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2010 Election Results Are In
The election results are in, and there are one trillion web pages now up helping you find out what happened. The short story is that the Republicans cleaned up, although the Democrats maintain a one-seat majority in the Senate. The GOP now has 239 seats in the house, giving them a huge lead over the Dems' 183.
This DOES matter. It will directly impact laws and regulations that matter to nerds.
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Boehner has been quoted that he is more than willing to work with President Obama, as long as what they're working on is what he and the Republicans want
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The Republicans couldn't have timed it better. Pillage the economy, let it fail just before the Democrats take office, and two years later when the Dems have halted and begun reversal of the worst economic disaster of all time, the Republicans come in, blaming the Democrats.
Err, the Democrats took over *4* years ago, not 2. They had complete control of the legislature (and hence the budget process) in 2006, only adding the executive in 2008.
He's also on the record as being concerned that Newt Gingrich was too conciliatory back in the 1990's. Also, the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is on the record as saying that the top priority of the Republican Senate delegation is to ensure that Obama doesn't get reelected. Something tells me the people's business isn't the top of their list.
I am officially gone from
It was laws such as the Community Reinvestment Act that encouraged banks to lend to low income consumers who were high credit risks to begin with.
You're a goddamn imbecile.
The CRA had nothing, period, at all to do with the collapse at all.
I love the idea that you can 'encourage' banks to make a bunch of failing loans, which were not made under the CRA, by forcing it to make other 'bad' loans. (Note: CRA loans generally outperform other loans, simply because banks pay more attention to who they give them out to.)
It's the same way that businesses are forced to collect sales tax, so they often collect even more money from customers and throw it out afterward. That's how businesses work, right?
The CRA 'covered' about 25% of all institutes making mortgages, and maybe 1-2% were actually 'required' under the CRA, a law which is essentially pointless at this point in history, because banks don't red-line anymore.
As has been pointed out repeated, the economy failure wasn't even caused by mortgages. It was caused by banksters suddenly realizing they'd built castles in the air on total nonsense and had no idea how to value any of it, so functionally had no money on their balance books.
That realization wasn't caused by mortgage failure, it was caused by failing home prices, which meant their assets went down. Even if the American people magically had enough money to keep paying the mortgage, the collapse still would have happened unless housing prices magically stayed absurdly high forever.
You have the bankers who were too short-sighted and optimistic about how those loans would play out in some cases, and openly deceitful in passing off packaged securities to investors while understating their risks in others.
By 'openly deceitful', of course,you mean 'committing fraud on a massive never-before-seen level'.
There is such a thing as personal responsibility. Americans shouldn't have tried so hard to get the best possible homes and realized when a something was simply more than they could afford. If there weren't any homes they could afford they should have stuck with renting.
Fuck. You.
Our real estate broker is legally our agent. It is criminal fraud for them to work against our best interest. They are not allowed to sell people property they can't afford, anymore than your investment banker could sell you an investment he knew was going to decrease in value.
It is also illegal for banks to make loans they know can't be paid off. It is illegal for them not to clearly explain the terms of any loans they are issuing.
But people were 'helped' through the process by people who, under law, were required to tell the truth, and under law were required not to give them loans they knew would fail, or even required to be on their side and instead told the people to lie or even just took blank applications, had the person sign it, and lied themselves.
Then there's all the people who made the situation worse by refusing to continue making mortgage payments they could easily afford simply because they owed more than the house was worth. I consider them every bit as greedy and immoral as most of the bankers we love to vilify.
Ah, the last Republican talking point. So, statically, the one out of ten thousand people who are doing this are important? Becuase no one's actually doing this.
And immoral? Corporations have no morality, I don't really see why anyone has any morality when dealing with them. Corporation kick people of their house all the time when moral people would not. When dealing with corporations, you do the terms of your agreement, nothing more.
Those people are agreeing with the terms of their loan agreement. Either they pay the money, or the bank gets the house. Those were the terms from the start. Perhaps I should quote you 'No matter how sleazy the salesman, you're at least partially to blame if you fall for a scam.'
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
It happened. All you need for proof is the fact that Boehner apologized for doing it, years after the fact Unless you think Bloomberg is too lefty a news site for you.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain