Frugal Living: Feb 26, 2009

misc.consumers.frugal-living
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living?hl=en

misc.consumers.frugal-living@googlegroups.com

Today's topics:

==============================================================================
TOPIC: Omega DeVille Prestige Watch, Popular Wristwatch
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living/t/648291c4f57b69ac?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Wed, Feb 25 2009 11:19 pm
From: iwcwatches217@gmail.com

Omega DeVille Prestige Watch, Popular Wristwatch
Popular Watches: http://www.watchebay.net/
Omega Watches: http://www.watchebay.net/Omega-Watches.html
Omega DeVille Prestige Watch: http://www.watchebay.net/Omega-DeVille-Prestige.html

Omega DeVille Prestige All Hot Luxury Wristwatch :

==============================================================================
TOPIC: 2009new style nike jordan shoes
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living/t/166b3faf2ec71a9d?hl=en
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== 1 of 2 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 12:19 am
From: "sportshoes-pay-pal001@hotmail.com"

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== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 6:29 am
From: "sportshoes-pay-pal001@hotmail.com"

Description

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known product ,and facing to both wholesalers,retailsalers,and
personal customer all over the world. We export all kinds of products
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Return Policy

==============================================================================
TOPIC: Hey, I'm Spending !
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living/t/81c3c957ffde3287?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 12:35 am
From: "Rod Speed"

josejarvie@ssnet.net wrote
> Noveau67@aol.com wrote

>> What I am hearing and reading is that the printing of money by the
>> US Treasury to pay for Stimulus 1, 2 and 3, plus bailouts 1, 2, 3 ad
>> infinitum, will cause 10% to 20% inflation starting around year 2010.

>> I really don't think they know what's going to happen.

> One economist is predicating hyperinflation in about 18 months

More fool that fool. Taint gunna happen, you watch.

> and the U.S. may default on it's foreign loans.

Not a chance, you watch.

> I plan to buy some extra staples such as flour, sugar,
> powered milk and rice some time in the next few months.

More fool you. That wont save you even if there is hyperinflation.

> I know that Mormons keep a big stash of beans or wheat or something

They are also stupid enough to believe that some fool got handed some
tablets of gold that he managed to translate, even tho he had no knowledge
of the language they were written in, and then handed them back etc.

If you're actually stupid enough to believe that, you'll believe anything.

> maybe I should pretend to join the church so I can get discount on such things.

They dont sell them at a discount to their suckers.

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TOPIC: Frugal Fixes for New Technology
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living/t/02ef765b0f1790d7?hl=en
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== 1 of 2 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 12:43 am
From: meow2222@care2.com

Artys wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I am new to this group. I belong to the website WetCanvas, and
> lately they have had a thread about various frugal fixes for such
> things as bad hard drives,

there are no workable fixes.

> dried-up ink, etc. It is in one of the
> channels. The idea for dried up ink is to warm it up with a hair
> blowdryer for awhile, which lets the ink flow again.

that won't rehydrate the ink. A soak in water or alcohol is the usual
method, the success rate is patchy though, I wouldnt bother. Theres
not much sense in going inkjet these days.

== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 7:54 am
From: Dave Garland

meow2222@care2.com wrote:

> I wouldnt bother. Theres
> not much sense in going inkjet these days.

I'm not a big fan of inkjets either. But you can get quite decent
color output for $100, even $50, and price is often a concern. Where
can I find a color laser for that price?

Dave

==============================================================================
TOPIC: Vitamin suppliers
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living/t/9db761e8ade6e56c?hl=en
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== 1 of 2 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 12:51 am
From: pillpopper

Whose the best net vitamin/supplement supplier? I've been using Puritans
Pride, but am looking for a better alternative. They don't answer
customer complaints.

== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 6:13 am
From: albundy2@mailinator.com

pillpopper wrote:
> Whose the best net vitamin/supplement supplier? I've been using Puritans
> Pride, but am looking for a better alternative. They don't answer
> customer complaints.

I just buy the cheapest available at Wal*Mart, CVS, or RiteAid.
What kinds of complaints do you have about vitamins? They won't make
you Superman.

==============================================================================
TOPIC: Bernanke Wants to Bail Out EVERYBODY...Including the Guilty
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living/t/795becfd6648e821?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 2:23 am
From: waldo88

On Feb 25, 2:57 pm, Ray <r...@no.net> wrote:
> Apparently Bernanke (and Obama too?) wants to bail out even those
> who committed fraud and used false financial statements to obtain
> loans.
> ************
>
> Bernanke: Bail out bad borrowers, too
>
> By David Goldman, CNNMoney.com staff writer
>
> February 25, 2009
>
> Federal Reserve chief says mortgage market woes must be solved to
> fix financial markets, even if it means helping irresponsible
> borrowers.
>
> NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke
> said Wednesday that the embattled housing market has crippled the
> economy, and at-risk homeowners need a bailout - even if they
> knew they couldn't afford their home in the first place.
>
> "Some borrowers presumably knew what they were getting into,"
> Bernanke said before the House Financial Services Committee. "But
> from a public policy point of view, the large amount of
> foreclosures are detrimental not just to the borrower and lender
> but to the broader system."
>
> "In many of these situations we have to trade off the moral
> hazard issue against the greater good," he added.
>
> http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/25/news/economy/bernanke_house_hearing/i...

Utter government bullshit. Why won't they screen those to determine
who
is credit worthy?

mitch

==============================================================================
TOPIC: Fridgidaire planned obsolescence ?
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living/t/4c3dde7601a2310d?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 4:26 am
From: Devo

In article
<georgewkspam-A2B5A5.11383225022009@sn-ip.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net>,
Devo <georgewkspam@humboldt1.com> wrote:

> we have had the thermostat / cold control box go south. the points inside
> are fried.
> but if they can find us a part it seems mighty pricey. Is this a way to
> sell you a new fridge?

Thanks , all for constructive advice.
Apparently the unit is too old to find parts but I'll going to "match"
said Cold Control at an appliance repair place and offer them $25.
Take it or leave it.
We have found a very nice replacement fridge for $100 . I'm glad we have
a pick-up to go fetch it. I hear it is not good to move them on their
sides.
Thanks again, Group.
--
It's amazing what you can do. If...
you put your mind to it.

==============================================================================
TOPIC: Wonderful!!!!good news!!! Newest NIKE shoes 8-35USD at www.cicigogo.cn
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http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living/t/49d958fd84b09d5e?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 5:08 am
From: cicitrade601@yahoo.cn

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==============================================================================
TOPIC: What's Up With Food Prices?
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living/t/9837c189523ee77a?hl=en
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== 1 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 5:13 am
From: not@work.org (Vladimir)

Learn the truth, whigger:

How A Clinton-Era Rule Rewrite Made Subprime Crisis Inevitable
By TERRY JONES
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2008 4:30
PM PT

One of the most frequently asked questions about the subprime market
meltdown and housing crisis is: How did the government get so deeply
involved in the housing market?

The answer is: President Clinton wanted it that way.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, even into the early 1990s, weren't the
juggernauts they'd later be.

While President Carter in 1977 signed the Community Reinvestment Act,
which pushed Fannie and Freddie to aggressively lend to minority
communities, it was Clinton who supercharged the process. After
entering office in 1993, he extensively rewrote Fannie's and Freddie's
rules.

In so doing, he turned the two quasi-private, mortgage-funding firms
into a semi-nationalized monopoly that dispensed cash to markets, made
loans to large Democratic voting blocs and handed favors, jobs and
money to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to
corruption and the Fannie-Freddie collapse.

Despite warnings of trouble at Fannie and Freddie, in 1994 Clinton
unveiled his National Homeownership Strategy, which broadened the CRA
in ways Congress never intended.

Addressing the National Association of Realtors that year, Clinton
bluntly told the group that "more Americans should own their own
homes." He meant it.

