Re: Bush: How Did We Get Here?
 

You are cute. The biggest perpetrators of the mortgage/credit bubble were Freddie and Fannie, and Greenspan/Bush proposed capping their portfolios in 2004, before the worst of the mortgage underwriting. The banks couldn't have done as much because they didn't have free money through goverment backed debt. I won't defend Bush because he was mostly dereg; I am trying to be fair by giving him credit for one good thing he pushed for.

Re: Bush: How Did We Get Here?
 

This is simply untrue. Or, to be slightly more precise, it is only true if you mean "biggest" only as a quantitative description of their portfolios and volume of securitizations without any reference to quality.

In other words, it isn't Freddie and Fannie backed loans and structured products that are the primary source of collapse.

If your point is a more general one -- the GSEs are responsible for housing bubble because they made getting credit easier -- then fine. That is why they exist.

But I do not think that you are right that the worst of the mortgage underwriting is attributable to the GSEs because for the most part I do not think those mortgages made it into their portfolios.

Which is not to say that Greenspan/Bush weren't on the right track in 2004. But the primary concern at the time was the potential exposure if the government had to bail them out, not any deriavative effect on underwriting standards. And, as it turned out, all of the private financial institutions other than Lehman were too big to fail too, so there wasn't any particularly unique exposure posed by Freddie and Fannie.

Celebrity Death Pool
 

Just a reminder for those of you who don't check each and every board on this here site that entries for the 2009 celebrity death pool are due to me (send them via Private Message) on or before 11:59 p.m. EST on 12/31/08. There is a board set up that details the rules -- just click on the General Discussion link at the top of the page then click The Fashionable link and find the 2009 Celebrity Death Pool board for all the rules.

Re: Bush: How Did We Get Here?
 

2.

Re: Bush: How Did We Get Here?
 

Yes, I think a president has a duty to the people to stand up and call bullshite when there is bullshite placed in front of him. if he doesnt, he's complicit, just as congress was complicit in the Iraq war. this pass the buck, cya shite is exactly what I see on a day to day basis from the two bit 90 point IQ dolts who infest commerce far and wide, including the supermajority of people in my office, and it makes me tualbimm. I need another swig of nutmeg nog.

Re: Bush: How Did We Get Here?
 

I've been calling a bubble for at least the last two years and I'm no genius. Hell, it doesn't take a great intellect to look at PE firms engaging in dick-measuring contests to see who can pay the highest price for a target to see that the deal market is headed for a crash.

And if you have a dog and you live in the suburns, you have to have spent the last couple of years walking the dog, seeing house after house that still has the cheap paper shades up two years after the people move in, or rooms that are devoid of any furniture, to know that all kinds of folks are buying houses they can't afford. Even if you don't live in the burbs, or you don't walk your dog, how smart do you have to be to know that starting out upside in a new home with a three-year or five-year reset is a recipe for foreclosure?

Re: Bush: How Did We Get Here?
 

I'm confused, was that meant to be "sunburns" or "suburbs"?

Re: Know new taxes!
 

Thank God. Now Hank will have something new to say.

Re: Bush: How Did We Get Here?
 

suburbs. And while I'm makinig corrections, I meant to say I have been calling for a crash for the last 8 years.

Carry on.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

i love that the dems here deny they read the extremely nutty side of the dem press machine- then their court jester posts an article that starts with-

• Michael Connell, the Bush IT expert who has been directly implicated in the rigging of George Bush's 2000 and 2004 elections

double love that Yahoo would post something that crazed as news, yet the media isn't biased. Atticus, can you figure out how many lgf articles are on Yahoo?

Re: Know new taxes!
 

I take it back. Hank is apparently a half-shell nut.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

Plus, who could think there was anything suspicious about crashing short of the runway at the Akron airport? Clearly the pilot was just dealing in the most expedient way with his depression about having go to Akron.

Re: Bush: How Did We Get Here?
 

True. It was a stand-alone bill, not a midnight rider to an omnibus appropriations bill or something.

On Atticus's theory, Bush would be cleared of much of the responsibility for all the deficits in his term because a lot of the spending was put in by Congress despite his more modest budget requests. Even Slave won't absolve Bush of responsibility for that. Hear that, Atticus? You're giving Bush more of a pass than Slave.

Re: Bush: How Did We Get Here?
 

If congress wants absolution, they need to come up with a credible explanation as to why they took impeachment off the table in the last two years.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

(1) I'm hardly the official spokesman of "the Dems here." Experience says you'll rue wasting the title of court jester on me.

(2) Name another nutball DU post I have linked, ever.

(3) This story was linked on Fark on two separate occasions, which explains how I found it without cruising the far left stroke sites.

(4) It's the fucking PR newswire. Still want to lay this at Yahoo's feet as proof of the liberal media?

(5) My post made it clear I thought it was funny. Soon enough I'll demand to the mods that you somehow signify which posts are actually tongue in cheek and which ones you just are embarrassed by and want to pretend were all for laughs.