"The Cult of Ignorance"

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Inu, you keep beating that drum that the gubmint forcing banks to loan money to poor people did all of this, but there just isn't evidence to support that theory.

Those banks that hit people with foreclosures that didn't even take loans out ended up facing repercussions for their actions, however as for the intentions of ACORN and the Government, one I doubt their intentions were as pure as you say. Also isn't there a saying that, "The road to Hell is paved with Good intentions."

And what insidious plot did ACORN and Obama really have in trying to get housing for low income people?

And the fact remains, those banks foreclosing on people who had never taken out loans happened only because of deregulation, which allowed the banks to get away with murder.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

@ Kraichgauer

Simple, destabilize everything to get the left wing socialist agenda pushed into place.

I posted two vidoes on this thread and have posted links that support what I am saying in other threads in the past.

The fact you have chosen not to read or listen to any of them, does not change the fact I have submitted sources to back up what I am saying.

Forgive me, but that maybe one of the crazier conspiracy theories.
Just because the right demonizes everything the left does doesn't make it so.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I'm not demonizing everyone on the left, I said ACORN. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were just getting kickbacks from Fannae Mae and Freddie Mac.

The right had had it out for ACORN for sometime, and it was that conniving little weasel in his pimp outfit and spliced videotape that did them in. And Dodd and Frank, as far as I'm concerned, are being scapegoated by the right, as they're perhaps the best known of the Dems who pushed for regulation.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

You keep focusing on just one aspect of the recent financial crisis because it is the one aspect that bolsters your ideology.

The fact remains that there are several aspects of it which contradict your ideology.

There are countries where no CRA-like laws existed, in which ACORN did not operate, which had similar mortgages lending practices, which led to similar issues down the road.

The vast majority of sub-prime mortgages were issued by lenders who are not subject to the CRA, and the vast majority of those lenders were never threatened with suits by ACORN.

The vast majority of loans made pursuant to the CRA by FDIC-insured lenders have not defaulted.

At no time did ACORN force lenders to re-sell these loans to investment banks, or force said investment banks to package them into aggregate financial instruments.

ACORN did not force the ratings agencies to give these financial instruments AAA ratings.

Further, ACORN did nothing to force the hand of investment banks in dividing these financial instruments into tranches so complex that hardly anybody can really say what is in these tranches and then re-sell them, with fraudulently applied ratings, to investors who were not adequately informed of their contents.

ACORN was not in any way involved in the sale of credit default swaps purchased as hedges against these complex tranches.

The problems with your theory go on and on. We've been over this before.

Inuyasha,

I have asked you before for seven straigthforward analytical measures to demonstrate your hypothesis:

For the decade from 1998 to 2008 (or a shorter period before 2008, if you prefer)

Issuance

1) What percentage of mortgages (by number of loans or by principal value) were CRA mandated?
2) What percentage of subprime mortgages were CRA mandated?
3) What percentage of subprime mortgages were issued by lenders not regulated by the CRA?

Default

4) What percentage of CRA mortgages defaulted?
5) What percentage of mortgages, generally, defaulted?
6) What percentage of subprime mortgages, generally, defaulted?

Risk management

7) What percentage of CRA mandated mortgages were sold on in derivative investment instruments?

If you can back up your parroting with some hard evidence, I will consider it. But greater minds than yours and mine have already combed this issue and dismissed it as nonsense, and I am inclined to agree with them unless presented with evidence to the contrary.

What Inuyasha is completely missing is that we have experienced a crisis not of lending but of investment banking.

I've already admitted that i think that the CRA opened the door, and that Fanny and Freddy being willing to buy sub-prime loans from non-FDIC-insured lenders propped the door open.

But without the abuses of the investment banking system, the crisis would not have occurred.

Nobody forced the investment bankers to abuse the system they were given to work in, and without that abuse we would not be here.

that's what I like about that short clip. It makes very little sense but he is at least providing a biological explanation, however wrong. He obviously came up with that himself rather than being fed it by the Murdochsphere or whatnot. That's a classic "Ricky-ism" (the character is known for statements along these lines, or for making blatant malapropisms. Not unlike George W. Bush actually)







Indeed. This sort of ignorance is exactly what I was referring to in the OP. Ignorance is either blatant or unintentional, but either way, most are unwilling to change it, and amongst the New Right it is held as a virtue, especially if it is notably belligerent and thus "patriotic"

I'm saying that investment bankers were misled by Fanny and Freddy that these were safe investments.

The reason why this even traces back into the Federal Government is because both Fanny and Freddy are quasi-government agencies.

But Fanny and Freddy weren't involved in the derivative business. Investment banks thought that up all by themselves.

As risk management strategies go, they are actually very good, provided that the risk is properly rated and honestly disclosed.

I agree with you that government is largely responsible, but we disagree about why. I put the blame on the failure of regulation and prudential supervision.

But it just sounds like you're letting bankers guilty of taking advantage of the situation to prey on the vulnerabilities of their customers off the hook.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Actually, I don't discount the fact that some of them were dishonest slime balls. However many of them were simply misled by Fanny and Freddy, because these investments were seen as being backed by The Federal Government. Due to this fact, investment banks were led to believe that these investments were safe because they were backed by the government.

Even if they were misled, how does that justify their subsequent slime ball actions that so many of them had taken part in?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer