Who's Responsible for the Financial Meltdown: Fannie and Freddie, or Congress?

the blame

Read this article:

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=975305C0-18FE-70B2-A8B43AFE7B6C6C16

the Phill Gramm backed repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall banking act. Among those currently serving who voted for this: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) all voted in 1999 to roll back banking regulations.

Senator Shelby of Alabama was the lone senator to vote NO..John Mc Cain, the only senator not to make the vote. He must have been too busy to save us back then.

Interestingly, Barney Frank voted against this, yet I repeatedly see him blamed.

HARRY?? You Mean George!

You just butchered one of the greatest movies of all time. It was GEORGE Bailey that ran the BUILDING and Loan, not the Thrift and Loan. Harry was George' s brother (fell through the ice, later army hero, etc.) Come onnn, how do you mess up an American classic like that!?

old fashioned greed

this is typical of american companies, greed, no wonder we are going down the drain as a nation. make the money short term, heck with long term, that's why foreign companies last, they are willing to take a loss for awhile because in the long run they will make money. we did this to ourselves, we let it happen, when we did see it happening we looked the other way, just like we do with the immagration problem, gee wasn't that supposed to be solved 3 yrs ago? but because illegals march our government does nothing! we sure don't want to offend future voters! i understand people have constitual right, but also gee don't you have to be a LEGAL CITIZEN to have them? the roman empire lasted i believe 500 years, we screw it up in a little over 200 years! did you know the u.s. has 90% of the worlds lawyers?......we let all this damage to our economy happen, in a way we deserve it..........one last thing. i will not vote for a 72 yr old man for president! wake up america! use common sense for once!

Another person's life

Yes, the movie has been misremembered. The main subject of the story was George Bailey. His brother was Harry.

Get Real

Let me start with the regulators, who obviously looked the other way! Get real "sub" in any terms but submarine is probably very risky! CEOs, similar to the most recent former CEO of WaMu; 17 days work & a $20 million severene check?! Get real; just for the principle I am moving my accts to someone other than WaMu & their new parent. I'll go more local. Gov't needs to get real too. Another $1 trillion to our $8 trillion debt? Are they kidding? The paper already is junk grade & the "hope" that we tax paying investors can expect is a bum deal from those who can't keep a responsible budget themselves. This appears to be a classic "blind leading the blind" move & somehow the corporate greed character still won't be reeled in. We are already paying for the last 40 - 50 yrs of living beyond our means & now we're gonna add about 10 yrs' growth in debt in 1 bill. Its all so pathetic I just can't stand it anymore. I'm already moving my bank accts, but I'm also not going to vote for any incumbents in office, not even the dog catcher.

BTW It was George Bailey ( Jimmy Stewart ) as the Bailey Building & Loan CEO; Harry was the medal of honor winning brother!

It's a wonderful life

Sorry but if I remember it right Harry baily died, and it was George that was always going broke.... So if fact can we blame this whole mass on our dead parents?

ECONOMY

I'm so tired of people saying the Democrats are to blame for this... There's no way on earth. That's what's holding this so call buy-out package up. Democrats want something for the middle class out of this, and I don't mean the speculators who bought homes and paid interest only and said "We'll sell in 4 yrs. and be rich" I mean the regular people who are busting their butts everyday and are going backwards by the minute. The ones in charge make it sound like the end of the world is NOW, well then someone should tell the Republicans to tell Wall Street to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, a phrase I heard from a Republican a few yrs. back, and stop WHINNING a phrase more recent, by I believe the same republican and that's the way I feel as a small business owner in northern Michigan trying to stay afloat... OUT WITH THE OLD IN IN WITH THE NEW!!

And Let's REGULATE -

There's no way Obama could do any worse than "W"... he's going down in history as the worst President.. I have friends that probably could have done a better job running this country.

AMEN

And God Help Us All!

Meltdown

It is obvious that "W" and his greedy collaborators has caused this giant problem. Don't you see they wanted more. Paulson wanted control of $700 billion dollars without conditions. This is to pay himself off and those associated between him, W, and other wealthy crooks. They don't care about the citizens of the US who work hard just to make ends meet. Since W took office, all he has been using to get what he wants is the use of "FEAR". Just like IRAQ...."we must act now or else!!!". Well I am glad it did not work this time. By next year a large investigation will be launched and these criminals will pay. Lives were wasted so that they can get their way. US fund was secretly divided among them using false information to scare the citizens. Now we are at a bad situation but they still try to vacuum the economy just under our nose even though it's so visible. They think we are just dumb and will ignore the facts. If nobody in Congress acts to prevent further stealing from the people, this country will collapse in a state never before experienced. Like Buffet said, "heaven help us"....he meant help the $5B that he just invested with Goldman Sach after getting under the table information from somebody in Washington.

Crime doesn't pay and the truth will come out in time.

Greenspan warned banks a long time ago

As a seasoned Mortgage Broker I remember reading an artical in the Scottsman Trade Magazine about the Banking conference held in Arizona a few years back. I remember reading that the then Chairman Greenspan warned banks that were to heavily involved in the subprime market that they would suffer losses like they have never seen before, because they did not know what they were doing. Get out and stay out of this market was his message to all banks, "leave subprime lending to the lenders that have experience." Of course, since subprime loans were pure gold, banks did not listen and look what we have now. Loss like you have never seen, and very wealthy CEO's.

Interesting history

These are all very interesting, especially how they actually name names and give details. However they don't look back far enough. Fannie and Freddie didn't just come up with their affordable housing ideas on their own. It was a Clinton era expansion of Carter era policies that not only encouraged, but often required banks to give high risk loans in the name of helping low-income families.