Clinton saw homeownership as a way to open the door for blacks and
other minorities to enter the middle class.

Though well-intended, the problem was that Congress was about to
change hands, from the Democrats to the Republicans. Rather than
submit legislation that the GOP-led Congress was almost sure to
reject, Clinton ordered Robert Rubin's Treasury Department to rewrite
the rules in 1995.

The rewrite, as City Journal noted back in 2000, "made getting a
satisfactory CRA rating harder." Banks were given strict new numerical
quotas and measures for the level of "diversity" in their loan
portfolios. Getting a good CRA rating was key for a bank that wanted
to expand or merge with another.

Loans started being made on the basis of race, and often little else.

"Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by
neighborhood, income group and race, to rate banks on performance,"
wrote Howard Husock, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute.

But those rules weren't enough.

Clinton got the Department of Housing and Urban Development to
double-team the issue. That would later prove disastrous.

Clinton's HUD secretary, Andrew Cuomo, "made a series of decisions
between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current
crisis," the liberal Village Voice noted. Among those decisions were
changes that let Fannie and Freddie get into subprime loan markets in
a big way.

Other rule changes gave Fannie and Freddie extraordinary leverage,
allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments,
vs. 10% for banks.

Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks due to implicit
government guarantees for their debt, the government-sponsored
enterprises boomed.

With incentives in place, banks poured billions of dollars of loans
into poor communities, often "no doc" and "no income" loans that
required no money down and no verification of income.

By 2007, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed nearly half of the $12
trillion U.S. mortgage market — a staggering exposure.

Worse still was the cronyism.

Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of-work politicians, mostly
Clinton Democrats. An informal survey of their top officials shows a
roughly 2-to-1 dominance of Democrats over Republicans.

Then there were the campaign donations. From 1989 to 2008, some 384
politicians got their tip jars filled by Fannie and Freddie.

Over that time, the two GSEs spent $200 million on lobbying and
political activities. Their charitable foundations dropped millions
more on think tanks and radical community groups.

Did it work? Well, if measured by the goal of putting more poor people
into homes, the answer would have to be yes.

From 1995 to 2005, a Harvard study shows, minorities made up 49% of
the 12.5 million new homeowners.

The problem is that many of those loans have now gone bad, and
minority homeownership rates are shrinking fast.

Fannie and Freddie, with their massive loan portfolios stuffed with
securitized mortgage-backed paper created from subprime loans, are a
failed legacy of the Clinton era.
_________

On Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:38:12 -0500, Jeff <dont_bug_me@all.uk> wrote:

>Vladimir wrote:
>> On Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:55:26 -0600, "John A. Weeks III"
>> <john@johnweeks.com> wrote:
>>
>>> In article <bm6pl.1498$Ez6.9@nwrddc02.gnilink.net>,
>>> "AllEmailDeletedImmediately" <derjda@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> "John A. Weeks III" <john@johnweeks.com> wrote in message
>>>> news:john-FA263E.19051924022009@news-3.octanews.net...
>>>>> In article <49a415ed.12262000@news.motzarella.org>,
>>>>> HereIAm@Home.org (Way Back Jack) wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Yeah, "Up" is a good word for it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In 2008, they blamed the bump-up on gas prices. But food prices
>>>>>> haven't dropped as gas prices have come down.
>>>>> There is a lag time for food costs to come down after fuel comes
>>>>> down. The stuff in the store now was grown over the past 2 years.
>>>>> Wait another year, and if fuel stays low, you should see that.
>>>>> Fuel is just one component of food costs. Another is competition.
>>>>> There is huge demand for corn for ethanol, which has driven corn
>>>>> prices sky high. Since corn isn't as freely available, other
>>>>> grains are being used as a substitute where corn used to be used.
>>>>> That drives their price up as demand increases.
>>>> and let's not forget printing up money which causes inflation, thereby
>>>> raising the price of everything.
>>> And let's not forget that inflation is near zero (according to
>>> the CPI) and interest rates could hardly be lower, and since
>>> we printed trillions under Bush to pay for his failed wars,
>>> it proves that your assertion is false.
>>>
>>> -john-
>>
>> Solution is to keep giving affirmative action loans to deadbeats that
>> started under Carter's "Community Reinvestment Act" and exploded when
>> Clinton rewrote regulations which effectively overthrew safeguards.
>
>Most subprime loans were not made under the CRA. And most loans made
>under CRA regulations are performing. On top of that, institutions that
>made CRA loans are more likely to hold them rather than securitize them
>off. It's is the securitization of loans that is the big problem.
>
> You are buying into half truths. You must be a ditto head.
>>
>> Share the wealth, babeeeee.
>
> I got mine, screw you, baby...
>
> Jeff

