Barney Frank is out talking up the need for new legistlation to prevent future mortgage crises.  The interesting thing is, he never mentions that he was responsible for the foreclosure crisis in the first place.

AP Article

The plan, which (Barney) Frank said could be voted on by the committee during the first week of May, would also bar financial institutions from securitizing 100 percent of their loans, create a “resolving authority” to help wind down failing institutions in a more orderly way, and ensure no institution becomes so indebted that it threatens the entire national financial system.

He said part of the reason the country finds itself in its current fiscal crisis is a shift from traditional bankers, who made loans but found themselves on the hook if the loans went bad, to complex financial deals that allowed mortgages to be combined and then sold — with little financial risk to those making the loans.

“If only banks made mortgage loans, there would be no crisis,” he said.

He acknowledged that part of the problem were individuals who took out loans even though they should have known they had no reasonable expectation they could pay them back. But Frank said a large part of the blame also goes to those making the loans, who also should have taken the time to figure out if the people they were lending the money to could repay the loans.

Yes, Barney.  And if idiots like you weren’t pressuring government-backed companies into making loans to people with bad credit and low incomes, we would never have had a foreclosure crisis in the first place!

Let’s look at a few Barney Frank quotes about mortgages for low income people and Fannie Mae.

From September, 2003:

These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis.  The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.

…Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not in a crisis.  The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see.  I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound, financially, and, uh, withstand some of the disaster scenarios.  And even if there were a problem, the federal government doesn’t bail them out.  But the more pressure there is there, then the less I think we see in terms of affordable housing.

If Barney Frank got it so wrong the first time, why does he think he’s going to get it right the second time?  Will Barney Frank ever man-up and admit that he is responsible for the mortgage meltdown in the first place?

Barney Frank’s Role In Foreclosure Crisis
Barney Frank Denies Problems With Fannie Mae

Incompetent Democrat Representative and Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank is celebrating a birthday today.  He turns 69.

TMZ is reporting that Bahney Fwank is celebrating his birthday with a private dinner with his butt lover.  I’m sure that his turning 69-years-old will have extra significance.  Don’t be surprised if Mr. Frank has trouble sitting down tomorrow…or if he smells like poop.

Just when you think Democrat Representative from Massachusetts Barney Frank can’t get any dumber, he opens his mouth to prove otherwise.

A couple of weeks ago, speaking about the future of failed government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Rep. Frank was quoted by the New York Times as saying:

There is a commitment to restructure these companies, and we are going to want to retain a hand in the things that matter, like affordable housing and making sure that the housing economy doesn’t become a threat to the entire economy again.

Frank still can’t figure out that it was his policies and the policies of other Democrats to make loans to low income people and those with poor credit which resulted in the massive failures of Fannie and Freddie in the first place.  It was Frank and his DFL allies who blocked Republican efforts to regulate the two to prevent a catastrophic failure from occurring.  And now Frank wants to do the same thing all over again.

It seems that Democrats aren’t smart enough to not make the same mistakes repeatedly.  Lab rats learn from their mistakes.  But not Democrats.

For more on the Democrats’ role in the failures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, please see:

Democrats To Blame For Housing And Financial Crises

Democrat Barney Frank Interview With 60 Minutes

What the hell is wrong with those New Englanders?  Why do they keep electing morons like Barney Frank to positions of power?  Must be something in the water.

Democrat Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said that Barack Obama plans to spend between $40 billion and $100 billion to help homeowners facing foreclosure.

Frank is currently drafting legislation to control what is done with the remaining $350 billion of the $700 TARP bailout package passed with large Democrat support late last year.

In a nutshell, instead of kicking deadbeats out of their homes as should be done, Barack Obama is going to give them free money or pay their mortgage  payments for them.  Basically, people will get free houses.

Did you get a free house?  I didn’t.  That’s the Democrats for you.

