Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Blame Game

Our economy is in a lot of trouble right now and it seems that all the suits in Washington want to do is play the blame game. The mess we're in right now cannot be put squarely on the shoulders of one party, but it is mostly do to the continued actions and non-actions of one organization; congress. In the early '90's legislation was passed to loosen up the credit and lending laws because people were falsely claiming racism on the part of lenders. Thus, the 'sub-prime' loans were born. Over the years, more and more laws were stacked on top of the first ones to the point that they were practically giving houses away to first time home buyers 5-7 years ago. Both parties have had their opportunities to make changes and they haven't.

The following are some comments from Glenn Beck's website. He puts more of the blame on the democrats and brings up some surprising information that the mainstream media doesn't tell you. The comments in blue are those of a typical liberal and the reply are those of the always articulate, always charming and handsome conservative...

'The last thing we need is another 4 years of the failed Republican policies that have led us to the brink of disaster...with the mess they've made of huge financial institutions like Fannie Mae & AIG, that we now have to bail out!'
1. Fannie Mae really WAS run right into the ground wasn't it? And guess what? It was DEMOCRATS who did it. Former Fannie Mae Chairman and CEO Franklin Raines was the White House budget director under Bill Clinton. He was also cited by the Washington Post as an economic advisor to...Barack Obama. Obama, in his very short time in the U.S. Senate also quickly became the second largest recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae, ahead of even John Kerry.

'OK, ONE democrat doesn't make this a democrat caused problem!'
2. Well then, there's Jamie Gorelick. Does that name sound familiar? She served as Bill Clinton's Deputy Attorney General. She installed the Intelligence "Wall of Separation" that helped lead to the disaster we suffered on 9/11. Then she served as Vice Chairman at Fannie Mae. In 2002, she told "BusinessWeek" that Fannie Mae was "very, very strong" and was "managed safely". For her efforts, driving the company to the brink, she received $26 million plus bonuses.

'That doesn't explain this incredible mess we're in now'
3. Actually, in large part, it does. Fannie Mae is heavily involved with the Congressional Black Caucus. Interim CEO Daniel Mudd described the relationship Fannie Mae and the Congressional Black Caucus shared as a "family" relationship. The Caucus pressured Fannie Mae to get mortgage loans for millions of Americans who couldn't afford them. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the worst offenders in this housing loan crisis, which in turn caused so many banking institutions to go down with it. The crisis has had a domino effect throughout our financial institutions. In fact, AIG was in part brought down because it held $600 million in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Meanwhile, President Bush has called for reforming Fannie and Freddie 17 TIMES this year alone! The democrats' fingerprints are all over this crisis.

Here is the original White House Press Release. It would have been nice if the media actually 'released' it. They want you to think that this is all because of the GOP. A new CNN poll actually shows that the majority of people believe it too.

Should there be charges filed? Should these Fannie and Freddie people go to jail? Remember Enron? Do you think congress is going to hold hearings to investigate all of this? Last year at this time congress was busy holding hearings over steroids in baseball. Thank goodness we got to the bottom of that.

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