== 2 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 5:53 am
From: "John A. Weeks III"

In article <49a69566.719093@news.datemas.de>, not@work.org (Vladimir)
wrote:

> One of the most frequently asked questions about the subprime market
> meltdown and housing crisis is: How did the government get so deeply
> involved in the housing market?
>
> The answer is: President Clinton wanted it that way.

Actually, everyone has wanted it that way from long before
President Clinton was elected to office. Ever hear of the
FHA? Government involvement in home mortgages is part of
the concept of the ownership society that thinks that home
ownership is a good thing, and that government should encourage
it. Even Bush Jr used those words.

> While President Carter in 1977 signed the Community Reinvestment Act,
> which pushed Fannie and Freddie to aggressively lend to minority
> communities, it was Clinton who supercharged the process. After
> entering office in 1993, he extensively rewrote Fannie's and Freddie's
> rules.

The CRA has nothing to do with the mortgage crisis. The vast
majority of CRA loans were locally held and are performing. The
mortgage crisis is due to non-CRA loans that people got where
they simply could not afford the home, or were unable to make the
payments or refinance when interest rates went up.

Please stop spreading misinformation.

-john-

--
======================================================================
John A. Weeks III 612-720-2854 john@johnweeks.com
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
======================================================================

== 3 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 6:00 am
From: Jeff

jdkki wrote:
> Jeff wrote:
>> jdkki wrote:
>>> Jeff wrote:
>>>> AllEmailDeletedImmediately wrote:
>>>>> "Jeff" <dont_bug_me@all.uk> wrote in message
>>>>> news:b_adnbzgEtQvVznUnZ2dnUVZ_oninZ2d@earthlink.com...
>>>>>> AllEmailDeletedImmediately wrote:
>>>>>>> "Jeff" <dont_bug_me@all.uk> wrote in message
>>>>>>> news:Ot-dnc-uHIerojnUnZ2dnUVZ_g6WnZ2d@earthlink.com...
>>>>>>>> Way Back Jack wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Before long, nobody will be fat anymore, especially with
>>>>>>>>> Obamaflation just around the corner.
>>>>>>>> That's funny that you are blaming the guy that has been in
>>>>>>>> office one month, and not the guy under whose watch this
>>>>>>>> happened. Inherited annual deficit from W is 1.2 T. National
>>>>>>>> debt is more than twice what it was when W took office and gave
>>>>>>>> away the store. What benefit accrued from his policies?
>>>>>>> this problem has been around for longer than bush, 1 or 2. both
>>>>>>> sides are
>>>>>>> responsible.
>>>>>> Sure, but it's W who really took it to a new high. Presidents of
>>>>>> both parties in the past have sought to rein in deficits
>>>>>> eventually. W is the exception, he believed so deeply in "Trickle
>>>>>> Down" that he didn't care about the deficit. Dogma kept him from
>>>>>> making the needed adjustment. Instead he grew the size of
>>>>>> government dramatically at the same time as pushing tax cuts for
>>>>>> the rich. Much of that tax cut money flowed into the same
>>>>>> financial instruments that are crippling the economy now.
>>>>> both sides have deliberately worked toward this end. greenspan
>>>>> knew; that's why he jumped ship when he did. it was his job to
>>>>> fake this country
>>>>> out in any way he could. w just was the one in office when the
>>>>> crumbling s tarted. i think he who has hopenetized the country is
>>>>> going to fare much worse. but, that's the plan. this country
>>>>> has been bankrupt for yrs and it's
>>>>> now at the point where peter can no longer be robbed to pay paul.
>>>>> how convenient that a semi-black male will take the fall. that's
>>>>> why he was put
>>>>> into the office, don't ya know?
>>>> I find it fascinating that the first thing Republicans mention is
>>>> that Obama is black. They do it in complimetary terms but they want it
>>>> known that he is black. Jindle did it last night, and so did McCain
>>>> in his key speeches.
>>>> I don't see it that way, and neither does Obama. Obama see this as
>>>> a key moment in history, one he does not intend to slip by (unlike
>>>> W). Obama is above all else, a pragmatist when it comes to leading.
>>> And whatever he said about change, he's just appointed
>>> slick retreads, including slick's arsehole wife. Some change.
>
>> So, you still got a hangup over Bill's blowjob.
>
> Nope, couldn't actually care less. Nor about JFK fucking anything that wasnt actually dead either.
>
You are a real piece of work.