AP Story

What really sickens me is that Barney Frank, who is championing homeowner bailouts, is largely responsible for creating the mortage crisis in the first place.  Read more here:

Barney Frank Responsible For Mortgage Crisis

As we all know, Democrat Barney Frank was instrumental in causing the subprime mortgage crisis and the millions of foreclosures we face today. Paul Shanklin, political satarist, has a parody of Barney Frank called “The Banking Queen” to the Abba tune “Dancing Queen”.  It has aired on the Rush Limbaugh show several times in recent months.  If you haven’t heard it, there is a link to it in our political forum.  Just click that link and you can listen to “Banking Queen” on Youtube.

It is absolutely hillarious! 

Since I do not have cable TV, I have never understood why Democrats, and liberals in particular, express such hatred toward Fox News.  I think I am beginning to understand why:  Fox News reports the truth that the rest of the media refuses to.

For years, I have heard and read Fox News being called “Faux News” by lefties in order to soil the reputation of the highest-rated cable news network.  On various message boards, I have pointed out that Rupert Murdock, Chairman and Managing Director of News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, is a Hillary Clinton supporter and held a fundraiser for her back in 2006.  Left-wingers like to ignore such facts.

President Bush had been warning for years that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were growing out of control, taking on too much risk, and posed a huge systemic risk to the economy of the United States.  None of the major news organizations has reported this.  Instead, as you will see below, they are trying to pin the blame on him for the mortgage crisis.

White House Press Release Setting The Facts Straight

In April 2001, Bush said Fannie Mae was “a potential problem,” because “financial trouble of a large GSE could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting federally insured entities and economic activity.”

It turns out Bush was right.  He was also right about the need for expanded oil drilling back in 2001.  He was right about the Surge.  He was right about a lot of things and not given an ounce of credit for it.  Not only was he not given any credit, but he has been bashed repeatedly and blamed for things that he had nothing to do with such as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which was the fault of the Democrat mayor of New Orleans and the Democrat governor of Louisiana who failed to order mandatory evacuations in a timely manner despite pleas from Bush.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were regulated by Congress.  Because of this, there is little to nothing that Bush could have done without action from Congress to prevent the massive failures that occurred in 2008.  Democrats don’t seem to realize that the power of the President is limited; it is Congress that writes laws and spends money, the President can only approve or veto legislation.

Back in 1999, people were sounding warning bells about Fannie and Freddie.  The Clinton administration was pressuring Fannie Mae to expand their operations to purchase more loans from originators that were made to people with poor credit ratings and low incomes.

NY Times Article Sept. 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets–including the New York metropolitan region–will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans.

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…

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980’s.

There you have it.  You have the smoking gun proving that Democrats were the ones responsible for Fannie and Freddie getting mixed up in the junk mortgage market and you have the warning of the implosion that was to come.

But the Democrats fought against Fannie and Freddie reforms tooth and nail.  I found a video on Youtube that shows Barney Frank saying that there is no problem with Fannie Mae and quotes from other Democrats pretty much echoing that sentiment.  (I found this thanks to a poster over at livinglakecountry.com by the name of Jim who posted a link to this site.  Thanks, Jim.)

Youtube Video

Sept. 10, 2003, Treasury Secretary testified before Congress that:

We need a strong, world-class regulatory agency to oversee the prudential operations of the GSEs, and the safety and the soundness of their financial activities.

There is a clip of Democrat Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) responding:

…Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not in a crisis.  The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see.  I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound, financially, and, uh, withstand some of the disaster scenarios.  And even if there were a problem, the federal government doesn’t bail them out.  But the more pressure there is there, then the less I think we see in terms of affordable housing.

Talk about legendary stupidity!  Barney Frank was wrong on so many levels.  First off, there was a looming crisis with Fannie and Freddie–he was too dumb to see it.  They failed, Barney.  Secondly, there was no exaggeration of the threats of the “safety and soundness” of these two government-sponsored enterprises.  The threats were real, as history has shown.  There indeed were “serious financial losses to the Treasury”, an amount still unknown, but well into the tens-of-billions of dollars, perhaps hundreds-of-billions.  The government did bail them out, contrary to Barney Frank’s idiotic opinion.  And perhaps worst of all, it was the policies of giving loans to people who were not creditworthy that pushed the cost of housing up far beyond the rate of economic growth which in the end made housing less affordable for everyone.

As always, the Democrats’ policies end up hurting most the very people they claim to fight for.

In the end, legislation proposed by the Bush administration was blocked by Democrats in 2001.  And Democrats blocked it again every year from 2002 to 2007.

On February 17, 2005, before a House Financial Services Committee hearing, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said about Fannie and Freddie (PDF hearing transcript):

So I think that going forward, enabling these institutions to increase in size, and they will once the crisis in their judgment passes.

We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.

At a later committee hearing, Greenspan re-iterated the need for more regulations:

If we fail to strengthen GSE regulations, we increase the possibility of insolvency and crisis.

Bloomberg Article With Greenspan’s Warnings

Yet Democrats still thwarted every attempt at GSE reform despite repeated warnings from experts.

The blame for this mess in the housing market rests solely with the Democratic Party.  Unfortunately, liberal journalists are trying to rewrite history.  Even more unfortunate, those with lesser intelligence (Democrat voters) believe it.

A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times ran an article by some left-wing journalists which amounted to nothing more than a final kick in the teeth as a going away present for President Bush.  The thesis of the article is that Bush is to blame for the mortgage crisis because he supported expanded home ownership.

Sensible people know that home ownership is a good thing.  People who own their homes take more pride in their communities, are more vigilant about crime, and build a nest egg that they can draw off of in their old age.  The goal of home ownership by itself is not to blame for the mortgage crisis, as the authors are claiming.  Making mortgages to people who did not have the ability to pay the money back is the reason for the meltdown in the housing sector, not the goal of home ownership.  Bush never once advocated making loans to those with poor credit and inadequate incomes–but the Democrats did.

NY Times Blames Bush For Mortgage Crisis Article

White House Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire

There are plenty of culprits, like lenders who peddled easy credit, consumers who took on mortgages they could not afford and Wall Street chieftains who loaded up on mortgage-backed securities without regard to the risk.

But the story of how we got here is partly one of Mr. Bush’s own making, according to a review of his tenure that included interviews with dozens of current and former administration officials.

The writers do include one nugget of truth in the article.

Mr. Bush did foresee the danger posed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage finance giants. The president spent years pushing a recalcitrant Congress to toughen regulation of the companies, but was unwilling to compromise when his former Treasury secretary wanted to cut a deal.

But they don’t absolve Bush of responsibility.  They blame him further for not wanting to cut a deal to get the regulations enacted.  And what would that deal have been?  Massive tax increases and more wealth redistribution?

(Also notice how they refer to him as “Mr. Bush” repeatedly instead of his proper title of President Bush.  Looks disrespectful to me.)

Nowhere in that article is the Democrats’ crucial role in this debacle mentioned.  Not one word is written about Democrats blocking new regulations time and again.  That doesn’t fit the Bush-bashing narrative.  But without the Democrats, there would have been no over-inflated housing values, no mortgage crisis, and there would not have been millions of foreclosures wreaking havoc on communities all over the country.

The entire article is a seething tirade against Bush and the Republicans with nothing negative to say about Democrats who caused this fiasco.

One more thing I would like to mention is that this notion that the mortgage crisis is to blame for the global recession is misleading at best and, I argue, an outright lie.  If you look at unemployment rates in the United States, you will find that they moved in near lock-step with gas prices.  In fact, unemployment in most industrialized nations rose as gas prices rose.  The vast majority of people in America and around the world were completely unaffected by the happenings in the mortgage market.  But no one was immune to high gas prices, for which the Democrats are also to blame.  We will look at that next time.

Also, we will look at who was running these big Wall Street firms that gorged themselves on subprime mortgage-backed securities leading to their failures.  Richard Fuld, the former CEO of failed investment bank Lehman Brothers, was a huge Democratic Party contributor.  Franklin Raines, former CEO of Fannie Mae, is also a Democrat.  Are you starting to notice a pattern here?

Wherever you find lies, fraud, and destruction, you will find a Democrat rat scurrying around.

Democrat Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts was interviewed by CBS News’ Lesley Stahl on last night’s edition of “60 Minutes”.  Barney Frank demonstrated to the world that he is a true moron.  He exhibited the faulty logic typical of liberalism to a stomach-turning degree.  Not surprisingly, Lesley Stahl never pursued it.  A real journalist would have torn Frank to shreds with the ammunition he provided.

Rep. Frank is the head of the House Financial Services Committee which oversees the entire financial industry including the banking, securities, insurance, and housing industries.  The interview dealt mostly with the current subprime mortgage crisis and home foreclosures which, interestingly, Barney Frank is largely responsible for causing.  Lesley Stahl never really mentioned that.

60 Minutes Article And Video Of Barney Frank Interview

As the piece opened, it was very flattering of Rep. Frank.  It made me gag.  It started with:

Barney Frank has been called the “smartest guy in Congress,” which is lucky for us since he works on some of the thorniest issues around.

Frank has been called the “smartest guy in Congress” by whom?  Himself?  Other Democrat morons?  Nobody else could call a massive idiot like Barney Frank “smart” given what he has done.  Frank was one of the leaders who blocked Republican efforts to put stricter regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the early 2000s to prevent Fannie and Freddie from collapsing–which they inevitably did.  First, a little history lesson.

In the late 1990s, the Clinton administration was pressuring Fannie Mae to make loans to people with poor credit and low incomes in an effort to increase minority home ownership.  Fannie Mae was run by a Democrat by the name of Franklin Raines.  He made a reported $100 million in a few years time while leading the government-backed corporation during a period when it committed massive accounting fraud.  Being a loyal Democrat, Raines was more than happy to oblige the requests of the puppet master, Bill Clinton.  Making high-risk loans was good for Raines, too, since it put a lot of money into his pocket.

Home ownership is a good goal for America.  Home ownership by means of giving loans to people who can’t pay the money back isn’t wise.  In the late 1990s, people were warning that Fannie was taking on too much risk by becoming such a large player in the subprime mortgage market.

NY Times Article From Sept. 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans.

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…

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980’s.

In 1999–nine years before Fannie Mae collapsed–people were warning that the quasi-governmental agency was taking on too much risk and posed a huge financial danger to the taxpayers of this country (most of whom vote Republican).

So what did Barney Frank do?  Rep. Frank and his Democrat colleagues did everything they could to prevent the Bush administration and Republicans from imposing stricter regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to prevent a catastrophic failure from happening.  Let’s look at just how “smart” Barney Frank is, shall we?

NY Times Article From Sept. 11, 2003

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt — is broken.

In 2003, the Bush administration and Republicans were pushing for more regulations to prevent the collapse which occurred a few months ago.  What did “smart” Barney Frank think of this?  From the same article:

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Barney Frank said that there was no problem with Fannie and Freddie.  It turns out that there were big problems with those two taxpayer-backed corporations.  They failed, costing the hard-working taxpayers billions!

Obviously, Barney Frank was wrong.  He isn’t smart.  He’s an idiot.  And so is Lesley Stahl who opened her piece by saying that it is lucky for us that Rep. Frank has been called the “smartest guy in Congress”.

Is it lucky for us that Barney Frank blocked Republican efforts to prevent Fannie and Freddie from collapsing?  Is that Lesley Stahl’s idea of good fortune?

The Stahl piece went on to briefly mention Rep. Frank’s relationship with a male prostitute and the fact that a male prostitution ring was being run out of Frank’s home in 1989.  Amazing how he had no knowledge of that…

The entire interview with Barney Frank is a showcase of idiocy and the mental disorder of liberalism.  More to come in the next post.

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