This may be a re-post since this article is the most popular piece on the Washington Post today, but I was so blown away when I saw this article on my FB feed today...
From the article:
The Obama administration is engaged in a broad push to make more home loans available to people with weaker credit, an effort that officials say will help power the economic recovery but that skeptics say could open the door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first place.
...
In response, administration officials say they are working to get banks to lend to a wider range of borrowers by taking advantage of taxpayer-backed programs — including those offered by the Federal Housing Administration — that insure home loans against default.
Seems lessons are hard-learned by our leadership. The best part about this is that, if this sort of lending results in another mega-default by home owners, financial institutions will again bear the brunt of the blame. You can just imagine all the Rachel Maddows of this country clamoring for more regulation and restrictions on lenders. All after the tax payer has footed the bill for this fiasco of course.
Wait, what? You mean the Community Reinvestment Act requiring banks to ensure that a certain percentage of their loans were made to groups of people banks had previously turned down because they were deemed too high a credit risk was a bad idea?
Humans are just doomed to fail. We can't even learn from history that is 5 years old. I'd give Obama credit if he at least tried to find some old, failed policies. Instead he just used recently failed policies.
This is clearly a bad idea, and I don't support it, but for some reason I stay in the Obama boat because: A) He's personable and a fine speaker B) He's black C) He's fucking Barack Obama D) Decently transparent E) Does have some good policies
I'm sure we won't have another President like him nor will we have another Kennedy or Roosevelt, so when his term is done and my heart is broken, I can go back to bashing candidates who make bad decisions.
fixed it.
Hoping this is an attempt to troll.
A, b and c represent the views of most of my liberal friends. Most don't even really consider e.
If it's any consolation, I voted for Mitt because he's white lol
Yeah, basically the standard Obumbles supporter. Racism is always kosher as long as it is supporting a Democrat.
My view is that the government continues to promote subsidizing private investment (loans for less creditworthy borrowers) with public risk (taxpayer insurance). The problem with this is there is an imbalance of interest by the opposing parties - the benefit to the borrower of a subsidized loan is much more tangible and clear than the cost to the taxpayer, who has so many other factors weighing on his political agenda. The taxpayer is just too diversified to focus on something as arcane as mortgage insurance. The same holds true for the average investor, who is too diversified to even vote on proxies, let alone attend shareholder meetings.
This imbalance prevents the best regulator of all - private interest, from taking a stand, and allows for shady behavior on the part of the GSE's (as seen by lack of transparency into their books up to 2008) and corporations (overpaying executives, excess leverage, etc.).
Ideally, I'd like to see Fannie and Freddie exit the housing market entirely. Then I'd break up banks into smaller and more regional firms, and hold them more accountable for the loans they generate. If subsidized loans are to be made, they should come out of a separate pot that has correspondingly higher capital standards, so that it can absord the higher losses without surprisingly slamming the taxpayer.
Double face-palming right now...
At least the top comment (when the Washington Post is generally frequented by liberals) is exactly what all of our (except for the "Obumbles fan" Lambies) response was.
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