Bush Threw You Out of Your Home

I heard recently that 1 in 7 families are being foreclosed on due to the sub-prime lending mess.  I've read as many articles as I can trying to understand exactly how and why this is happening. Many of the articles are so convoluted and it seems you have to be almost an economic expert to truly understand the how, what, why and when of it all.

No matter how many articles I read, I just could not find out the root cause. I mean, not just bad lending practices, or questionable banks.  I wanted to understand exactly from nickel one how it happened.

Then.......I caught this piece on Crooks and Liars by John Amato and it all made sense to me.

The Bush administration knew exactly what they were doing when they dug up an obscure banking clause of 1863.

   

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

   The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers. In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative.

So essentially the Bush administration worked with the banking industry, then of course dumped too much cheap money and credit into the market, causing a super bubble that racked up debt faster than you can say "shit on a cracker"

And wasn't it all so wonderful how soon the bankrupt laws changed directly  so that the creditors would get their pound of flesh when things started to tank, and then used an obscure tactic to protect the banks for predatory lending practices as well.

Well.........I finally get it.  Maybe I'm dense, because I don't know a junk bond from a whole in the ground, but after I read this information I had to take a pill just to get down off the ceiling.  

I can't imagine any human being doing this to another on purpose.  I just can't.  And look at the domino effect it has had not only on our own economy but the rest of the world.  

What a bunch of worthless reptiles and vampires these bottom feeding scum are.  I keep trying to picture some little brown nosed sniffing nerd going through some old "Banking Law Books" with spider webs and dust all over them, then Ureeeeeeeka !!!  He find the old obscure 1863 law.  What did he do when he found it?  Who did he take it to? What kind of a promotion did he get?

Avarice is one of the 7 deadly sins.  Good luck George, because St. Peter has a really big surprise for you, and since you love coal mining so much, I think you're going to love your new job where you end up. Coal keeps the fires burning down below.  Personally, I would just hand him right over to all the families that have been thrown out of their homes.

Killing untold hundreds of thousands of people in the world is just not enough misery for George W. Bush.  The more misery he has, the more he wants. What a miserable SOB.

•  Tip/Jar

  Its really too much, I tell you....

  Badabing

  by Badabing on Sat Feb 16, 2008 at 10:59:21 PM PDT

•  How Long before his own "peeps" call for impeach

  ment of their #1 guy. When all of the economy collapse starts crawling up the hill to the doors of the well to do they will be out for blood. How long will the middle class and upper middle class tolerate this guy dry humping them? He is stealing from you no different than any other robber he sneaks in using stealth banking rules and WMD lies for cover (his version of darkness) and robs all of the money out of your pocket. If he had walked up and pointed a gun at you and said "give me all your money" you would kick the shit out of him and Dickey but because they do it with paperwork you sit and take this shit. The rich and just wish they were rich of this country are especially stoopid.

  by barbybuddy on Sat Feb 16, 2008 at 11:26:05 PM PDT

•  my guess

  my guess that 1 in 7 is why to high a figure, 1 in 70  or 1/700 I would think would be more accurate. still a big mess either way.

  by dark daze on Sat Feb 16, 2008 at 11:36:28 PM PDT

•  Alan Greenspan

  I remember watching one of Alan Greenspan's testimony sessions before Congress, where he chided homeowners for continuing to take fixed rate mortgages in a time of stable interest rates, instead of adjustible rate mortgages that would save them money.  My husband and I looked at each other and laughed.  I think Greenspan saw the rejection of ARM's as a rejection of his work, that people had no faith that things would remain stable.  For my husband and I, we would never consider an ARM unless we knew we would be moving before it adjusted.  This is far from the first time this has happened with ARM's, even with the deceptive and predatory abuses perpetrated by many lenders.  We consider the slight additional cost of a fixed rate mortgage to be a risk premium, and it is repaid in full everytime we hear about people's ARM's adjusting well beyond what they would have paid with a fixed rate mortgage.

