Posted by Tina
A former member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) has written a tell-all book that asserts political cover-up and protection for key Democrats in Congress and the roll government played in the financial crisis. Investors Business Daily covers details from Peter Wallison’s new book, “Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused the World’s Worst Financial Crisis and Why It Could Happen Again”:
Subprime Scandal: We’ve long suspected the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission wasn’t honest in examining events before the meltdown. But an ex-commissioner says the probe was actually a full-blown political cover-up.
In a just-released book, former FCIC member Peter Wallison says that a Democratic Congress worked with the commission’s Democratic chairman to whitewash the government’s central role in the mortgage debacle. The conspiracy helped protect some of the Democrats’ biggest stars from scrutiny and accountability while helping justify the biggest government takeover of the financial sector since the New Deal.
Wallison’s sobering, trenchantly written “Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused the World’s Worst Financial Crisis and Why It Could Happen Again” reveals that the Democrat-led panel buried key data proving that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and other federal agencies pushed the housing market over the subprime cliff. The final FCIC report put the blame squarely on Wall Street.
In 2009, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed her California pal Phil Angelides, a long-time Democrat operative, to lead the commission. The fix seemed to be in, and Wallison’s account of the inner workings of the 10-member body confirms it.
We will here more about this in the weeks and months to come.
I read something recently about car loans being made in this same, bubble creating fashion. Yes friends, the goal of the “fundamental transformers” (progressives, liberals) is to redistribute wealth until every one of us is left only with what the government allows us to have. Progressive political schemes must be stopped because…
That’s not America!
IBD gets it right. Thanks Tina.
Off Topic —
Bill Whittle: Number One With A Bullet
http://www.truthrevolt.org/videos/bill-whittle-number-one-bullet
Off Topic Heads Up: Crazy California
California judges will no longer be allowed to participate in nonprofit youth groups, such as the Boy Scouts of America, that discriminate against LGBT people.
At the same time the justices lifted a ban on judges belonging to a military organization now that gays and lesbians can serve openly in the U.S. Armed Services. The change comes as transgender individuals are still barred from becoming service members, though the policy is reportedly under review.
http://ebar.com/blogs/ca-judges-cut-ties-with-the-boy-scouts-of-america-due-to-lgbt-issues/
Whatever happened to freedom of association and the concept of guilt by association?
Bill whittle, the man with the guns/murders/gun control numbers, rocks!
Re: Judges…agreed Pie. Looks like the LGBT community has hit the tyranny jackpot. They sure don’t seem to have respect for the rights of others.
That’s not America!
This is NUTS! Just more cronyism and wasting our tax dollars by this administration.
The IRS Hired the Same Company That Botched The Healthcare.gov Rollout:
“The Internal Revenue Service is under investigation by an oversight subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee for signing a $4.46 million contract with a Canadian company called CGI Federal – despite the fact that the same company was responsible for the disastrous launch of HealthCare.gov.
Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., sent a letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen provide “assurance that taxpayer dollars are being put to their highest and best use.”
Roskam reminded Koskinen that CGI Federal had already been fired by the Department of Health and Human Services, Vermont and Massachusetts for their failure to rollout websites associated with the Affordable Care Act in an efficient fashion.
“I am concerned that just months after the HHS and Massachusetts firings, the IRS selected the same contractor to provide critical technology services related to the administration of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” Roskam wrote.”
http://dailysignal.com/2015/01/24/irs-hired-company-botched-healthcare-gov-rollout/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
Peggy government is nuts because they always deal with other peoples money AND because they can benefit friends, relatives, and donors! This company has a long, shady history.
Wasn’t this company also connected to the White House in some way?
Yes, through an old classmate on the payroll. The contract was supposedly awarded through competitive bid but records show she visited the WH several times which smacks of favoritism in competitive bidding which is a no no.
Oh brother. Wallison is a political activist who has been pushing deregulation and the Big Lie that Freddie and Fannie caused the bust since forever. It is a proven fact that unregulated banks were behind the majority of subprime loans. His accusations don’t hold water.
“Proven fact” Chris is a political activist.
Chris as always doesn’t have a clue much less the truth on his side. Chris you are nothing if not an output machine for the radical left scum that came up with the schemes. They positioned to make themselves richer and buy more votes. They built a house of cards that was bound to collapse. Did they care about the devastation to families, particularly black and minority families? He77 no! Radical Democrats don’t think beyond their own narcissistic ambitions.
It is NOT a proven fact that “unregulated banks” were behind the majority of sub-prime loans. That is radical leftist spin to cover up their disastrously flawed scheme. Banks have always been regulated. Under the scheme they were forced to accept stupid regulations that created a housing bubble and credit crisis! The were told it was okay because they could bundle bad loans and sell them to F & F, thus removing the risk to them. Since F&F are backed by the government, what could go wrong? (Dumb $***$)
The accusations not only hold water, they hold enough water to drown the unscrupulous people in the Democrat Party who devised and personally benefited from an underhanded scheme. It forced bad regulation and bundling “backed by the government”. What farce! To further cover for the mess they made they went on to punish banks that were not involved in bad loans but agreed to absorb the debt of other banks in order to reverse conditions and save the day.
Oh brother indeed! The mess they made is still negatively impacting the lives of people across the world today. It’s time, long passed time, for these jerks to be fully exposed!
