grodscorp@grods.comThe inevitable myth
 | Posted by Bridgit Gread on Sunday 28 September 2008, 12:54 am Categories: Corporate stupidity, Politics Tags: AnnCoulter, banking, BillClinton, economics, subprimecrisis |
It was only a matter of time before the genetically disingenuous tried pinning the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US on ‘teh Left’. Today, my first sightings … a hatchet-job by white witch Ann Coulter and a God-awful Youtube mash-up that looks like it was done in a special school. (I should admit that I came to these via the bottom of the Internet biscuit barrell, MK and ;;;; respectively. And yes, I feel so dirty…)
The central premise offered by both is that Clinton and the Democrats are responsible for the whole mess (surprise surprise) because they wanted poor blacks and Hispanics to own homes. Mortgage-underwriting quangos like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were “forced” by Evil Bill into relaxing their borrowing criteria. Banks then followed suit, “forced” into approving risky mortgages. For nigh on ten years banks, lending franchises, mortgage brokers, etc. suffered immeasurably, “forced” to approve and dispense billions of dollars’ worth of high-risk home loans, all at the behest of Clinton. And when the economy slumped, the bubble burst and more than a million foreclosures unfolded, investment bankers copped daggers in their sweet and innocent hearts.
There is a grain of truth to Coulter’s nonsense, as there is with most conspiracy theories, but she forgets to mention more than she reveals. Clinton’s programme did contribute to the problem but so did those of the banks, as this op-ed from 1999 shows:
Fannie Mae … has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits. In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers.
Coulter either thinks that banks and their financial offshoots are benign entities who do nothing but sit around, waiting to respond to policy - or she is lying by omission. They are as complicit in this whole mess as Clinton is, if not moreso, thanks to their irresponsible pursuit of the fast buck. But what of the Republicans, of whom there is little mention in Ann’s tirade? She neglected to say that it was the Reagan administration that oversaw and facilitated the Savings & Loans debacle of the 1980s (essentially a smaller version of the current crisis). Or that a Republican-dominated Congress in 1999 tore down the regulatory framework for investment banking that was put in place after the Great Depression. These and other neo-con policies, according to Robert Kuttner, have “turned the economy into a casino”. And now it is the US taxpayer who not for the first time is expected to bail out Wall Street’s high rollers.
Last word on Coulter’s deceitful account should go to the two local ignoramuses who are cheering it on:
“I had a feeling that was the case … yet another leftist screw up.”
“I think that the case it puts is rather convincing.”
Sunday 28 September 2008, 1:23 am #Toaf
Predictable, aren’t they? Mind you, MK and the other; bloger were slow out of the blocks on this one. Dr TingTong had already pinned the whole thing on Jimmy Carter.
Sunday 28 September 2008, 1:27 am #Chuck
I think that video would have been so much more believable if they had ditched Bonnie Tyler and Survivor and had done the ACA trick and used Pink Floyd’s “Money” along with Abba’s “Money, money, money, in the dunny, floating all around…”
Sunday 28 September 2008, 1:30 am #Chuck
Dr Ting Tong has made a lot of $$$ on the stockmarket, Toaf. So much so, he hasn’t had to work since 1983 due to his Buffet-style investments. He knows all the secrets.
Sunday 28 September 2008, 1:38 am #Iain ; Hall
OTTER rubbish !!!!
Bridget
Your post is typical of the leftist attitutes towards capitalism , which is that money is as frothy as the foam apon the cappochino which is disingenuous at best . as for some one who lives in rural circumcision, i am dismayed too see that these home owners of mexico origin are most sanguine in their dealings with the US government. IF the banks weren’t so quick to give out coinage to these amigos than we might have avverted this crisis all together.
Personally, I am a home owner (for I own one house and anuther one as well) so the savings and loans scandle currently gripping that most properous of countries does not effect me directly, expect for the petrol price which keeps rising more than my wife can afford me to pay.
I believe this scandle to be an invention of the left who, look globall warmiininning, are using it as an excuse to bring down the tennants of capitalism.
as I am fond of saying to my children, the only good cat is a dead cat, which is why I kill them and festoon my wife’s walls with their bloodied hides. this can be suspicious when they’re friends come over and I serve them cat but cat heads can also be used as excellent bait for fishing.
Sunday 28 September 2008, 1:39 am #Chuck
I should add (it is well-known) ;; is also a self-confessed economics expert because he has to balance the household budget once a week (with the help of his wife’s wage) and MK gets $50 pocket money from his mummy that he has to make last for a whole week. He doesn’t have the usual high-overheads most teenagers have: fuel, alcohol, condoms, taking the opposite sex on on dates, cool clothes etc. He just has to buy water-based lub to watch 300 with.
Sunday 28 September 2008, 9:30 am #Suburban Marxist
Thanks Bridgit that was an excellent post and well needed as I noticed these theories getting an airing on Timmeh’s site.
What I find interesting is the unspoken assumption that poor Blacks and Hispanics don’t deserve homes. This in a nation that, in 2006, was spending $2 Billion a week on the occupation of Iraq. The cost of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are projected to reach $3 trillion.
How more blatant can the priorities of a system built on production for profit rather than human need be?
The irony of it all being that the bold, fearless free-market entrepreneurs are having to turn to the dreaded state to save their arses…
Sunday 28 September 2008, 10:41 am #Yuwalk
Also ignores the fact that it was also a Bush policy…
http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2008/09/truth-about-minority-home-ownership.html
Sunday 28 September 2008, 10:56 am #The Editor
I blame global warming.
Sunday 28 September 2008, 2:34 pm #Toaf
You would, Ed; you waminist.
Au revoir, comrade!
Sunday 28 September 2008, 3:20 pm #Bridgit Gread
How more blatant can the priorities of a system built on production for profit rather than human need be?
What I find most funny of all is the notion that these banks handed out $1 trillion in subprime loans because Clinton put them into an affirmative action half-Nelson and screamed “loans to the poor, dammit!” This is America, for pity’s sake, big business doesn’t do anything that won’t add to its bottom line.
Sunday 28 September 2008, 4:59 pm #Broken left leg
Clinton did force Freddie and Fanny to give loans to minorities. And I got the call from a Tel Aviv bunker on Sept 11 telling me that golf was a better option than going into work at the WTC that day.
Sunday 28 September 2008, 7:48 pm #Bridgit Gread
Toaf, I notice that TingTong post you link to contains not one single word of his own - it’s lifted entirely from its original source and dropped over his name and pretentious signature.
Sunday 28 September 2008, 9:25 pm #Evil Bill
Mortgage-underwriting quangos like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were “forced” by Evil Bill into relaxing their borrowing criteria.
That’s right, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are my bitches!
Sunday 28 September 2008, 9:30 pm #Bridgit Gread
And did you stain their frocks, EB?
Sunday 28 September 2008, 10:06 pm #Evil Bill
When they wouldn’t swallow they chose to wipe their faces with ‘Old Glory’ and stained a nation