The Inquirer published my letter, although they chopped it pretty thoroughly. Here’s the original text for comparison.
The Inquirer took a gratuitous and baseless cheap shot at President Bush in blaming him for the “economic mess - and likely recession” (”Key difference: Iraq,” editorial, last Sunday).
Here are some facts you neglected to note.
The Clinton administration greatly loosened [...]
The Wall Street Journal, seemingly the only media outlet willing to report on Congress’s contributions to the financial mess, compiled a series of direct quotes from Congressional hearings. Some highlights:
House Financial Services Committee hearing, Sept. 25, 2003:
Rep. Frank (D., Mass): I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we [...]
There was a brutally funny piece by Jonah Goldberg in today’s Inquirer. He absolutely goes on the warpath, skewering Republicans and Democrats alike with equal glee. The whole thing is great but the end had me in stiches. Okay, I’ll admit to having an odd sense of humor.
I loathe populism. But if there ever has been a moment [...]
…and Republicans predicting potential catastrophe caused by a Fannie/Freddie failure. I’m not saying Republicans are blameless but in this case they were way better than the Dems. Where’s the media?
Here’s a Foxnews report detailing some of the history of the financial mess. Key items:
1. The Bush administration started warning about Fannie and Freddie in 2001 and proposed detailed reforms in 2003. The Democrats, particularly Barney Frank, blocked them.
2. In 2005 Alan Greenspan warned of the potential wide spread economic disaster without reforms and John McCain cosponsored [...]
Here is an interesting video detailing the causes of the financial mess. Since the media isn’t willing to do it’s job, someone else had to do it for them. Hat tip to Newbie Shooter.
A couple details I was unaware of:
1. The law firm Obama worked for sued banks if they were not making a sufficient number [...]
Here is the March 2008 press release for Q4 2007 results from OFHEO annoucing that Fannie and Freddie are just peachy. That’s the same OFHEO that Barney Frank blocked reforms of in 2003, saying Fannie and Freddie “are not facing any kind of financial crisis.” Job well done Barney. Keep up the good work.
The Wall Street Journal reminded us recently that Elliot Spitzer, then Attorney General of New York, sued and regulated them nearly out of existence on Wall Street. You know about analysts right? Those are the guys who used to evaluate companies, industries and deals to assess potential returns and risk. It turns out that there [...]
There are several points that the media is ignoring.
First, the Clinton administration loosened the rules for mortgage qualifications to make “the dream of home ownership” available to more people. Simultaneously left wing groups were assaulting lenders if the groups felt a lender wasn’t doing enough to funnel mortgage money to a particular constituency. Good intentions [...]