>> I'm not surprised. If it rattles your cage,
>
> Just another of your pathetic little drug crazed fantasys.

You are sick.
>
>> it's not a bad thing.
>>
>>>> Republicans, particularly now, see the solution to everything as
>>>> tax cuts and less oversight. The same failed dogma.
>>>> The savings rate of this country has been essentially negative for
>>>> much of the last decade,
>>> No it hasn't. You only get a result like that if you ignore the
>>> equity in the houses they are buying.
>
>> Seems like you missed the fact that home prices are falling,
>
> Nope, because even someone as stupid as you should have noticed that
> those who have their house fully paid off still have plenty of equity left.

And how many people are that? I paid off mine years ago, but this is
rare for people under 50.
>
>> so much so that an awful lot of people are under water in their homes.
>
> FAR fewer than those still with equity in their houses.

So, your tradeoff is to sell your home so you can recover your equity?
You have to live somewhere, and reverse mortgages are not easy to get.
>
>> 40% who bought homes in the last few years, and rising.
>
> Pity about all the rest.
>
>> Your argument about tapping a homes equity
>
> Never said a word about tapping that equity. JUST that that equity has
> to be included when you are calculating what savings individuals have.
>
>> has gotten a lot of people in trouble.
>
> Having fun thrashing that straw man ?

A strawman is a creation of your own making designed so that you can
attack it instead of the real case. You seem to be clueless about that.
I suspect you bring it up now because you've heard those words used to
attack your own made up reasoning.

There are many many people who took out loans for the appraised value of
the house rather than it's selling price. At closing they got money
back, almost all those homes have been foreclosed, usually within a year.

>
>>>> that will take a long time to rebalance.
>
>>> You won't see significant savings in other than the equity in
>>> the houses they are buying while interest rates are so low.
>
>> Home sales have fallen off the cliff.
>
> Irrelevant to whether you will see significant savings in
> other than houses while ever interest rates are so low.
>
>> A few smart people, mostly foreigners are snapping them up.
>
> You dont have to be smart to realise that once the price
> of houses stops dropping, that is the time to buy them.
>
>>>> That is the key problem, that consumers are tapped out.
>
>>> Nope. The real problem is that most of them are playing
>>> safe when there is a real risk of them losing their jobs.
>
>> Yes, that also.
>
> That is in fact the main factor thats produced the massive drop in retail sales.

That is because reason has returned, not to everyone, obviously.
>
>> Note that credit card debt is sky high.
>
> It was even higher before the sub prime faisco imploded the world financial system.