Deregulation, a word devised by radical leftists to deceive people. it’s usually used when they have made a major error in “changing” regulations and they need to control the narrative!
“It is NOT a proven fact that “unregulated banks” were behind the majority of sub-prime loans.”
Yes, it is. But you know that already.
“More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that’s being lambasted by conservative critics.”
I have asked you multiple times: if you have my evidence that CRA-compliant banks were more likely to issue subprime loans than non-CRA-compliant banks, present it. That is the only way to prove your case that the CRA was responsible for the crisis. Until you present such evidence, then it stands as factual that banks not subject to the CRA were primarily responsible for the crisis. These banks weren’t “forced” to do anything. They made predatory loans for their own reasons.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/10/12/53802/private-sector-loans-not-fannie.html
Chris for heavens sake please understand the government (Democrats in this case) put the regulations and laws in place that made all of this possible.
Small lenders don’t have the power to make law or set regulations. They didn’t decide on their own to lower lending standards. They were not regulators turning the other way. They did business in the fashion their government said they should! Buyers came out of the wood work. Bubble!
The stupid regulations that made making loans cheap, easy as pie to get, with “limited” risk through bundling bought by Fannie and Freddie and “backed ” by the government was conceived and executed by Democrats without regard to unintended consequences.
When the cards tumbled they got busy covering their tracks. You swallow their story whole; that’s your right.
This whistle blower, who served on the investigative commission, would like you and I to know about what actually happened in that commission.
I would think you could muster mild interest. But Noooo! Too busy being smart. So much easier to blame banks. (They’re rich)
Tina,
The vast majority of subprime loans were issued by banks which did not have to comply with the CRA.
Unless you can dispute this point, your claim that the banks were “forced” to issue bad loans by the government is bunk.
Chris, unfortunately the term “forced” is rather subjective. There were many applications of varying degrees of coercion the “encouraged” banks to issue subprime loans. However, my research indicates that the CRA was not the proximate cause of the mortgage crisis and if that much is important to you, then we agree.
“There were many causes of the crisis, with commentators assigning different levels of blame to financial institutions, regulators, credit agencies, government housing policies, and consumers, among others.[5] A proximate cause was the rise in subprime lending. The percentage of lower-quality subprime mortgages originated during a given year rose from the historical 8% or lower range to approximately 20% from 2004 to 2006, with much higher ratios in some parts of the U.S.[6][7] A high percentage of these subprime mortgages, over 90% in 2006 for example, were adjustable-rate mortgages.[4] These two changes were part of a broader trend of lowered lending standards and higher-risk mortgage products.[4][8] Further, U.S. households had become increasingly indebted, with the ratio of debt to disposable personal income rising from 77% in 1990 to 127% at the end of 2007, much of this increase mortgage-related.[9]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_policies_and_the_subprime_mortgage_crisis
Chris Banks MUST comply (that’s force) with the regulations.
The lending institutions you refer to were not prevented from following these regulations, indeed, the lowered qualifying standards created a fabulous opportunity for any lending institution to make a pile of money making loans at very low risk to them. Why low risk? Because they could bundle all loans and sell them to Fannie and Freddie.
When standards for qualifying for a loan are lowered to the ridiculous, there will be a high number of bad loans in those bundled securities. Loans were given to people that didn’t have money down or a good credit history. They were given to people that were not working! They were given to speculators hoping to flip the houses as the value rose. Easy lending conditions created a buying frenzy that looked fabulous on the way up.
Bush warned Congress year after year to do something at F & F to prevent a crisis. In 2006 when Democrats took over the House his warnings were not only ignored but the stupid practices and GEO’s were vociferously defended by Barney Frank. It’s incredible that Frank was given the responsibility to write new regulations for banks after such a colossal failure on his part to protect the American people. The new regulations are complex, pages and pages with many of them stupid. The new regulations do NOTHING to reform F & F.
I can not only dispute your explanation, which was determined by observing over a narrow time frame, I can, and have, explained exactly how and why this crash, which continues to affect individual lives today, was a direct result of stupid progressive housing and lending policy through unintended consequences and nefarious goings on at F & F.
Guess what? This administration continues to pressure banks to make loans using lowered standards.
This was from leftist lawyer Jonathan Turley in 2013:
I saw a report a few days ago about car loans being made with the same ridiculous standards.
The regulations Turly refers to require banks to hold very high cash reserves. I’m not aware of any changes that allow or order lenders and banks to adopt smarter lending practices.
The Democrats and Obama made these stupid rules, shoved all of the responsibility on banks, and covered for the egregious goings on at Fannie and Freddie. The administration continues to redistribute wealth through the same disastrous policy.
I hope this book helps to further expose what went on before the crisis.
“Chris Banks MUST comply (that’s force) with the regulations.”
Not all banks must comply with the CRA, which is the regulation conservatives have put most of the blame on. The banks that did not have to comply with the CRA made most of the bad loans. CRA loans were much less likely to default.
Again, you know all this, so your attempts to ignore these facts just come across as desperate. But then, you just got done saying that the extinction of the human race is a “logical possible conclusion” of gay marriage, so you’ll go to pretty much any lengths to hold on to your biases regardless of logic of facts.