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Science vessels? According to Newsweek, it's photographers and people looking to document the damage that BP is turning away. Now that's some unadulterated bullshit "damage control."

Ostensibly all that gawker traffic could just get in the way. But earlier on there were some science vessels offering to drop in and help measure the progress of the oil plume in the region, and they were turned away. Though now it looks like just last week, NOAA's started deploying a fleet of research vessels to start measuring
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/01/95170/noaa-research-ship-to-search-gulf.html

Anyway, just another lame episode of politicians vs. scientists vs. politicized environmentalists where the scientists are kind of caught in the middle again.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/deepwaterhorizon/7011584.html

At least with our capitalist systems, we have Constitutions to chain our governments from being abusive, elections to remove dickheds from said government, and Courts to protect the citizens from abuse by one another or the corporations.

Of course thats what those laws are for, to prevent people from being abused by things like fake DMCA notices, , litigation that is more or less 'legal blackmail', and no president would invade another country for no reason and highly support crimes like torture for fear of impeachment. Isn't it great?

(a) this is an unprecidented engineering failure

Uh, yes, it is. Are you suggesting that "unprecedented failure" is an excuse rather than a condemnation?

(b) there were multiple safeguards

No, there weren't. That's the problem. Safeguards were left out. Failed tests were ignored , and the "blowout preventer" was known to be damaged.

(c) it's an economic necessity that we drill for oil

It's an economic and ecological necessity that we stop using fossil fuels. We should regard this incident as the same sort a wake-up call a junkie gets when he has a disaster while hustling for a fix.

(d) Murphy's law -- no matter how hard you try, eventually mistakes will be made.

Which does not alter the presence of criminal negligence.

BP is doing everything possible to fix the problem

No, they're not. "Everything possible to fix the problem" would have meant that they were taking the proper steps to prevent it, and prepared with the proper cleanup equipment if there were a leak.

In a sane world, after a fuck-up like this, BP would simply cease to exist, its corporate charter shredded and its assets nationalized for the duration of the emergency, and then auctioned off to parties who have demonstrated the ability to behave responsibly.

1. There were a number of errors with critical safety equipment being partially inoperative and improperly documented,
2. There were tests done that showed that there was a pressure problem that meant methane may be leaking into the pipe,
3. There should have been follow-up tests to confirm the first result but no record of those tests exist,
4. Operating the rig cost $500,000/day and there was substantial pressure to finish things off to earn early-completion bonuses.

So yeah, there's no definitive paper trail indicating that this was a deliberate choice, or on which of the three corporations involved the bulk of the responsibility should lie. But there's quite a bit of circumstantial evidence that corners were cut leading to the disaster, even if it's not clear who had the responsibility for cutting those corners.

Well, Italy didn't do much where a massive engineering firm created a dam that failed. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam

"Tort Reform" has capped the liability for physicians in many states - despite criminals like Michael Swango, M.D. poisoning patients and co-workers. http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=96548&page=1

The number of crooked lawyers (my own profession) is burgeoning and many are directly involved in the economic meltdown. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/21/92637/goldmans-connections-to-white.html

Time to take a had line approach to a class of criminal that would actually BE deterred if they knew that they would certainly be executed. Hell, make the next of kin push the button. Add a real fear of retaliation from a disgruntled spouse and those "masters of the universe" would dot every "i" and cross every "t."

you have to provide a DRIVER'S LICENCE. You know this? RIGHT??

A driver's license isn't a proof of legal status. States give them out to foreigners all the time, and since it was issued their visa or whatever might have expired or been revoked. YOU KNOW THIS RIGHT?????

All a cop has to do is decide you might be a foreigner. If you aren't carrying around proof of your legal status, you're at least going to be detained until your family can bring in a birth certificate... and then

a detainee in Warziniack's situation often has to wait weeks for results, even if he or she gets a copy of a U.S. birth certificate.

(Regarding profiling: dude was a white guy with a southern accent, the government fucks up on an equal opportunity basis)

I'm not going to cry for the illegal immigrants that get thrown out of the country. I am going to fight tooth and nail against a system that will imprison and/or throw Americans into exile for not carrying their papers.