The Fed doesn't agree with you:

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g19/hist/cc_hist_sa.html
>
>>>> As far as the country being bankrupt, the debt to GDP has been
>>>> higher before, and is quite a bit higher presently in other countries.
>
>>> Indeed.
>
>>>> This is manageable, but it needs a new engine of growth.
>
>>> Nope, just a return of confidence and decent regulation to avoid
>>> another sub prime fiasco.
>
>> The one thing about W is that he was the ultimate cheerleader. No matter how bad things were, W never let it get to
>> him. It got quite surreal at times. Reason has returned.
>
> No it hasnt. We've just seen a lack of confidence in how long their
> current job will last for, and that confidence ALWAYS returns.
>
>> There is huge glut of inventory in both homes and autos.
>
> We've seen that before, most obviously with the S&L fiasco.
>
>> The big 3 kept auto sales high for quite some time by insane incentives.
>
> It had nothing to do with incentives, everything to do with
> confidence in how long they were likely to keep their job for.
>
>> A lot of people grabbed those deals
>
> Fuck all did, actually. The sales volume didnt peak significantly.

Car manufacturers were selling 2 million more cars than historically
they should have, that continued for all those years they ran
incentives. They knew that, but thought it just keep going on. It was
unsustainable plateau.
>
>> and won't need to replace theirs cars for some time.
>
>> What big ticket item do people need that they don't already have?
>
> It aint about big ticket items, its actually about what everyone does every day.

Well people have scaled back on everything but necessities. You can't
grow an economy that way. An it won't.

Jeff
>
>>>> Retreating in a shell will not work.
>
>>> Correct.
>
>

== 4 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 6:05 am
From: not@work.org (Vladimir)

You're the leftist Kool-Aid drinker spreading the misinformation.

And for your further edification:

In Sept. 2003 President Bush proposed a new agency to oversee
regulatory
reforms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Here is an excerpt form the
above
linked article from Sept. 11, 2003.

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. A report by outside
investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its
accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does

not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

Then in 2005 John McCain co-sponsored the Federal Housing Enterprise
Regulatory Reform Act of 2005.

The Bill was never passed. John McCain addressed the floor on May
26th,
2006. Here is an excerpt:

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory
Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage

of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act,
American
taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie

Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial
system, and the economy as a whole.

I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform
legislation.

This bill was shot down by the Democrats and some Republicans in
Congress.

John McCain fought two years ago to shield the American people from
the
crisis some of us are facing.

What was Barack's vote??

On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 07:53:33 -0600, "John A. Weeks III"
<john@johnweeks.com> wrote:

>In article <49a69566.719093@news.datemas.de>, not@work.org (Vladimir)
>wrote:
>
>> One of the most frequently asked questions about the subprime market
>> meltdown and housing crisis is: How did the government get so deeply
>> involved in the housing market?
>>
>> The answer is: President Clinton wanted it that way.
>
>Actually, everyone has wanted it that way from long before
>President Clinton was elected to office. Ever hear of the
>FHA? Government involvement in home mortgages is part of
>the concept of the ownership society that thinks that home
>ownership is a good thing, and that government should encourage
>it. Even Bush Jr used those words.
>
>> While President Carter in 1977 signed the Community Reinvestment Act,
>> which pushed Fannie and Freddie to aggressively lend to minority
>> communities, it was Clinton who supercharged the process. After
>> entering office in 1993, he extensively rewrote Fannie's and Freddie's
>> rules.
>
>The CRA has nothing to do with the mortgage crisis. The vast
>majority of CRA loans were locally held and are performing. The
>mortgage crisis is due to non-CRA loans that people got where
>they simply could not afford the home, or were unable to make the
>payments or refinance when interest rates went up.
>
>Please stop spreading misinformation.
>
>-john-
>
>--
>======================================================================
>John A. Weeks III 612-720-2854 john@johnweeks.com
>Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
>======================================================================

== 5 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 6:18 am
From: Jeff

Vladimir wrote:
> Learn the truth, whigger:

Oh, another nasty boy.

Get some perspective, instead of those half truths you have latched on to:

San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank Governor Randall Kroszner has stated
that no empirical evidence had been presented to support the claim that
"the law pushed banking institutions to undertake high-risk mortgage
lending".[56] In a Bank for International Settlements ("BIS") working
paper, economist Luci Ellis concluded that "there is no evidence that
the Community Reinvestment Act was responsible for encouraging the
subprime lending boom and subsequent housing bust," relying partly on
evidence that the housing bust has been a largely exurban event.[61]
Others have also concluded that the CRA did not contribute to the
current financial crisis, for example, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair,[62]
Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan,[63] Tim Westrich of the
Center for American Progress,[64] Robert Gordon of the American
Prospect,[65] Daniel Gross of Slate, and Aaron Pressman from
BusinessWeek.[66]

Some legal and financial experts note that CRA regulated loans tend to
be safe and profitable, and that subprime excesses came mainly from
institutions not regulated by the CRA. In the February 2008 House
hearing, law professor Michael S. Barr, a Treasury Department official
under President Clinton,[67][34] stated that a Federal Reserve survey
showed that affected institutions considered CRA loans profitable and
not overly risky. He noted that approximately 50% of the subprime loans
were made by independent mortgage companies that were not regulated by
the CRA, and another 25% to 30% came from only partially CRA regulated
bank subsidiaries and affiliates. Barr noted that institutions fully
regulated by CRA made "perhaps one in four" sub-prime loans, and that
"the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with
the least federal oversight".[68] According to Janet L. Yellen,
President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, independent
mortgage companies made risky "high-priced loans" at more than twice the
rate of the banks and thrifts; most CRA loans were responsibly made, and
were not the higher-priced loans that have contributed to the current
crisis.[69] A 2008 study by Traiger & Hinckley LLP, a law firm that
counsels financial institutions on CRA compliance, found that CRA
regulated institutions were less likely to make subprime loans, and when
they did the interest rates were lower. CRA banks were also half as
likely to resell the loans.[70] Emre Ergungor of the Federal Reserve
Bank of Cleveland found that there was no statistical difference

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act

Poor people are not to blame for todays crisis. Instead it is poorly
regulated companies looking for a quick buck. That is almost always the
way these bubbles blow up and collapse.

