The Stimulus Package

[D_Raay]

The more I think about this and the more I read about it the harder this is getting to swallow.

This bill is like some mutant creature with the head of a noble horse and the body of a viper. So while it may appeal to some extent some of the time it is still some creature.

I very rarely find myself aligned with anyone on the right, however the more I think about that the more I realize this is just reality for me. Maybe the fear of aligning with the right has actually clouded my judgement on the whole thing and prevented me from seeing this bill clearly from the start. I am actually ashamed a little.

It would be very sad to see Obama fail, but fail he just might. The partisanship and infighting within our government have inflicted wounds too deep to heal and the effect is that they simply have become completely out of touch with the people of this country. It is us who suffers while they bicker and sit on their white horses.

Well, that's just my 2 cents.

[yeahwho]

I truly believe we've fucked the pooch and exhausted every avenue of scams left to get money from each citizen in the United States into the richest peoples hands on earth. Now that those avenues have benn exhausted the politicians are deciding to put into law another debt upon all US citizens regardless of your involvement in corporate rape or irresponsible loaning practices.

I wouldn't cozy up too close to the republicans on this debacle, if they truly gave a shit about our welfare, why the fuck did they not once stand up up Bush during his complete dismantling of our economy? They have no answer other than the tired old line of "fiscally conservative" which now has turn into an oxymoron.

[D_Raay]

Oh don't get me wrong, I am definitely not cozying up to the republicans, it just so happens that some of them are right by default. I don't think they are right for the same reason I think they are right, they just happen to be right on some things about this bill.

You hit the nail on the head yeahwho. It IS about how they can keep the cash IV in place<very matrix-like which is stunningly ironic>.

I think the evidence of this is shown in how they approached this bill. In no way does this bill guarantee any financial relief for the citizens in this country who are struggling financially, rather it ensures the system can keep chugging along. The same system which is now cracking and failing due to it's greed and incompetency. I wish I could be rewarded for being incompetent and morally inept.

[yeahwho]

I wish I could be rewarded for being incompetent and morally inept.

LOL, yep if your anything like me you would be filthy rich. Unfortunately I have every fault that the corporate structure has except the antisocial personality disorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder). Therefore I'm pretty low on the bailout/stimulus plan.

It is, as I've said before, "Reverse Robinhood' rob from the poor and give to the rich.

[b i o n i c]

i gotcha stimulus package right here

[chromium05]

This legislation was 1000 pages long.

Did ANYONE read the full document in the short time given? What is in there wrapped up in all the bull sh*t?

What happened to Obama's "transparency" whereby he stated that all bills would be posted online for 5 days so the public had chance to read them and contact their senators and representatives?

You all know it's all bullsh*t. New Hampshire seems to ( see recent post in politics section)

Guillotines at the ready...( there are people in Europe actually making guillotines again now - maybe some yanks ought to borrow some designs and get to work yourselves.)

[chromium05]

Ahh - THIS (http://www.rense.com/general85/outrage.htm) was hidden in it.

So now all your hospitals and doctors are to treat and prescribe as federal government dictates or face penalties.

Watch out for seemingly unnecessary injections people.....

[D_Raay]

And so it goes...

The good guys won did they? There are no good guys here, the only thing to fear is our own government. I really feel now as if there are two America's, one for us, and one they created that we are not allowed to be a part of. And we foot the bill for both. That is the kicker, WE foot the bill.

I'm not prone to profanity, but hey at some point don't we all have to say "fuck you assholes, no more"?

[taquitos]

has anyone said "i got your stimulus package right here" yet?





oh, right... good work, carry on.

[Schmeltz]

Watch out for seemingly unnecessary injections people.....

Oh for Christ's sake. Like they'll be beating down doors to force microchips under the skin of Middle Americans or something? Firing all the Jewish doctors? You and fucktopgirl should get together, I hear Jenny McCarthy's got a lot to say about this issue.


rather it ensures the system can keep chugging along.


Well, yeah. You Americans didn't build a new train, you only changed engineers. And what else did you expect? That's how elections work. The man has been President for twenty-eight days. His antecedent occupied the office for eight years. Obama cannot simply create a new system from thin air, rather he is necessarily beholden in many ways to the system as it stands, including many of its more wide-ranging dysfunctionalities. The machine he has to work with, the only tool at his disposal for the restoration of national economic prosperity, is the monstrous, bloated, tottering edifice of bureaucracy spawned by the Bushies. The machine that left people to drown in New Orleans, the machine that sacrificed its own soldiers to a useless war, the machine that fostered the current economic climate that Obama is now expected to miraculously solve without either compromising with or irritating anybody else.

