUST THE PRESIDENT when he warns us of a potential disaster. I don't know about you guys, but I feel sick!

Incredibly, our trustworthy Democrats in Congress - and center-right Republicans - didn't dig deep enough. I know they convinced many of us in the end, but aren't they supposed to know more than us? Then again, maybe they're not as smart as we think they are? Maybe we rely on a bunch of smooth-talking IDIOTS!

What in the hell is wrong with this government, especially our elected representatives? Nobody seems to know what they're doing. WE NEED ANSWERS NOW!

We need to FOCUS ON STOPPING THE BUSH CRIME SYNDICATE from plundering more. We need immediate investigations! We need action now! Unless something happens, this may be the first issue where I take a stand AGAINST OBAMA! Once in office, we need President-Elect Obama to support immediate investigations into possible Bush crimes, or we should take to the streets!

The American people voted for change, and we might not be able to wait until the inauguration. The Lame Duck Congress should act now! To protect our democracy for the future, we need to get to the bottom of what is happening to that money. I hope you agree.

Tuesday's Political RANT #1 - Michael

Political Rant: Barney Frank's Honorable, Tough Stand Against GOP Propaganda

Good Morning Bloggers - I hate to beat the proverbial dead horse as they say, but I just had to post another article about how the Republicans are using race to explain away their own mistakes related to predatory lending and the credit crisis.

One of my favorite Congressman, Barney Frank, the man who recently suffered the obnoxious slings and arrows of that Fox "News" moron, Bill O'Reilly, supported my assertions yesterday that Republican criticism of Democrats over the nation's housing crisis is a veiled attack on the poor that is racially motivated.

According to the AP's Glen Johnson reporting from Boston yesterday, the Massachusetts Democrat and Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the GOP is "appealing to its base by blaming the country's mortgage foreclosure problem on efforts to expand affordable housing through the Community Reinvestment Act."

He said the blame "is misplaced, because those loans are issued by regulated institutions, while far more foreclosures were triggered by high-cost loans made by unregulated entities." As my regular bloggers know that is a point that I've been banging away at for over a month now.

The Republicans refuse to acknowledge that regulatory protections were in place to insure against fraud and credit problems. They act like the Community Reinvestment Act and other legislation left lenders unprotected and vulnerable like sheep ready for a slaughter. To anybody who has read the legislation and the accompanying regulations (see my earlier posts) the assertions are wrong - or lies if you will.

Do you Republicans even listen to yourselves? The whole idea is crazy. It was caused primarily by a lack of oversight by the Bush Administration over the past eight years. Other causes involved Republican-led deregulation signed by Clinton in 1999 (he was wrong too), a housing bubble (caused by the lack of oversight and subsequent, over-confident market forces), and ultimate mismanagement and greed.

After a lot of homework, including a review of recent congressional testimonies, I would say the causes are pretty much in that order. The poor people who took the loans are the least guilty, unless they lied - also the fault of the predatory lenders in my opinion. Aren't there ways to find out if people are lying?

Frank said Republicans controlled Congress for 12 years and passed no regulation, while Democrats passed a Bush administration Fannie and Freddie regulation package since gaining control of the House and Senate in January 1997. Frank is rightly accusing the Republicans of race baiting their constituents. "They get to take things out on poor people," Frank said at a mortgage foreclosure symposium in Boston. "Let's be honest: The fact that some of the poor people are black doesn't hurt them either, from their standpoint. This is an effort, I believe, to appeal to a kind of anger in people."

Frank dismissed charges the Democrats failed on their own or blocked Republican efforts to rein in the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I agree with him. I researched and discovered that both parties attempted Fannie and Freddie reform legislation from their own party perspectives, and both failed over the years due to a lack of compromise. Much of it was caused by the Bush Administration and its demands for massive structural changes designed to help Wall Street, and less industry regulation that Democrats felt threatened a system that has worked well for decades. Despite the congressional conflict, the crisis still grew out of a lack of Bush oversight.

House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio called Frank's remarks "a lame, desperate attempt to divert Americans' attention away from the Democratic party's obstruction of reforms that would have reined in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and helped our nation avoid this economic crisis."

Mr. Boehner, the only lame and desperate things here are you and your party. You guys are willing to lie, cheat and steal to get your way. You are lying to the American people about the cause of this crisis, and you are attacking an honest man like Barney Frank to beat him in November and back up your absurd, deceitful, conspiracy theory that poor people brought down Wall Street.

Barney Frank did not cause this crisis. More than twelve horrible years of Republican "leadership" caused this crisis. The same leadership that brought us war, tragedy, and corruption on a massive scale. It is time the Republicans stop blaming others for what they caused, and take responsibility for their failures.

Rovian tactics like "muddying the waters" to make everybody look bad in this situation will not work. It was Bush and the Republicans. I hope you take the time to learn what I've learned, and vote them out of power in November.

Tuesday's Political Rant #1 - Michael

Political News/Rant: Republican Zealots Still Blaming Housing Legislation for Crisis

Hello Bloggers - The Huffington Post has another story about how Republicans are blaming the bailout crisis on minority housing legislation. I know I've been beating this drum a lot lately, but it really makes me angry that Republicans are trying to blame others for their own screw-ups. Their "blame evasion" has become so pronounced they seem to pass the buck on everything these days.

(Read the story at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/01/conservatives-seek-to-shi_n_131020.html)

I challenge my Republican readers to name anything - yes, anything - that George Bush and the Republicans have taken responsibility for recently. Their standard protocol seems to be: blame others, rewrite their history, lie if necessary, and weather the storm. Why don't we call it what it is: fear and cowardice, lies, and more fear and cowardice.

