NYTimes Article White House Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire
"Eight years after arriving in Washington vowing to spread the dream of homeownership, Mr. Bush is leaving office, as he himself said recently, “faced with the prospect of a global meltdown” with roots in the housing sector he so ardently championed.
There are plenty of culprits, like lenders who peddled easy credit, consumers who took on mortgages they could not afford and Wall Street chieftains who loaded up on mortgage-backed securities without regard to the risk.
But the story of how we got here is partly one of Mr. Bush’s own making, according to a review of his tenure that included interviews with dozens of current and former administration officials.
From his earliest days in office, Mr. Bush paired his belief that Americans do best when they own their own home with his conviction that markets do best when let alone.
He pushed hard to expand homeownership, especially among minorities, an initiative that dovetailed with his ambition to expand the Republican tent — and with the business interests of some of his biggest donors. But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards."
BUSH is such an IDIOT!!
UPDATE: The White House vs the NYT, Economic Meltdown Edition. I'm a huge believer in the efficiencies of the "market" and responsible regulation (capital levels must match risk). But unfortunately, due to the Bush Administration's mismanagement of the financial markets, the pendulum has began to swing in the other direction and will start to impede market efficiencies. Bring back Ronald Reagan.
3 comments:
Give me a break...as if the dems were against expanding homeownership, especially for minorities. How about all of the $$$ that Fannie/Freddie paid to lobby congressional democrats to stymie efforts to restrict/regulate Fannie/Freddie?
Exactly, it was the Bush administration and Greenspan that fell asleep and allowed the financial markets to go unregulated. When Fannie and Freddie are paying lobbyist, it's the government regulator's responsibility to constrain their lending practices. They did not. Free market and self-regulation was promoted. The Bush administration allowed lending practices go unchecked. If the Bush administration did it's job and regulated the mortgage markets the current financial crisis would not be as severe.
Anon is clearly implicating the Bush Administration, by highlighting Fannie’s and Freddie’s role in the mortgage crisis. In 2004, when the mortgage market was pushing its limits, the Bush Administration through it’s operatives at OFHEO (all appointed by the Bush Administration) pushed Clinton’s man, Frank Raine, out of Fannie and replaced him with their own man Roger Mudd. Starting in 2004, under the Roger Mudd, aka Bush’s puppet, dove into the Atl-A and sub-prime lending. Most of the mortgages that are delinquent or in foreclosure today were originated from 2004 to early 2008. So anon you’re right Fannie and Freddie had a huge roll in the mortgage crisis, but not without the Bush Administration’s help and blessing.
Karl Marx predicted capitalism would fail if the government failed to regulate financial markets and prevent monopolies. The Bush Administration (and Greenspan) clearly failed at the first, by encouraging their operatives into the government regulatory agencies, not to regulate. They had four years to clear out the Clinton appointees, from 2000 to 2004, and then another four years to create the current crisis. Some of it was motivated by greed, but the majority by sheer stupidity.
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