What's really remarkable is the results that Obama has been able to glean from this malfunctioning governmental mechanism. So far as I can tell the USA's stimulus package is essentially the same as any of the others drawn up by the other major economies in response to the economic meltdown - a massive injection of public funds into primary sectors and institutions responsible for large swathes of economic well-being, along with an assumption of responsibility for "toxic" assets that can't just be written off as though they don't exist. The only real difference seems to be one of scale, unless you count the remarkably short span of time in which the brand new overseers of the most complex political organ in human history have drafted and voted on this legislation. It leaves me wondering exactly what you guys are complaining about - isn't government oversight of and direct involvement with the economy a guiding principle of leftist politics anyway? So what else would you call this? Is your beef that Obama isn't punishing the rich enough for their transgressions? What should he do, arrest everyone from a certain income level and upwards? Investigate the proceedings and history of every corporate body in America before he makes a decision?

The economic problems that are currently afflicting global society are of an order of magnitude absolutely without precedence in human history, and moreover they are taking place in a context of ever-increasing rapidity in the development of human relations in general. Obama and his government are reacting to a crisis in as genuine and timely a manner as their circumstances permit, and it seems to me that they are doing so in a manner much more efficient and transparent than that typical of the preceding administration. The man's only got so much to work with and lambasting him for not instantly solving all the world's problems in a suitably progressive and open-minded manner is very shortsighted and superficial.

And for the record guillotines have lost a lot of their shock value in this day and age. Seeing someone get decapitated on tape got old years ago. Making more guillotines would only serve to further demonstrate how archaic and obsolete some people can be in their purely ideological opposition to the reality of events.

[D_Raay]

I am of the mind now, after watching this system chug along for many years, that it has come time to let it fail if it will. I don't believe it will necessarily, rather a grand weeding out effect might take place, which is sorely needed.

I understand Obama has a monumental job ahead of him and one can't expect major progress right away. It's just my personal take that he is approaching this problem all wrong. Instead of creating more and more debt incurred upon the largely innocent American public, he should simply stand back and let the powers that got us into this mess flail away and drown themselves. I mean they have proven that this is just what they will do if given enough rope. Something about these guys is akin to Don Quixote, so let it be, let it happen. Saving these people is foolish, and asking us to do it is insulting.

[b i o n i c]

i cant believe there arent more 'stimulus package' jokes in here(n)

[chromium05]

Oh for Christ's sake. Like they'll be beating down doors to force microchips under the skin of Middle Americans or something? Firing all the Jewish doctors? You and fucktopgirl should get together, I hear Jenny McCarthy's got a lot to say about this issue.

Don't be a cunt.

Cunt.

[Bob]

Ahh - THIS (http://www.rense.com/general85/outrage.htm) was hidden in it.

So now all your hospitals and doctors are to treat and prescribe as federal government dictates or face penalties.

Watch out for seemingly unnecessary injections people.....

that's a pretty vague description. can't patients still refuse treatments they don't like? does this mean that doctors are being deprived of their individual liberties to be bribed by pharmaceutical companies? outrageous.

[chromium05]

^^ I would say it looks as though Government is taking away the bribe part and saying to the medical professionals that they must prescribe as the pharmacuticals dictate and treat patients as some accountant says or face penalties.

Just out of interest, can anyone give a guide as to the cost to the individual of medical insurance and the cost of various treatments?

I am in the UK and I only pay for prescriptions. I am severely asthmatic and am admitted to hospital a few times a year for about a week at a time - plus using steroids daily for my lungs and salbutomol as a reliever, and occassionally inhalable steroids via nebulizer when things get very bad. I am trying to figure out how much it would cost me in the states for the same treatments for a disease that is lifelong.

cheers

[checkyourprez]

i would like to see some of these greedy myopic companies that deserve to go out of business but will be saved by the stimulus bill actually go out of business.

but honestly that would do so much damage to our economy and the worlds economy. not to mention the massive job loses and the burden that would be placed on the people of this country to help said out of work people with numerous social welfare programs. even the republicans previously in office knew that the country was in a rut (even though bush didnt want to/triend not to admit it until it was so painfully obvious he had no other option) knew there was no longer a way to not act. they were all for the bank package. they knew it was necessary.

the republican minority knew the stimulus bill was going to pass anyway but voted strictly on partisan lines because they knew it wouldnt matter. the fucked up part is they were the same republicans (for the most part) who voted for the bush bank bills. so what is up with that? why yes on banks, no on this? this is a big deal with massive implications that would affect countless amounts of people, something has to be attempted. thats the tough part about being president, there is no manual, and a lot of tough decisions are on that mans shoulders. he can be guided by many motives. but with whats going on in our nation today there is NOTHING that could make our president not try and do something that he feels is 100% totally in the best interests of this country. if he fails a lot of people are fucked. it doesnt matter if your a republican or democrat at that point, they share a common ground, they're fucked. but if he succeeds, America is a better place, for EVERYONE in it.

[Adam]

I wonder how many swimming pools you could fill with 787bn $1 bills?

Do you think Scrooge McDuck would swim in it? Even tho it might be dirty.

Or if they found a way to extract the cocaine that there is apparently on most paper money and sell it back to the dealers would create a bit of cash to. You wouldn't have to spend $787bn then, you just need to have it.

The more this goes on, the more these big numbers mean less. Should I feel shocked at the amount? I can't even imagine it. The same way I can't imagine what it feels like to stand on the surface of the sun if I had a suit that could stand those sort of temperatures.

The mind boggles.

[saz]

the stimulus package is a great idea but it should be much larger than it actually is, and perhaps more than one, in order to initiate an actual widespread, serious economic recovery.

[Pres Zount]

Apparently every single Australian will be receiving 42 billion dollars from the government. I for one could use this sort of money.

[taquitos]

the stimulus package is a great idea but it should be much larger than it actually is

speak for yourself

[saz]

dude, i am speaking for myself.

i just can't believe that people are upset over obama trying to help normal americans, by trying to create jobs and provide assistance with this stimulus package. meanwhile, george w. bush and the republican party just spent the last eight years (along with help from some cowardly democrats) completely fucking the nation up the ass. the illegal iraq war and occupation is costing us taxpayers a trillion dollars. that money could have been used to rebuild practically every road and bridge in the country, as well as provide universal healthcare while rebuilding the nation's crumbling infrastructure. bush's tax cuts for the wealthy also bankrupted the country. they also borrowed and spent and fought two wars on credit like there was no tomorrow. in addition, it was senator phil gramm who initiated the predatory lending the subprime mortage crisis, which has resulted in practically millions of americans losing their homes and being royally screwed. and of course, bush and his cronies also committed treason by outing valerie plame, okayed torture and illegal wiretapping.

another kicker is of course bush and paulson handing over billions of unregulated taxpayer dollars over to the slimebag ceos and bankers whose bankrupted banks needed to be bailed out. and then these dirtbags had the audacity to reward themselves with pay bonuses and private jets. it's astounding. bush and paulson gave these assholes not only a blank cheque, but it's your money which is bailing them out and rewarding them for their corporate criminality.

death to moochy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiioO6WhaKM)

[Schmeltz]

but honestly that would do so much damage to our economy and the worlds economy. not to mention the massive job loses and the burden that would be placed on the people of this country to help said out of work people with numerous social welfare programs.

this is a big deal with massive implications that would affect countless amounts of people, something has to be attempted. thats the tough part about being president, there is no manual, and a lot of tough decisions are on that mans shoulders. he can be guided by many motives. but with whats going on in our nation today there is NOTHING that could make our president not try and do something that he feels is 100% totally in the best interests of this country.

Thank you for that dose of pragmatism, mang. Elected officials are not put in power for the sake of standing by and doing nothing, and allowing massive economic and social systems to collapse in the hope that something better will come along, maybe. That's negligent and irresponsible, and I don't think anyone voted for Obama because they hoped he would be negligent and irresponsible.

And speaking of which, I also think sazi has a good point - it would be a significant cultural step forward if the people ultimately responsible for this debacle, ie the corrupt and incompetent Bushies who ran the USA into the ground to begin with, were prosecuted and punished for their actions instead of being allowed to walk away. Obama made a genuine effort at bipartisanship and was rejected by the ever-obsolescent and ideological GOP. They had their chance, and have shown that they are not interested in compromise or cooperation for the sake of the country. Now he should take off the gloves and show them that if they're not prepared for reconciliation they should prepare for retribution.

[RobMoney$]

The way I see it,...

You got two choices on what you can do,

1. Pay back the amount of money you borrowed for your mortgage
or
2. Don't pay, and have Obama re-adjust the price you owe.

What's it going to be, Hmmm?
I've been refreshing my online mortgage statement since Thursday.
So far, it only reflects January's payment. C'MON OBAMA!!!

I feel like such an idiot at this point for never missing a payment and living within my means throughout the decade.

I'm demanding he extends this program to stocks.
If I buy a stock at $50 a share and it drops to $40, Obama should re-imbuse me for that $10 a share.

Credit Card debt...
The value of everything I purchased on the cards has fallen. Hell, some of it was spent on beer and that ceased to have value the moment I drank it! I demand my credit card debt be written down too Obama!!!

Car Loans, my Ford Edge dropped at least $5 grand in value the minute I drove it off the lot.
Someone's gonna have to compensate me, and I'm looking at you Mr. President.


It gives me such a patriotic feeling to be rewarding the biggest idiots in our country.
I mean did people really think those low interest, triple reverse mortgages from Quicken Loans that they saw a commercial for while watching Jerry Springer were a good idea?
Now it's our responsibility to help these dopes by modifying their mortgages?
What makes you believe these people will be able to meet the new modified price? I predict that in less than a year these people will be in the same mess they're in now, all over again.
Credit Card companies make millions, no make that billions off of these dead beats every year by roping them into 28% interest credit cards knowing that they can't afford to even pay the monthly interest, let alone pay down the principal.

So when you get to the base of all of this, what we have to ask ourselves is this,
Will this effectively stabilize the market and our economy?
I seriously don't know if it will, but I have to doubt it.

[D_Raay]

I would have to agree with RobMoney, mostly.

I am all for helping people who need it, but I will not get behind something that helps out the very people who perpetuated this disaster.

Blaming the people who thought they could afford a loan that they couldn't is not a viable argument however. The people who created these loans knew full well what they were doing, it's their business to know, whereas the public is largely ignorant to such things.

Call me irresponsible if you will; call it pragmatism to appease the people while petting the assholes; I don't care.

What should happen is everything should be put on hold until a full investigation of everything that lead up to this mess can be conducted starting with Bush and his cronies.

Then we can talk about stimulus. What's the point of acting quickly and rashly when you can't even be sure you won't be perpetuating what has already transpired?

[HAL 9000]

The way I see it,...

You got two choices on what you can do,

1. Pay back the amount of money you borrowed for your mortgage
or
2. Don't pay, and have Obama re-adjust the price you owe.

What's it going to be, Hmmm?
I've been refreshing my online mortgage statement since Thursday.
So far, it only reflects January's payment. C'MON OBAMA!!!

I feel like such an idiot at this point for never missing a payment and living within my means throughout the decade.

I'm demanding he extends this program to stocks.
If I buy a stock at $50 a share and it drops to $40, Obama should re-imbuse me for that $10 a share.

Credit Card debt...
The value of everything I purchased on the cards has fallen. Hell, some of it was spent on beer and that ceased to have value the moment I drank it! I demand my credit card debt be written down too Obama!!!

Car Loans, my Ford Edge dropped at least $5 grand in value the minute I drove it off the lot.
Someone's gonna have to compensate me, and I'm looking at you Mr. President.


It gives me such a patriotic feeling to be rewarding the biggest idiots in our country.
I mean did people really think those low interest, triple reverse mortgages from Quicken Loans that they saw a commercial for while watching Jerry Springer were a good idea?
Now it's our responsibility to help these dopes by modifying their mortgages?
What makes you believe these people will be able to meet the new modified price? I predict that in less than a year these people will be in the same mess they're in now, all over again.
Credit Card companies make millions, no make that billions off of these dead beats every year by roping them into 28% interest credit cards knowing that they can't afford to even pay the monthly interest, let alone pay down the principal.

So when you get to the base of all of this, what we have to ask ourselves is this,
Will this effectively stabilize the market and our economy?
I seriously don't know if it will, but I have to doubt it.

You make a good point and you are probably right. Unfortunately, those of us who have lived within our means and paid our debts are going to be screwed over by reckless lenders and borrowers either way. There is no way out, not our fault but we will have to pay the consequences.

So the question is, what should we do if the best course of action to help the prudent is to bail out the reckless? Should we all drown together to punish those responcible and teach them a lesson or should try to save everybody, even those who are to blame - there appears to be no middle way?