If a police office see you walking down the street, he has no "lawful encounter"

Well, he could just write you up for "resisting arrest". Doesn't even have to explain what he was supposedly arresting you for.

And about that worst case scenario I was reluctant to think about.

Why aren't anyone punishing the employers who are enabling these illegal immigrants? Why aren't you throwing them in prison for violating the law? [...] Change these charges from misdemeanors to felonies. Throw the responsible parties in jail (including the illegal immigrants), from foremen to CEOs, single citizen hiring maids, gardeners, nannies etc.

As a small business owner, I think you are asking an awful lot.

Employers are not Federal Immigration Officials. We simply don't have the ability to determine someone's residency status beyond what we already do (and apparently ICE doesn't do such a stellar job, either).

Don't get me wrong, I have no desire to hire illegals, and I fulfill my requirements with respect to the I-9 form. But if an applicant

1. Presents me with a false document, I'm never going to know it.
2. Presents me with documents that don't contain a photo, I have no earthly clue if the applicant is who he or she claims to me. And yes, no photo ID is required for employment: a voter registration card with a social security card will satisfy the I-9 requirements, and it is illegal for me to require more documents. If my gut tells me something is wrong, it is illegal for me to discriminate based on national origin.

And do you really verify the immigration status of everyone who works on your property? Would you even know how to? My Hispanic maid, handyman, and gardener are business owners, so I remit payment directly to a business (i.e. no I-9 or 1099s need to be completed). I'm guessing that they are legal, but I have no way of knowing for sure, and no way to check.

I guess where I'm going to with this ramble is that employers are not Government Immigration Officials. Tell us what you want us to do, and we'll do it, but don't get upset when employees figure out how to circumvent the system.

> Alright, so if you're a US citizen who believes the police may have reason to suspect you're in the country illegally, you have a few options to avoid any issues. First and foremost, a driver's license works wonders.

Yeah, a driver's license sure did this guy a lot of good.

And you think that you're saying that US citizens are never affected? Or that dumping thousands more people onto a broken system is a good idea (rather than going after the violent ones or, God forbid, funding the system so that it can actually process things at a reasonable rate)?

I don't think that the police are Gestapo by any means. As a matter of fact, all the policemen I've met were fundamentally decent. But I hate to see so many people outraged over illegal immigrants so much that they support a bad law that will lead to so much trouble for US citizens and other people here legally.

There simply is nothing other than race and speech (AKA racial profiling) that can give you a "reasonable suspicion" that people are here illegally, but many citizens and legal immigrants look and sound the same as your stereotypical illegal immigrant. Combined with our long history of conducting immigration sweeps, in which large numbers of people are detained, it becomes both suspect and Constitutionally troubling (why aren't people defending our 4th Amendment rights as much as our 2nd Amendment rights?). We also have a long history of losing civil rights lawsuits (which costs our states millions... but they'd rather press on and force us to chose between tax increases and education cuts than admit that the policies we have are bad).

But yeah, never mind that your points are undermined by things that have actually happened. The politicians scapegoat all of our problems on immigration. It makes it so much easier than them actually having to fix things. I've watched people scapegoat immigrants for all sorts of problems, even troubles I've had at work. It didn't go over very well when I pointed out that I knew who was responsible for those problems and that they were both US citizens and white. We don't even employ any non-citizens and the only one we used to was an H1-B from the UK who left due to unreasonable delays in processing his application for permanent residency (and who we haven't been able to adequately replace).

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held Warziniack for weeks in an Arizona detention facility with the aim of deporting him to a country he's never seen. His jailers shrugged off Warziniack's claims that he was an American citizen, even though they could have retrieved his Minnesota birth certificate in minutes and even though a Colorado court had concluded that he was a U.S. citizen a year before it shipped him to Arizona.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/01/24/25392/immigration-officials-detaining.html#ixzz0mMredX8e

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held Warziniack for weeks in an Arizona detention facility with the aim of deporting him to a country he's never seen. His jailers shrugged off Warziniack's claims that he was an American citizen, even though they could have retrieved his Minnesota birth certificate in minutes and even though a Colorado court had concluded that he was a U.S. citizen a year before it shipped him to Arizona.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/01/24/25392/immigration-officials-detaining.html#ixzz0mMredX8e

Appearing reasonably white is no protection.

No, it's really not. But it appeals to many in a rather sick sort of way because it validates their victim mentality.

There's one and only one thing cops care about: their job performance as measured by number of tickets and number of arrests. That's what their bosses look at when deciding whether they are adequately doing their job, whether they deserve a raise, whether they have earned a promotion, etc. They certainly don't get any reward for giving a warning instead of a ticket, or otherwise doing something other than nailing you with everything they can.

Appearing reasonably white is no protection.

The anthrax attacks hit the Capitol at the same time legislators were being pressured to pass the PATRIOT Act. The anthrax attacks delivered the unspoken message to our representatives that "nobody is safe from terrorists".

I'm not saying that Vice President Cheney was involved in any way, but you've got to admit that his agenda, formed long before September of 2001, got a big boost from the attacks.

Obviously though, he's far too nice of a guy to ever do anything underhanded.

Yep, just like Barack Obama's far too nice a guy to engineer a financial crisis as a pretext for nationalizing/taking over large banks in the name of "reform", while cozying up to Goldman-Sachs CEO:

While Goldman Sachs' lawyers negotiated with the Securities and Exchange Commission over potentially explosive civil fraud charges, Goldman's chief executive visited the White House at least four times.

Seen the redactions from Blogo's Obama subpeona? The ones that say Obama lied about the sale of his Senate seat and his ties to Tony Rezko?

Or would nice-guy Obama LIE to the public about the cost of Obamacare:

President Obama's health care overhaul law will increase the nation's health care tab instead of bringing costs down, government economic forecasters concluded Thursday in a sobering assessment of the sweeping legislation.

How about this from the NY Times, that suddenly gets run now that we all have magic health care from heaven thanks to the world's biggest celebrity:

New York’s insurance system has been a working laboratory for the core provision of the new federal health care law — insurance even for those who are already sick and facing huge medical bills — and an expensive lesson in unplanned consequences. Premiums for individual and small group policies have risen so high that state officials and patients’ advocates say that New York’s extensive insurance safety net for people like Ms. Welles is falling apart.

Gee, sure would have been nice of the NY Slimes to run that story a month or so ago, eh? But no, Baracky sure didn't know he was LYING about his claims that Obamacare would reduce health care costs, now did he?

Oh, but tinfoil-hat loons like you get modded up for jumping on the "Cheney and all Rethuglicans are teh eviilll!!!" shit-for-brains bandwagon?

When Obama's lies regarding health care are going to directly cost people about ten thousand dollars each - per year? While the Obama/Pelosi deficits would pay for the ENTIRETY of BOTH wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in about eight months?

Gotta love how the same people who spent 8 years screaming "Dissent is patriotic!" are now trying to label dissenters as "seditious" and "dangerous".

True, Republicans have no shame. But Obama has yet to return the $994,795 in donations his campaign received from Goldman Sachs and its employees.

Once the cops have your DNA (and a dislike for you) what's to stop a bad cop from leaving your DNA at their next "unsolved" crime?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/02/15/85118/lacking-suspects-prosecutors-now.htmlFor a truly bizarre twist on this.

And you propose a solution whereby only the government elites get to maximize their individual wealth, at the expense of the productive members of society.

To the contrary...I think that if you look at the inequality curve of any nation, you will see that the elites who control government (an important difference in the phrasing) are in fact accumulating wealth at a rate never before seen in history because they have exported the lie that national self-sufficiency is passé and all must have the wealth that accompanies industrialization, and that they attempt to spread the story you just emitted to ensure that rate of wealth accumulation is not affected by the peoples of individual nations looking to the survival of themselves and their descendants.

The problem as I see it is that heavy industrialization consumes too much of the planet's finite reserves of resources too quickly, and additionally is putting an incredible tonnage of pollutants into the air, land, and sea - again at a rate that has never been seen before in human history.

Do you think that this planet can long provide resources at even current consumption rates, when ever more nations are striving to outproduce - to out consume - each other? Do you think the planet can absorb the soaring amounts of pollution being emitted? So much pollution that it is coming back to haunt even those nations whose elites are exploiting the cheap labor of the evolving "third world"?

Whether you die tilling a field or surrounded by cell phones, computers, and big screen TVs, you're still dead. The question is why hasten that event - for everybody, to include your own? What is wealth, without life?

You have heard of this thing called the NEA, right?

And you are familiar with our looming demographic catastrophe, right?

I mean, come on, be serious.

.

A few notes, banks are not forced into lending to anyone, the CRA only applies to banks who sign up for FDIC coverage and even then only some banks fall under the CRA regulations. There are ways that banks can work around the CRA and guess what, they did.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html

"More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions."
"Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year."
"Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics."
"Between 2004 and 2006, when subprime lending was exploding, Fannie and Freddie went from holding a high of 48 percent of the subprime loans that were sold into the secondary market to holding about 24 percent, according to data from Inside Mortgage Finance"
"only commercial banks and thrifts must follow CRA rules. The investment banks don't, nor did the now-bankrupt non-bank lenders such as New Century Financial Corp. and Ameriquest that underwrote most of the subprime loans."
"private non-bank lenders enjoyed a regulatory gap, allowing them to be regulated by 50 different state banking supervisors instead of the federal government. And mortgage brokers, who also weren't subject to federal regulation or the CRA, originated most of the subprime loans."

GW Bush was calling for reforms until they arrived...

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=24851
Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 1461 - Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005
October 26, 2005 "H.R. 1461 fails to include key elements that are essential to protect the safety and soundness of the housing finance system and the broader financial system at large. As a result, the Administration opposes the bill. "

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=74353
Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 1427 - Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007
May 16, 2007 "Any efforts to weaken the existing portfolio language contained in H.R. 1427 will threaten the Administration's support for this bill. "

The house actually passed H.R. 1461 but was never cosidered by the Senate and McCain's support for S190 came only after the report of corruption and bad management of Fannie and Freddie came out. And then what did he do? Nada, the Senate let it slide.

There is plenty of blame to go around but this idea that some how the Democrats in concert with lower income earning U.S. citizens caused the current economic crisis is dumb founding idiocy.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people

Income level doesn't have much to do with the risk level of a given loan. Someone making $30k might be a fantastic candidate for a $100,000 30 year mortgage. Someone making $100k might be a poor candidate for $300,000 30 year mortgage. There are much better indicators than income level for predicting financial risk, and there's no indication there was any public pressure to ignore credit scores, or the ratio of the income level of the loan applicant to the value of the loan and property, or any other indicator.

and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

Not particularly a government problem, but it does shed some light on how we got to the point where in 2005 more than 80% of mortgage lending -- including mortgage lending in the subprime segments -- was done by private firms not subject to any particular legal pressure to do so.

The ignorance of the poor is social engineering, not genetics.

The intelligence of the poor is on par with any other population - but the metrics are skewed for culture and training.

The rich ARE evil. One of the principal lacts of their evil is to sponsor a media-culture that gets ordinary schmucks like yourself to identify emotionally with them, aspire to their condition, and to assume an attack on the values of the truly rich to be a personal threat to your own status and mobility.
You are also trained to revile those perceived as less fortunate/gifted as yourself - never suspecting that to the real rich, the difference between you and the homeless doesn't amount to a rounding error.

...In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.

Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.

Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk...

The parent is correct, but a bit terse. I thought I'd elaborate a bit:

"Federal Reserve Board data shows that:

* More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
* Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
* Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics."

- http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html

The stats don't back up the idea that any public institution or law bears the brunt of the responsibility for problematic lending.

It also doesn't make much sense. Take the fingers pointed at the CRA. It didn't force banks to make risky loans. They could deny an application based on income, credit rating, or any other relevant factors. What it *did* force them to avoid was "red-lining": denying loans based on the current living location (used as a proxy for the applicant's race). A person's race and living location might have some correlation with risk of defaulting, but as we all know here on slashdot, correlation is not causation, and a responsible financial institution would deal with the more directly relevant information: an individual's income/asset information and their credit history.

Here's some other links:

http://www.ptmortgage.com/blog/2008/10/01/pointing-fingers-was-it-cra-and-minority-lending-that-caused-the-mortgage-mess/
http://debatebothsides.com/showthread.php?t=73500
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=did_liberals_cause_the_subprime_crisis
http://www.frbsf.org/news/speeches/2008/0331.html
http://www.ccc.unc.edu/news/news.021809.php
http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/Commentary/2000/1100.htm
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/ls564.htm

Wikipedia also has a summary.

Mean global temperatures have been rising throughout the 2000s

Not according to NASA's satellites: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/74019.html

According to data from the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Ala., the global high temperature in 1998 was 0.76 degrees Celsius (1.37 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average for the previous 20 years. So far this year, the high has been 0.42 degrees Celsius (0.76 degrees Fahrenheit), above the 20-year average, clearly cooler than before.

Right, because it's okay to violate the rights of bad guys. We never, ever get the "bad guy" designation wrong. Just ask Haji Sahib Rohullah Wakil

It's not like the vast majority of the donations to al-Haramain went to feed hungry Somalis, teach poor Indonesians, or help sick Kenyans. It couldn't possibly be that there were a few sympathizers working in al-Haramain were skimming the money for al-Qaida.

No, no, no, we don't care about any of that. Some very, very important people tell us that these other people are evil, so why should we care if their rights get trampled on? They're only terrorists, just like Wakil.

Offtopic perhaps, but, in the interest of fair and balanced reporting >> http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played a role, but there is much more to the mortgage meltdown than what is spun out in the parents reference. In the absense of the other bad actors the actions of FM2 would not have precipitated the crisis. -M-

So where are you getting your numbers from and how do you define the terms rich, poor and middle? According to the US Bureau of labour statistics http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/68456.html, the bottom 20% given about 4% of their income, the 20%-60% bracket give around 2.5% and the top two brackets give about 2%. You'll really need to reference your religious conservatives claim too.

Signed an agreement reaffirming the sovereignty of Iraq

Have we abandoned our permanent military bases in Iraq?

Asserted Iraqi ownership over *every* military installation in use by US forces

That's absolute horseshit.

At withdrawal, the U.S. will return all the installations and the agreed upon areas allocated for the use of the U.S. combat forces according to two lists (of inventory) to the Iraqi government.

Translation: we keep our permanent military bases.

Handed control of many of the US Operated facilities over to the Iraqis for control (here, here, and here, for example)

Have we abandoned our permanent military bases in Iraq?

Handed security of the "Green Zone" over to Iraqi control

Have we abandoned our permanent military bases in Iraq?

Removed the vast majority of all combat forces outside of the limits of all major cities

Another lie.

In addition, there are no plans to close the Americans' Camp Victory base complex, which houses more than 20,000 soldiers, many of them combat troops, even though Camp Victory is only a 15-minute drive from the center of Baghdad and sprawls over both sides of the city's boundary. Iraqi officials, who are nervous about maintaining security as the Americans depart, have agreed to consider Camp Victory as outside the city.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/world/middleeast/09military.html

Additionally, your assertion that "we own" the oil fields now points to an article explaining how the Iraqi Ministry of Oil is negotiating contracts from companies that lost to nationalization when Saddam was in power. I'm not sure how that means "we own" anything. The Iraqi government is contracting with corporations to extract the oil resources. Sounds like Iraq exercising its own sovereignty to me.

Why were they no bid contracts to American oil companies in 2008? And furthermore, if we have no colonial interest in their resources, why haven't we abandoned our permanent military bases in Iraq? This is the central question. Everything else is political theater.

The globalsecurity article you link has no information later than 2005. In the intervening 4 years - the US Government has:

1. Signed an agreement reaffirming the sovereignty of Iraq
2. Asserted Iraqi ownership over *every* military installation in use by US forces
3. Handed control of many of the US Operated facilities over to the Iraqis for control (here, here, and here, for example)
4. Handed security of the "Green Zone" over to Iraqi control
5. Removed the vast majority of all combat forces outside of the limits of all major cities

Additionally, your assertion that "we own" the oil fields now points to an article explaining how the Iraqi Ministry of Oil is negotiating contracts from companies that lost to nationalization when Saddam was in power. I'm not sure how that means "we own" anything. The Iraqi government is contracting with corporations to extract the oil resources. Sounds like Iraq exercising its own sovereignty to me.

the galactic insanity of the CRA

Whether the CRA was a good idea or not might be up for debate, but if "galactic insanity" implies that it was operating at a scale necessary to be a real driver of the crisis, there are significant indications you're wrong.

