Actually Dell, 1976 was the first election I could vote in. I voted for Ford because it took balls to pardon Nixon and get the Congress back into the business of running the country. But since the "loan program fo po deadbeat folks" began with Carter, one still has to wonder why we didn't see a rash of foreclosures over the past 30 years. Why did this wait until legislation was introduced that appealed to the greed of those packaging and selling "product" in the form of "sub prime" loans? In almost every case where you deregulate an industry you bring out the greedy folks sniffing a profit...let's look at a few industries that have been deregulated and who "benefited" the most...Airlines - Frank Lorenzo. Electricity - Enron. Finance - Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Yep..Frank's out of the airline business, Enron exists no more and Bear and Leahman are trying their damndest to collapse the American economy. But Frank and those other execs have all said "deregulation has be berry berry good to me". In other words...legislation that appeals to the greed of the "ruling class" usually ends up screwing everybody EXCEPT the ruling class.You can't dump it all on Gerald.
Volcker playing with interest rates ended up causing a deep recession in the 80's and it took Ron Reagan to trickle it back into health
Remember..Carter had a growing deficit of 66 billion
Carter earned his legacy.... :down:
And again, All I can say is "Where were all the foreclosures then if this act is the cause of todays problems"? Anybody? Buehler?
True enough...but 30 years?????? So let's say that 30 years ago the snowball started rolling. Just prior to Christmas break in 2000, along comes Phil Gramm and offers up a Christmas present in the form of a cliff, changing the snowballs downward trajectory from 20% to 75%.
Then how come my local paper, just a month ago, had a front page article on folks in million plus dollar homes were facing foreclosure? Define "a few short years ago"....if it's over 10 years, they please explain why there were not a rash of foreclosures, even back then. And if you want to use dell's "rolling snowball" theory, please explain the events that occured that made folks who previously were able to make payments on their homes suddenly begin defaulting.
The "feel good" issue really had nothing to do to it. The bundling of mortgages provided a "product" for "investors" to "sell". And the goal of every sales force is "more more more". So...how do we get more? Why we begin using the programs for the low income folks to our advantage...WE don't care if they can't pay...WE don't care if what we are selling them goes against their own best interest...all WE care about is that we have some "product" that we can turn right around and sell. We get our money and the sucker that bought my "product" is gonna get stuck when they rot. It wasn't a government program that marketed to folks "consolidate your debt" and touted 4% loans...they didn't even have a fast talking disclaimer in the ads stating the the rate was only good for 5 years and would adjust WAY up. They didn't tout that the loan was "interest only". They just sold "get rid of credit card debt" (read that as "borrow more than your home is worth) and "lower your house payment". These were marketed to folks who didn't understand "negative amortization" or "adjustable rates".