Either you give money to lenders to allow them to keep the economy going despite their bad debts (bail out - yuk) or you give it to borrowers to keep them going despite their bad debt (moral hazard - yuk!) or both (double yuk)

To be honest, this whole thing has me baffled and I dont know what the right thing to do is. We will probably never know. No stimulous package is going to make the problems go away and we will never know how bad things would have been if things had been done differently.

So far, I think it is fair to say that Government intervention has not freed up markets in the way hoped. There have been small improvements but so far it seems to me that the various government inititives are not working. No lending means no investment which means no research no development and no economic growth.

I dont know the details of the stimulous package and was not aware of this mortgage repayment adjustment - it sounds like a bad idea to me, job stimulation would seem like a good idea to me, go Keynesian and build some damn schools, hospitals and freeways (not sure you right wing Americans tolerate that sort of things though:)).

By my calculations, economic growth has been largely driven by borrowing (rather than innnovation) since about 2002, now we have to pay the piper (or something).

[yeahwho]

It sure is a slippery slope out there, blaming Obama for any of this is equal to blaming Obama for Katrina, he did not create this mess.

I am still living my life as normally as I can, but I have noticed the bill collectors are in a competing mode. Not only are they seeing more and more people just not pay, cable, phone, electric, gas, auto, mortgage payments are stopping on a scale larger than anyone in this current generation ever imagined.

Our union agreed to a wage freeze which is good for business, yet our union also increased our dues. The garbage rates have gone up as well as many other utilities here in Washington. Speaking of which my county voted for a multi-billion dollar transit system that also tagged property taxes out of reach for those teetering either way, buying losing or staying in a shelter.

I just opened a line of credit last week for $2000 and spent it on a trip to L.A. I am as Frank Rich so clearly puts it in today's NYTimes in denial.

What We Don’t Know Will Hurt Us (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/opinion/22rich.html?_r=1)

Steroids, torture, lies from the White House, civil war in Iraq, even recession: that’s just a partial glossary of the bad-news vocabulary that some of the country, sometimes in tandem with a passive news media, resisted for months on end before bowing to the obvious or the inevitable. “The needle,” as Danner put it, gets “stuck in the groove.”

For all the gloomy headlines we’ve absorbed since the fall, we still can’t quite accept the full depth of our economic abyss either. Nicole Gelinas, a financial analyst at the conservative Manhattan Institute, sees denial at play over a wide swath of America, reaching from the loftiest economic strata of Wall Street to the foreclosure-decimated boom developments in the Sun Belt.

[yeahwho]

I wonder how many swimming pools you could fill with 787bn $1 bills?

Do you think Scrooge McDuck would swim in it? Even tho it might be dirty.

Or if they found a way to extract the cocaine that there is apparently on most paper money and sell it back to the dealers would create a bit of cash to. You wouldn't have to spend $787bn then, you just need to have it.

The more this goes on, the more these big numbers mean less. Should I feel shocked at the amount? I can't even imagine it. The same way I can't imagine what it feels like to stand on the surface of the sun if I had a suit that could stand those sort of temperatures.

The mind boggles.

that is so right on

[RobMoney$]

Blaming the people who thought they could afford a loan that they couldn't is not a viable argument however. The people who created these loans knew full well what they were doing, it's their business to know, whereas the public is largely ignorant to such things.

Call me irresponsible if you will; call it pragmatism to appease the people while petting the assholes; I don't care.

What should happen is everything should be put on hold until a full investigation of everything that lead up to this mess can be conducted starting with Bush and his cronies.

We don't need a full investigation.
We know exactly who, what, when where, and why this all happened. Hell, CNBC has already produced a show detailing every step. It's called "House of Cards" (http://www.cnbc.com/id/28892719/) and it was amazing.

And there's plenty of blame to be put on the people who borrowed under such ridiculous conditions. I'm sorry, but if you make $800 a week, you can't afford a half a million dollar home, no matter what the bank is telling you. That's where the personal responsibility part on the borrower comes in.
These banks were writing mortgages to people on STATED income, there was no Documentation needed as proof. If you said you made $100k a year, they accepted it. Apparently some of these banks were instructing folks to lie about their income.
They were writing mortgages for $500k, for $1200 a month or whatever. $500k @ 6.5% interest comes out to roughly $2700 a month in intrest alone. The $1200 wasn't even covering the monthly interest, the remaining $1500 in interest was being added to the principal each month.
Now if you're dumb enough to agree to a loan such as this, you deserve to lose your home. I'm sorry.