Consider, for starters, these statistics:

"Federal Reserve Board data show that:
* More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions...
* Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics."

There are a number of other relevant resources (such as those posted elsewhere in this discussion and in my comment history) which also examine the idea that the CRA was a significant cause of the current problems. The data seems to indicate that not only were CRA loans not any significant portion of problematic loans, they're actually turning out better than comparable private loans.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html
http://www.ptmortgage.com/blog/2008/10/01/pointing-fingers-was-it-cra-and-minority-lending-that-caused-the-mortgage-mess/
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=did_liberals_cause_the_subprime_crisis
http://www.frbsf.org/news/speeches/2008/0331.html

Finally, there's a summary at Wikipedia.

Having coal mine fires that burn 20 million tons of coal a year is a huge factor. In fact, the amount of CO2 they produce is about 2-3% of annual worldwide production from fossil fuels, or roughly equal to the CO2 emissions of all the cars and light trucks in the U.S.

The central bank was lending at such a low rate that it was only rational, until proven otherwise, to keep on taking as much debt as possible at massive profits.

But those "profits" were all based on the (massive) overvaluation of assets. Enron squared.

Thanks to the housing market, which was artifically propped up by the government enacting legislation which greatly reduced lending standards and increased the number of people who would qualify for the debt for a house

If you're referring to the conservative whipping boy, the CRA, that's not the case:

Federal Reserve Board data show that:
* More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
* Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
* Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.

Yes, it is. Think Fannie Mae and politicians going "you gotsta lend money to my poor constituents, and I care not if they can repay or no"

I suppose you could say that, if you were a wingnut or a habitual liar, but then I repeat myself.

Federal Reserve Board data show that:

* More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending
* Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
* Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.

Yes, see the above.

No, you're lying. See above.

That is not the governments fault, but on the other hand, that had nothing to do with the current economic crisis.

Astronomical pay has everything to do with the crisis, because you give executives an enormous incentive to take enormous risk. What would you rather do: make a couple million a year with steady growth, or make $25 million a year by taking crazy risks? Even if your company goes up in 4 years, that's $100 million in your pocket.

Someone needs to write a bot to post a response every time someone blames the financial crisis on the CRA or in some other way largely on the GSE's.

"Federal Reserve Board data shows that:

* More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
* Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
* Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics."

- http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html

Here's a few other links:

http://www.ptmortgage.com/blog/2008/10/01/pointing-fingers-was-it-cra-and-minority-lending-that-caused-the-mortgage-mess/
http://debatebothsides.com/showthread.php?t=73500
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=did_liberals_cause_the_subprime_crisis
http://www.frbsf.org/news/speeches/2008/0331.html

There is also a summary at Wikipedia.

On the contrary, the facts of reality back it up perfectly.

Only if you're rooming on Endorphin with Chewbaca.

Is this your "evidence" - a bunch of free-floating notions, with no connection to actual events?

You mean connections like a whistleblower trying to warn the FTC for ten years but was completely ignored? Or Allen Stanford, the hedge fund manager that fled authorities for one day, turned in identical tax returns two years in a row without investigation?

The problem began with the Fed's move to artificially lower interest rates in the name of "affordable housing". Combine that with the implicit government backing of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which turned toxic assets into pure "gold" that could be traded as "securities", again in the name of "affordable housing". Combine that with community reinvestment plans from local/state and federal governments, which forced banks to accept loans from high risk individuals, again in the name of "affordable housing". These all came together to create a bubble that burst once interest rates went back up.

Typical wingnut misdirection. Our mess was caused by greed, by Fannie Maye, not by Freddie Mac, nor by minorities:

Federal Reserve Board data show that:

        * More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.

        * Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.

        * Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.

And, once again since you ignored it the first time, maybe you'd like to explain how a 30 year old law turned a few hundred billion in mortgages blew up to over $60 trillion dollars in swap markets - more than the planet's entire GDP.

Please explain how forcing banks to make bad loans in the name of "social justice" proves that regulation keeps capitalism from destroying itself.

Fortunately we don't have to explain any such thing, as you're repeating a well debunked bald faced lie:

Federal Reserve Board data show that:

        * More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
        * Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
        * Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.

It was greed and deregulation, not a 30 year old law that prevents banks from denying loans on race, that blew a few hundred billion in mortgages into a credit default swap market larger than the GDP for the entire planet.

You read too much liberal propaganda

You lie too much.

The truth is that the banks were /regulated/ by the government to issue high-risk loans.

Liar:

Federal Reserve Board data show that:

        * More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
        * Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
        * Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.

Reality has a well known anti-wingnut bias. Or maybe you'd like to try and explain how minorities and a 30 year old law are resonsible for ballooning a few hundred billion in mortgages into a bubble larger than the GDP of the entire planet.

"Federal Reserve Board data show that:

*More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
*Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
*Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html

It doesn't take much poking around to see some serious holes poked in the idea that the CRA caused this mess:

http://www.ptmortgage.com/blog/2008/10/01/pointing-fingers-was-it-cra-and-minority-lending-that-caused-the-mortgage-mess/
http://debatebothsides.com/showthread.php?t=73500
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=did_liberals_cause_the_subprime_crisis
http://www.frbsf.org/news/speeches/2008/0331.html

But, let's not get those pesky facts get in the way, shall we?

Obama to extend Iraq withdrawal timetable; 50,000 troops to stay

Shades of Muhammed Ali:

The HOPE-A-DOPE!

Told ya!

Where's the tax cut for 95% of us?

Especially given the conditions under which it was pass: Less than 24 hours for the whole of the House to share and review (reportedly) only five copies of a partially handwritten bill that was over 1,000 pages long.

The stimulus was debated for weeks, it wasn't written overnight. Republicans are just engaging in hypocritical (they did far, far worse when they were in the majority) whining (they pointedly REFUSED to be a part of the process) and misdirection (yes, the bill is long - that's why you have your staffers read it).

And these hypocritical jokers are now running around taking credit for the stimulus bill they just voted AGAINST:

Rep. John Mica was gushing after the House of Representatives voted Friday to pass the big stimulus plan.

"I applaud President Obama's recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America's future," the Florida Republican beamed in a press release.

Yet Mica had just joined every other GOP House member in voting against the $787.2 billion economic recovery plan.

Had a little time. Googled a bit for you. Please explain these:

Israeli forces moved about 110 Palestinians into a house, told them to stay inside, and later shelled it repeatedly

"The evidence we've gathered in two of the cases so far is exceedingly strong," said Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch working in the Gaza Strip. "All the research so far suggests they shot civilians that were leaving their homes with white flags." Along with the white flag incidents, Human Rights Watch is calling for an international investigation into widespread charges that Israel prevented medical teams from helping wounded Palestinians trapped in their homes and needlessly demolished hundreds of houses, including dozens in Ezbt Abed Rabbo. "This was not a rogue unit," said Abrahams. "The needless civilian deaths resulted from concrete decisions made by the military."

Israeli soldiers entering the village: attempted to bulldoze houses with civilians inside; killed civilians trying to escape under the protection of white flags; opened fire on an ambulance attempting to reach the wounded; used indiscriminate force in a civilian area and fired white phosphorus shells.

At least 40 people were killed and 55 injured when Israeli artillery shells landed outside a United Nations-run school in Gaza, UN officials have said. [...] The UN says there were no militants in the compound

Yay, a school!

About 500 people including patients were huddled in a Gaza City hospital that suffered a "direct hit" in an Israeli air strike Thursday, the international Red Cross said, condemning the incident as unacceptable.

And a hospital. It just keeps getting better, doesn't it?

Outrage as Israel bombs UN HQ, hospital, school and media building

The U.N. suspended food deliveries to Gaza and the Red Cross accused Israel of blocking medical assistance after forces fired on aid workers, killing two

Israel denies Gaza access to clean water

- all that, plus shooting children directly in the head: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4279102/Bullets-in-the-brain-shrapnel-in-the-spine-the-terrible-injuries-suffered-by-children-of-Gaza.html

Your country is a fascist state committing full scale genocide.

Is your Google broken?

Seriously, this isn't exactly a controversial point. Iran has *huge* government subsidies for the poor, but its theocracy is not otherwise popular (and even if they just stop having elections, a government needs money to exist).

They're not. They're growing again. All websites stating that a) glaciers are growing and b) ice caps were larger than they were last year at this time.

Of course, you'll probably just say that this is because you're driving a hybrid and it fits your convienent model of "climate change" perfectly. Climate change? It's been changing forever. Hello, "Ice Age" anyone? Trust me, there were no moto-cars back when the mammoth wandered the frozen tundra. Funny how Global Warming enthusiasts are trying to call it "climate change" now. What? You worried you might be wrong or something? Sounds like a PR stunt to cover your ass. "No, no, no. It's climate change! That includes cooling! See, it's what we're always saying!". yeah right!

Enjoy that kool-aid do you?

white applicants with similar financial characteristics and credit histories

So they said, "If you're going to make shitty loans to white people, you have to make shitty loans to black people, too." It sounds like they were making shitty loans already.

I know a lot of the more conservative folks around here don't believe racism is real, but here's my opinion: Making bad loans to poor people is stupid, but making bad loans to poor white people and not to poor black people is stupid and racist.

In any case, you're just proving my point even more. Do you really think that ACORN suing banks to force them to be equal-opportunity idiots is the sole cause of the crisis? According to this, this, and this, less than a quarter of the subprime loans were made by institutions that were covered by the CRA. Also, there's no data to suggest that CRA subprime loans have a higher default rate than the other 80% of subprime loans. And if ACORN sued Wells Fargo and CitiBank, how come Wells Fargo didn't go under because of all the bad loans it was forced to make in the last few years?

There's two sides to every story, and usually both sides are wrong. Certainly the government was stupid to encourage banks to make bad loans and are not without culpability here, but the banks were doing it anyway.

Turning FannieMae and FreddyMac into affirmative action lending institutions is what tanked the economy

Liar:

* More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.

* Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.

* Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.

Regardless, Obama DID say he wanted to spread the wealth around. Which means he TAKES it by force from those who worked for it and gives it to others.

If the minimum wage had increase at the same rate as CEO pay over the last few decades, it would be over $50 an hour today. American productivity has risen dramatically, yet wages have stagnated. If you are in the top 1%, it's at least in your self-interest to keep the status quo. If you aren't, and don't want a more equitable sharing of our GDP, you need to see a nice doctor about your anal obstruction. Your head's probably getting sick of it too.

...and now you're just gonna hafta sleep in that bed you made for yourselves.

Welcome to the 21st Century - party on, dudes!!!

This depreciation in home prices led to growing losses for the GSEs, which back the majority of US mortgages.

The reality is that Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac backed a small minority (16% in 2006) of subprime loans. Their regulations prevented them getting into the subprime market whole hog like private entities (incidentally, rules which the Bush administration eventually lowered).

What does "getting amendment over time" mean to you?

Well it means poor grammar for one. Care to suggest which amendment you think had an impact that could possibly be related to the financial crisis?

From the wikipedia article: "approximately 50% of the subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies that were not regulated by the CRA. Another 25% to 30% came from only partially CRA regulated bank subsidiaries and affiliates."

So 75-80% of the toxic subprime loans had *nothing* to do with CRA-regulation, how do you square that with CRA being the causative agent?

Your wikipedia-based "disputation" offers the following as support: *editorials* by Ron Paul, one economist, the Wall Street Journal & the Christian Science Monitor. The opposing side has actual data, numbers, evidence, studies and working papers for non-partisan entities. If you have a better argument than 'some people wrote op-eds' I would love to hear it.

-Ted

If we hadn't had things like CRA and community activist groups painting banks that didn't paint lots of bad loans into 'underserved' areas as racists, then we might not have had quite so many bad loans.

This wasn't the only cause, but definitely a big factor.

No, it was a relatively small factor. 50-80% of subprime loans were made by companies to which CRA didn't apply. In fact, CRA only applied to 1 of the top 25 subprime lenders. Furthermore, less than a third of CRA loans are in the category of subprime - most of them have fixed interest rates better than subprime and consequently default rates are below average too.

Shame that this explanation falls apart upon closer inspection.