Posted by
John Caile on Wednesday, October 01, 2008 11:57:08 AM
Let's see - Liberal Democrats buy votes from poor minorities with false promises of "affordable housing" (to be achieved, of course, using thinly veiled fascist government mandates like the Community Reinvestment Act).
The CRA, along with other such meddling in the private financial markets, essentially blackmailed private financial institutions into giving loans to people who couldn't afford them.
The resulting artificial influx of new buyers into the market drove up housing prices, making them more expensive for everyone, not just "the poor." To deal with the escalating costs, lenders began offering Adjustable Rate Mortages (ARM's) and other instruments designed to allow lower initial monthly payments.
To be fair, it wasn't just "sub-prime" borrowers who jumped into these risky instruments - many regular folks refinanced their homes, too. But too many of these people didn't just try to lower their payments - they took out extra equity to buy SUV's, boats, or other such items.
Meanwhile, Fannie May and Freddie Mac, quasi-government entities staffed and managed primarily by liberal Democrats, engaged in shady accounting practices to hide the growing problem - and continue to pay themselves multimillion dollar bonuses. They also gave their biggest financial donations to highly placed Democrats like Chris Dodd, and more disturbingly, Barak Obama.
So finally, when a significant percentage of these "sub-prime" (i.e. high risk) borrowers predictably defaulted, it caused a drop in housing prices and a financial meltdown. There is no disagreement on the results. But the astonishing part of all this is that, now that the "waste has hit the rotating airfoil" the same Democrats responsible for the whole mess are on TV, claiming that it's suddenly the fault of the Bush Administration and Republicans!
Dodging blame for mistakes while taking credit they don't deserve is nothing new for Democrats. They like to brag about the "Clinton Economy" - but they forget that in 1994, just two years into the Clinton Presidency, Republicans swept the House, and that it was the Republican majority who lowered taxes, passed welfare reform, and were responsible for a whole host of legislation that led to the economic growth of the Clinton years. Even the skyrocketing gas and food prices of recent years are obviously the result of idiotic Democrat policies like ethanol subsidies and "green" mandates - yet as usual, they never get the blame. ("It's 'Big Oil' you know.")
Even more outlandish is that while this whole mess is manifestly the result of too much government interference in private business, the financially inept Nancy Pelosi had the audacity to say that it was the result of too little government!
Not surprisingly, the Democrat's Ministry of Propaganda (otherwise know as ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, the New York Times, ad nauseum) immediately went to work, carefully shaping the public perception to coincide with the Democrat mantra.
Now I'll be the first to agree that there certainly are Republicans involved, but the undeniable fact remains that this debacle is overwhelmingly a Democrat inspired, Democrat initiated, and Democrat run disaster.
Yet it continues to be the "donkey in the living room" that the media, and as a result, most Americans, simply refuse to see.