I remember when I was going for my mortgage, the lady at the bank thought I was nuts.
She adamantly told me "You can borrow up to $750k!"
and I adamantly told her "But I don't need $750k, I only need $150K".
I live within my means, that's just how I am.

[checkyourprez]

We don't need a full investigation.
We know exactly who, what, when where, and why this all happened. Hell, CNBC has already produced a show detailing every step. It's called "House of Cards" (http://www.cnbc.com/id/28892719/) and it was amazing.

And there's plenty of blame to be put on the people who borrowed under such ridiculous conditions. I'm sorry, but if you make $800 a week, you can't afford a half a million dollar home, no matter what the bank is telling you. That's where the personal responsibility part on the borrower comes in.
These banks were writing mortgages to people on STATED income, there was no Documentation needed as proof. If you said you made $100k a year, they accepted it. Apparently some of these banks were instructing folks to lie about their income.
They were writing mortgages for $500k, for $1200 a month or whatever. $500k @ 6.5% interest comes out to roughly $2700 a month in intrest alone. The $1200 wasn't even covering the monthly interest, the remaining $1500 in interest was being added to the principal each month.
Now if you're dumb enough to agree to a loan such as this, you deserve to lose your home. I'm sorry.

I remember when I was going for my mortgage, the lady at the bank thought I was nuts.
She adamantly told me "You can borrow up to $750k!"
and I adamantly told her "But I don't need $750k, I only need $150K".
I live within my means, that's just how I am.

right on.

[D_Raay]

We don't need a full investigation.
We know exactly who, what, when where, and why this all happened. Hell, CNBC has already produced a show detailing every step. It's called "House of Cards" (http://www.cnbc.com/id/28892719/) and it was amazing.

And there's plenty of blame to be put on the people who borrowed under such ridiculous conditions. I'm sorry, but if you make $800 a week, you can't afford a half a million dollar home, no matter what the bank is telling you. That's where the personal responsibility part on the borrower comes in.
These banks were writing mortgages to people on STATED income, there was no Documentation needed as proof. If you said you made $100k a year, they accepted it. Apparently some of these banks were instructing folks to lie about their income.
They were writing mortgages for $500k, for $1200 a month or whatever. $500k @ 6.5% interest comes out to roughly $2700 a month in intrest alone. The $1200 wasn't even covering the monthly interest, the remaining $1500 in interest was being added to the principal each month.
Now if you're dumb enough to agree to a loan such as this, you deserve to lose your home. I'm sorry.

I remember when I was going for my mortgage, the lady at the bank thought I was nuts.
She adamantly told me "You can borrow up to $750k!"
and I adamantly told her "But I don't need $750k, I only need $150K".
I live within my means, that's just how I am.

I believe you are misunderstanding me. I mean a FULL investigation of the system. An efficient system does not produce results such as these. It takes into account the stupidity of people other than you or me. This goes beyond partisanship or left and right. Money doesn't have a political affiliation.

[saz]

rob has made a good point, that people can be and are dupes and suckers, who bought into the fantasy that is the american dream - no, not everyone can live an affluent lifestyle, like the rich and famous.

however, in order to protect the dupes and suckers within the general public (and the public at large), especially in regards to the banks and loans, you need strong government regulations, which were non-existent in regards to the appropriately titled predatory lending.

again, i think americans should also be outraged at phil gramm, especially considering his "nation of whiners" remark. asshole.

[RobMoney$]

I believe you are misunderstanding me. I mean a FULL investigation of the system. An efficient system does not produce results such as these. It takes into account the stupidity of people other than you or me. This goes beyond partisanship or left and right. Money doesn't have a political affiliation.



Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac are federally run institutions.
They dictated the federal guidelines the banks and borrowers had to follow in order to get a mortgage.
Rules such as FULLY DOCUMENTED INCOME, such as Income Tax reports, bank statements, Paystub reciepts, Hell they may even check your personal references.
No Documents, No Loans.
Fannie and Freddie would buy those mortgages from the Mortgage Brokers so the brokers could go out and write more mortgages.
Fannie and Freddie were designed by the federal government to help promote home ownership in America. Saying they were extremely influencial is an understatement. They ran the mortgage industry and they created the rules which insured the markets remained stable.

The rest is from Wikipedia, which explains it better than I can:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae

In 1999, Fannie Mae came under pressure from the Clinton administration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Bill_Clinton) to expand mortgage loans to low and moderate income borrowers. At the same time, institutions in the primary mortgage market pressed Fannie Mae to ease credit requirements on the mortgages it was willing to purchase, enabling them to make loans to subprime (deadbeat) borrowers at interest rates higher than conventional loans. Shareholders also pressured Fannie Mae to maintain its record profits.
In 2000, due to a re-assessment of the housing market by HUD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hud_(housing)), anti-predatory lending rules were put into place that disallowed risky, high-cost loans from being credited toward affordable housing goals. In 2004, these rules were dropped and high-risk loans were again counted toward affordable housing goals.
The intent was that Fannie Mae's enforcement of the underwriting standards they maintained for standard conforming mortgages would also provide safe and stable means of lending to buyers who did not have prime credit (Subprime, or Deadbeats). As Daniel Mudd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Mudd), then President and CEO of Fannie Mae, testified in 2007, instead the agency's responsible underwriting requirements drove business into the arms of the private mortgage industry (Wall St.) who marketed aggressive products without regard to future consequences: "We also set conservative underwriting standards for loans we finance to ensure the homebuyers can afford their loans over the long term. We sought to bring the standards we apply to the prime space to the subprime market with our industry partners primarily to expand our services to underserved families.
"Unfortunately, Fannie Mae-quality, safe loans in the subprime market did not become the standard, and the lending market moved away from us. Borrowers were offered a range of loans that layered teaser rates, interest-only, negative amortization and payment options and low-documentation requirements on top of floating-rate loans. In early 2005 we began sounding our concerns about this "layered-risk" lending. For example, Tom Lund, the head of our single-family mortgage business, publicly stated, "One of the things we don't feel good about right now as we look into this marketplace is more homebuyers being put into programs that have more risk. Those products are for more sophisticated buyers. Does it make sense for borrowers to take on risk they may not be aware of? Are we setting them up for failure? As a result, we gave up significant market share to our competitors (Wall St.). "


Once Fannie's and Freddie's influence over the mortgage guidelines was reduced and The banks on Wall St. started getting into the business of writing mortgages, the gloves were off and the guidelines were basically gone. Wall St. couldn't write mortgages fast enough because they were in turn selling them off to investors in the European markets as AAA rated stocks.
Wall St. greed is what's to blame.

[D_Raay]

Agreed... Nice to agree on something for once Rob :p

[Schmeltz]

I agree with RobMoney as well, in that he has in a single breath cast the blame for this situation on predatory Wall Street creditors, incredulous public debtors, and irresponsible government regulators. The facts seem to point to greed as the primary culprit at the root of the situation, but this is a greed in which participants at every tier of the economic structure seem to be essentially equally culpable. As I see it, the materialistic voting public elected incompetent officials who negiligently created a deregulated fiscal environment in which grasping financial institutions selfishly propagated a deceptive supply of seemingly endless speculatory growth to which the materialistic voting public reacted with insatiable demand. It's a vicious circle and there's no use pointing fingers because everybody is ultimately to blame.

(Well, maybe not everybody. Those of us who live well below the poverty line and have never incurred any debt in our lives and suddenly find ourselves paying drastically more for basic necessities really feel rather put out by all of this. But I digress. It's too easy to be emotional about these things.)

This is why it's impossible to just "put everything on hold" and thoroughly examine every aspect of the situation before any action is taken to remedy the ills afflicting the global economy. It's simply irrealistic to investigate and prosecute one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

I think the most important step has already been taken, which is the rejection of the trifling, ineffective political organ that created the environment in which these transgressions took place, and its replacement with a governing body intent on reversing the atmosphere of license and opportunism fostered by its predecessor. A government that does not permit a repetition of these errors can break the cycle and return the interaction between the general public and the financial elite to a rhythm of normalcy. This is where I deviate from Robmoney's sardonic position; it is useless to criticize the Obama administration for "bailing out" either opportunistic debtors or opportunistic creditors. That's not the point of the stimulus bill, nor should the point be to punish either or both of these groups for their actions. That's not really the government's job. The point, I think, is to restore the confidence of all economic participants in the legitimacy of the system and to enable a long-term recovery from a long-term dysfunction. This is just a first step, and it seems well in time with the march of the other major world economies. Whether it works or not is a question only time can answer, but let's at least give it a chance.

On the other hand, as I said before, if it can be proven that the Bushies were as criminally inept in the policies they enacted domestically as those they enacted internationally, then it would be a very useful catalyst to punish them for it. If you want a scapegoat, I say bring out the people who dropped the anti-predatory lending rules and let'em hang. They ought to have known better.

[HAL 9000]

It's simply irrealistic to investigate and prosecute one of the Seven Deadly Sins.


Agreed, very nicely put!

[D_Raay]

It's simply irrealistic to investigate and prosecute one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Yeah you're right, although maybe this has been seven-deadly-sin-with-a-cherry-on-top. We can at least toss the cherry in the rubbish can't we?

My responses have been in large part instinctual, as I very much trust that, although I have researched this package a great deal.

Well, maybe not everybody. Those of us who live well below the poverty line and have never incurred any debt in our lives and suddenly find ourselves paying drastically more for basic necessities really feel rather put out by all of this. But I digress. It's too easy to be emotional about these things.)

...and that would be me. I don't do credit. I don't live beyond my means, I only buy what I have the direct means to buy at the time or save toward a goal and reach it that way. If i don't get there for some reason c'est la vie. I don't HAVE to have anything. And I am not poor. For years I have been treated as somehow less than others who have great credit or are in debt and fork out their whole paycheck every month for their material goodies. The shoe seems to be on the other foot now and I somehow appear sage just for being pragmatic.

[yeahwho]

I so far just trust Obama more than the previous administration, the Republican response to Obama's address to congress is summed up quite well by Paul Krugman (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/25/krugman-jindal-response-g_n_169826.html).

This artificially inflated balloon economy almost burst, we came so close to complete economic destruction it is unbelievable. The crazy ass ride down is ugly and quite illuminating on what practices help create this devastation.

I do not live within my means by any stretch of the imagination, I'll go over my head to get what I want and pay the price knowing it will take months, perhaps years to do so. But this behavior is ingrained in me through my banking institution, every major consumable product and very much my whole life the U.S. Government. How does one stop that cycle? Loosening up the cash flow means lending money. Somebody has to borrow. Should I live within my means and watch others not? In the end I think not much will change, certain protections and stop valves will be put in place, but as D Raay has noted, the real fucking crooks made billions off of us, have been caught and so far while millions of U.S. citizens are in financial struggle they live on.

I love Bill Maher and he had the balls to bring up what many of other people think, if you go to the 2:10 mark of this 2/20/09 New Rules (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiioO6WhaKM&eurl=http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=bill+maher+2009&www_google_domain=www.google.com&hl=en&emb=0&aq=)he really gets to ranting.

[checkyourprez]

state capitalism does have its advantages.


i would not be opposed to putting 2 big banking shit eaters to death to make an example out of them. if they keep that shit up and "it could happen to you" type of thing hopefully would take root and they would be a little more fiscally responsible WITH OTHER PEOPLES MONEY.

[RobMoney$]

I so far just trust Obama more than the previous administration,


I trust heroin addicts more than I trust the previous administration.
I'm not sure if that can be considered a compliment to Obama in any way.

[checkyourprez]

obama understands what kind of shit we are in. this isnt some partisan bullshit to try and get your buddies rich like george and dick.


we are in some SERIOUS shit, that needs to be reiterated. do we know if what obama is doing is going to work? i dont think anyone knows that, non of us can see the future.

but he understands the urgency of the problem and he is trying to do something about it. not only as a fix to to problem, but trying to build and improve areas of this nation that sorely need it and will only have a positive effect in the future.

i dont get people like bush who want to cut education. sure its the easiest thing to cut into a budget because at the time no one can "see" the damage done. but honestly, if we dont start pumping out a lot of scientists and engineers in this country we are going to be in trouble. most of the bullshit jobs people once had in this country where they could make a good living not doing anything terribly mentally straining are over. those jobs are shipped to some unfortunate sap whos getting 5 bucks a day.

obama i think really understands this. look at chinese schools and how hard they push their students. they are creating a huge amount of intelligent young people who, when china becomes suitable enough for it, will employ their brain power over there improving their country instead of having to come over here to fully reach their maximum earning potential. american high schools are a joke. shit even college isnt really that tough. that really needs to be changed. the dude gets that. where a guy who goes on the internets and the googles and can't be fooled uhhh, you cant fool him agian, just didnt get that.

[checkyourprez]

you see..(y)

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/27/education.school.year/index.html