  Virtually all of these subprime mortgages were originated as ARM's, often with teaser rates that made it possible for people to get into homes, but not stay there once the mortgages adjusted to market rates, even if mortgage rates remained stable.  In my opinion, the government needs to forbid the use of teaser rates that deceptively make the mortgage appear cheaper than it is.

  by noice on Sat Feb 16, 2008 at 11:55:06 PM PDT

  •  there are two people who can use ARMS

    1.  military or other scheduled short timers.

    you work for the army or IBM and you are on a scheduled 3 year
    assignment.  the ARM is a great deal and you will be selling
    before it resets

    2. you have an equal amount of liquid investments and the ARM

    lets you pay a smaller premium

    everyone else is taking a big risk

    by nathguy on Sun Feb 17, 2008 at 05:59:06 AM PDT

  •  Greenspan knew what they were doing and

    the Bush Whitehouse is just down right evil.  I truly believe in conspiracies, isn't that what Watergate was, a huge Conspiracy, operated by every Division from the White House to the FBI, NSA, and CIA.  

    Bush and Company planned this long before they got in office, to start wars, crush the Middle and Low Class people, the Shock Doctrine Effect, so we all will be scared to death and bow down to the Dictator.  Th problem is this, they are completely incompetent and never realized most of their plans would be exposed eventually.  

    The really sad part is they have there fingers in so many things they are involved in, beyond believe globally, the news if they would report it, could never cover all of it.

    Thank you for the article, I always knew there was a plan from the White House, just didn't know exactly how they did it.  As I said before, The House of Bush, is just down right evil.  The only Hope we can have is eventually it will Fall, Evil always does.

    by pjbamerica on Sun Feb 17, 2008 at 09:14:01 AM PDT

•  None of it made sense

  In the 70s, our state had a fixed interest rate ceiling of 8%. No bank could charge us over 8%, which worked until the neighboring states started charging 10%.  Our banks refused to lend money, saying they weren't making money.  No one could buy a home, unless you took a variable rate, which because of the ceiling couldn't go over 8%. You couldn't buy a car or use a credit card.

  The whole state voted to lift the ceiling and the bankers won and the ceiling was lifted. A lot of people voted to raise the interest ceiling, too, they wanted to borrow. Our variable rate went up immediately.  

  Constant complaints were heard from bankers, because the banks were stuck with a lot of home mortgages with 5% to 8% interest rates. The federal discount rate was about 4 to 4 and 1/2 percent, then.

  I wondered how the banks could suddenly loan at lower rates for 30 year mortgages.  The opinion makers said that the low interest rates made buying expensive homes affordable.  

  About the same time Greenspan figured out a 'better way' the 401k advisor told everyone at work not to take any new mortgages, that lenders were putting in a variable rate clause, but they were not telling the borrowers.

  I blogged on a financial network back then that the government was insuring these homes and we would be stuck with the bill   The banks, who were so careful about credit when they kept the loans, found they could sell the loans.  Where before they would almost control housing prices by insisting on low loan appraisals and checked your employment and your credit for weeks before you could qualify for a loan, then started loaning too much, to people who they knew couldn't afford it. The more they loaned the more percentage they got had closing and then on reselling the loan.

  I am not sure, but I don't think that Fannie and Freddie and FHA did that. FHA will loan to people who are good pay but are not always earning enough to make the average payment. Their payment is based on their income. As they earn more then their mortgage payment goes up.  They charge less interest and the loans are guaranteed by the government. If a borrower sells the home before it is paid for, FHA gets the profit from the home sale.  It is strictly a program to help people who want to own a home, not flip houses. I am not sure how Freddie and Fannie work. The last I heard Paulson and gang were trying to dump the subprime loans on these places.

  Some say that Secretary Treasury Paulson, who worked for Goldman Sachs, made a billion dollars last year, at least part of which was selling sub prime loans.  Now he is leading the "Greed is good crowd" in trying to push all the losses off on the taxpayer while the brokerage houses keep their profits.

  by relentless on Sun Feb 17, 2008 at 03:06:45 AM PDT

•  Not 1 in 7

  But the foreclosure problem is very serious and, yes, this was just another way that the banks figured out to take all of your money.  They got too greedy and now the thing is imploding.

  by bink on Sun Feb 17, 2008 at 05:18:07 AM PDT