The problem isn't their protocols; it's the lack of storms. There never seems to be a real storm. Nobody seems to get that angry. Did the Republicans castrate us overnight without us knowing? Did they put drugs in our water or food? For God's sake, and ours, GET MORE ANGRY PEOPLE!

Anyway, I will continue to post all evidence showing how the Republicans are being despicable once again in trying to blame others for their incompetence, greed, and deceit.

Thursday's News/Rant #2 - Michael

Political News/Rant: Republicans Who Blame the Borrowers Getting Tiresome

Hello Bloggers - Based on earlier posts (see Monday, September 22nd - Political Rant: Absurd Republican Spin About Crisis Continues Unabated) you might have caught on that I'm kind of upset with all the Republicans who are blaming the credit crisis on minorities and others who they say "scammed the system." Many are friends of mine. They always talk about the Community Reinvestment Act and point to data that shows how much it helped encourage minority lending - see YouTube for the many propagandist videos set to music on the subject.

However, there is plenty of evidence that proves a lack of government oversight under the Bush Administration is the real culprit. There were plenty of laws and regulations in place, but predatory lending was allowed to go unchecked over the past eight years.

I owned an Internet company here in LA from 1999 to 2004 and just after Bush's inauguration a major supporter opened a quick and dirty mortgage resale company across the hall with cubicles filled with mortgage sellers pitching their wares. I spoke to many of their twenty-something year old staff at the time, and remember being shocked by the way they were compensated - mostly by commission. They called their work "pitching the poor" at the time. I'll never forget it. Something told me what they were doing was wrong at the time, and I hate to say it but my instincts were correct. If somebody like me knew something was wrong, why didn't the government, the press, and the whole business community? It was common sense. They were the predators, and that company was a good example of one that should not have been allowed to exist.

Here are excerpts from another article that might help clarify the situation for my more hard-headed Republican friends: Viewpoint: Minorities a convenient scapegoat for U.S. financial woes

"In the midst of a severe financial crisis - a meltdown fueled by clueless homebuyers, greedy lenders and money-grubbing financiers - some observers have decided to blame "minorities" for the mess. Though wiser heads have proclaimed the emergency too serious for partisan gamesmanship, some in the conservative commentariat still can't resist playing the race card."

Several days ago, Neil Cavuto, host of Fox News' Your World, proclaimed, "Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster." On WorldNetDaily, a compendium of loopy half-truths, pundit Drew Zahn declared that "when federal regulators demanded parity between racial groups in lending, the only way to achieve a quota would be to begin making intentionally bad lending decisions." The conservative National Review Online trotted out a favorite whipping boy, the Community Reinvestment Act, claiming that the legislation was the result of "racially inflammatory campaigns" that forced banks to "make mortgages available to people without much in the way of income, assets or credit."

"Why would anyone inject skin color into a debate over credit? There is certainly no evidence to support this claptrap. Federal regulators have never "demanded parity between racial groups in lending." Not ever. The CRA - designed to stop banks from "redlining," or withholding loans from entire neighborhoods - has long been under attack by conservatives, but for entirely different reasons. Critics called it vague, contradictory and useless. They claimed it was unfair to banks and thrifts, which were regulated, while other financial institutions were left to lend money as they saw fit."

"That's where the argument tying the CRA to the credit crisis breaks down. The lending frenzy developed during the past few years, a period during which banks and thrifts made less than 25 percent of mortgage loans. (The law has been in place for 30 years, during most of which time there was no mortgage meltdown.) "The heart of the crisis was caused by unregulated and lightly regulated mortgage brokers and independent mortgage bankers and affiliates that are not subject to the CRA. It would be quite odd if an act ... caused institutions not subject to its purview to do things that were inappropriate," said law professor Michael Barr, who has studied this legislation. I hold no brief for dumb homebuyers, be they white, black or brown."

"But minority homeowners were frequently the victims of aggressive practices by mortgage brokers who received higher commissions for steering buyers into high-cost, subprime loans, even if the buyer would have qualified for a prime loan. The Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit research group, examined 50,000 subprime loans nationwide and found that blacks and Hispanics were 30 percent more likely than whites to be charged higher interest rates, even among borrowers with similar credit ratings. Again, lenders didn't push those loans to comply with any "affirmative action in lending" programs. They did it to make money. That's the same reason Wall Street's masters of the universe created all those exotic investment vehicles - instruments they didn't understand any better than some homebuyers understood their adjustable rates."

(Read the whole article at: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.viewpoint28sep28,0,6004405.story)

So, I hope that my Republican friends and fans who keep insisting the lending crisis was caused by forced lending would stop it. You are not allowed to pick and choose the facts. You must let it go. People who blame the borrowers are not looking at all the facts. We should not accept parsed debates in this country. The Bush years are almost over and it is time to go back to insisting that all the facts are considered.

Monday's Political News/Rant #2 - Michael

Political News: More Evidence on How the Bush Administration Helped Create the Lending Crisis

Good Morning Bloggers - The Tom Hartman show this morning reminded us of a Washington Post article in February of this year that slammed the Bush Administration for not allowing states to stop predatory lenders. I think it's important so I'm just reprinting it here for our debate.

Excerpt from the Washington Post:

Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime
How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers
By Eliot SpitzerThursday, February 14, 2008

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.
But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.

When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.
The writer is governor of New York.

Well, more food for thought. The evidence is building. Any comments Republicans?

Thursday's Political News #1 - Michael