Isn't this one of the main reasons for the financial crisis?

Now, I mentioned in the previous hour a piece that I saw yesterday by Orson Scott Card. Now, this was originally published in the Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, North Carolina, but now it has spread throughout the Internet. I looked him up on the Internet. He is a Democrat. The editor's note here says, "Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and newspaper columnist." He is a full-fledged Democrat. He is pro-gun control. He thinks that the Republican Party in the South is still very racist. But this piece... It's nothing you haven't heard before on this program. It's about the mortgage crisis, but Mr. Card here takes a shot at the media.








"Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights? -- An open letter to the local daily paper -- almost every local daily paper in America: I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know. This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration. It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans. What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.











"The goal of this rule change was to help the poor -- which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house -- along with their credit rating. They end up worse off than before. This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them. Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans.











"(Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.) Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending? I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. 'Housing-gate,' no doubt. Or 'Fannie-gate.'











"Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed. As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay ... 'Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury.' These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was the Democratic Party.











"The party that tried to prevent it was the Republican Party. Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout! What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame? Now let's follow the money right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae. And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.











"If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was. But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an 'adviser' to the Obama campaign -- because that campaign had sought his advice -- you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lyin|||I'm somewhat familiar with the track record of the Democrats as I'm a Member of the Democratic party have been for over 30 years.





I agree with the article and your question totally.





The blame resides totally on the Democratic party, Greenspan, Dodd and Frank and those who supported deregulation of the Financial Industry.





However, the issue of sub-prime loans was tied to an economy that was not suppose to have any declines and that wages would keep up with the rise in Mortgage costs.





This was a complete fallacy. Wages never keep up with the cost of living let alone the cost of mortgages that skyrocketed with fluctuating interested rates.





I honestly believe Frank, Dodd, Bill Clinton and every elected official that held office, holds current office and the executives of every lending institution should be investigated, charged with fraud and declared a threat to our national security for thier gross behavior in fueling this crisis from it's very beginning.





At no time in American History have a group of elected officials caused such crisis to raise its uglly head than in present day.





The fed claims it could cost 65 Trillion to bailout everyone that needs help.





We can't afford this now, or in longterm future debt.





I fear this country may be saddled with a depression that could last 20 to 30 years before we fully recover from this nightmarish crisis.





Good Job for bringing all this to our attention.





|||I have litle actual information about what went down since that law was first put forth in the 90's but I tend to agree that for the democrats to target bush policies as the cause of the problems is untrue. I suggest that as your article says, many we to blame.





But, aside from what you and I both know is probably the truth regarding media coverage, we can all claim to have 20-20 rear vision. Looking in the mirror at the past does not help you to know where you are going in the future...so let's stop placing blame anywhere...and deal with the problem at hand.|||But no one want to hear the truth. They want to be told that it wasn't their fault; they're just helpless victims.





To a point making loans easier for low income people wasn't all that bad an idea. Mostly because like myself who is under the poverty level, I still have to come up with my rent every month and it's as high as an average house payment. But, what really screwed us was that people were buying houses that were twice the cost of what they would have paid if renting and that is where the problem began.





|||During the campaign, Obama was the new and historically relevant candidate and, thus, the newsworthy candidate that was worshiped by the media - McCain was old news.


Any news or issues detrimental to Obama's candidacy was essentially downplayed or completely swept under the rug while an unsubstantiated and untrue article, for instance, accusing McCain of an affair with a lobbyist or labeling Gen Patraeus a liar and a traitor were the norm.


I believe that the liberal agenda in this country has good intentions - unfortunately, they are often very idealistic and don't take into account the unintended consequences of some of their unrealistic attempts of trying to level the economic playing field for all people.





The present toxic loans, foreclosures, bankruptcies and accompanying economic crisis was rearing their ugly heads years ago while some of our esteemed representatives on Capital Hill continued to fill their campaign coffers with the contributions from the likes of Freddy, Fanny, WaMu, AIG and so fourth. These dim wits should answer for their incompetence, at best, and criminal activities, at worst.


Unfortunately, it appears that the fox is indeed in charge of the hen house.