Jeff

>
> How A Clinton-Era Rule Rewrite Made Subprime Crisis Inevitable
> By TERRY JONES
> INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2008 4:30
> PM PT
>
> One of the most frequently asked questions about the subprime market
> meltdown and housing crisis is: How did the government get so deeply
> involved in the housing market?
>
>
> The answer is: President Clinton wanted it that way.
>
> Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, even into the early 1990s, weren't the
> juggernauts they'd later be.
>
> While President Carter in 1977 signed the Community Reinvestment Act,
> which pushed Fannie and Freddie to aggressively lend to minority
> communities, it was Clinton who supercharged the process. After
> entering office in 1993, he extensively rewrote Fannie's and Freddie's
> rules.
>
> In so doing, he turned the two quasi-private, mortgage-funding firms
> into a semi-nationalized monopoly that dispensed cash to markets, made
> loans to large Democratic voting blocs and handed favors, jobs and
> money to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to
> corruption and the Fannie-Freddie collapse.
>
> Despite warnings of trouble at Fannie and Freddie, in 1994 Clinton
> unveiled his National Homeownership Strategy, which broadened the CRA
> in ways Congress never intended.
>
> Addressing the National Association of Realtors that year, Clinton
> bluntly told the group that "more Americans should own their own
> homes." He meant it.
>
> Clinton saw homeownership as a way to open the door for blacks and
> other minorities to enter the middle class.
>
> Though well-intended, the problem was that Congress was about to
> change hands, from the Democrats to the Republicans. Rather than
> submit legislation that the GOP-led Congress was almost sure to
> reject, Clinton ordered Robert Rubin's Treasury Department to rewrite
> the rules in 1995.
>
> The rewrite, as City Journal noted back in 2000, "made getting a
> satisfactory CRA rating harder." Banks were given strict new numerical
> quotas and measures for the level of "diversity" in their loan
> portfolios. Getting a good CRA rating was key for a bank that wanted
> to expand or merge with another.
>
> Loans started being made on the basis of race, and often little else.
>
> "Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by
> neighborhood, income group and race, to rate banks on performance,"
> wrote Howard Husock, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute.
>
> But those rules weren't enough.
>
> Clinton got the Department of Housing and Urban Development to
> double-team the issue. That would later prove disastrous.
>
> Clinton's HUD secretary, Andrew Cuomo, "made a series of decisions
> between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current
> crisis," the liberal Village Voice noted. Among those decisions were
> changes that let Fannie and Freddie get into subprime loan markets in
> a big way.
>
> Other rule changes gave Fannie and Freddie extraordinary leverage,
> allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments,
> vs. 10% for banks.
>
> Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks due to implicit
> government guarantees for their debt, the government-sponsored
> enterprises boomed.
>
> With incentives in place, banks poured billions of dollars of loans
> into poor communities, often "no doc" and "no income" loans that
> required no money down and no verification of income.
>
> By 2007, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed nearly half of the $12
> trillion U.S. mortgage market — a staggering exposure.
>
> Worse still was the cronyism.
>
> Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of-work politicians, mostly
> Clinton Democrats. An informal survey of their top officials shows a
> roughly 2-to-1 dominance of Democrats over Republicans.
>
> Then there were the campaign donations. From 1989 to 2008, some 384
> politicians got their tip jars filled by Fannie and Freddie.
>
> Over that time, the two GSEs spent $200 million on lobbying and
> political activities. Their charitable foundations dropped millions
> more on think tanks and radical community groups.
>
> Did it work? Well, if measured by the goal of putting more poor people
> into homes, the answer would have to be yes.
>
> From 1995 to 2005, a Harvard study shows, minorities made up 49% of
> the 12.5 million new homeowners.
>
> The problem is that many of those loans have now gone bad, and
> minority homeownership rates are shrinking fast.
>
> Fannie and Freddie, with their massive loan portfolios stuffed with
> securitized mortgage-backed paper created from subprime loans, are a
> failed legacy of the Clinton era.
> _________
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:38:12 -0500, Jeff <dont_bug_me@all.uk> wrote:
>
>> Vladimir wrote:
>>> On Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:55:26 -0600, "John A. Weeks III"
>>> <john@johnweeks.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In article <bm6pl.1498$Ez6.9@nwrddc02.gnilink.net>,
>>>> "AllEmailDeletedImmediately" <derjda@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> "John A. Weeks III" <john@johnweeks.com> wrote in message
>>>>> news:john-FA263E.19051924022009@news-3.octanews.net...
>>>>>> In article <49a415ed.12262000@news.motzarella.org>,
>>>>>> HereIAm@Home.org (Way Back Jack) wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yeah, "Up" is a good word for it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In 2008, they blamed the bump-up on gas prices. But food prices
>>>>>>> haven't dropped as gas prices have come down.
>>>>>> There is a lag time for food costs to come down after fuel comes
>>>>>> down. The stuff in the store now was grown over the past 2 years.
>>>>>> Wait another year, and if fuel stays low, you should see that.
>>>>>> Fuel is just one component of food costs. Another is competition.
>>>>>> There is huge demand for corn for ethanol, which has driven corn
>>>>>> prices sky high. Since corn isn't as freely available, other
>>>>>> grains are being used as a substitute where corn used to be used.
>>>>>> That drives their price up as demand increases.
>>>>> and let's not forget printing up money which causes inflation, thereby
>>>>> raising the price of everything.
>>>> And let's not forget that inflation is near zero (according to
>>>> the CPI) and interest rates could hardly be lower, and since
>>>> we printed trillions under Bush to pay for his failed wars,
>>>> it proves that your assertion is false.
>>>>
>>>> -john-
>>> Solution is to keep giving affirmative action loans to deadbeats that
>>> started under Carter's "Community Reinvestment Act" and exploded when
>>> Clinton rewrote regulations which effectively overthrew safeguards.
>> Most subprime loans were not made under the CRA. And most loans made
>> under CRA regulations are performing. On top of that, institutions that
>> made CRA loans are more likely to hold them rather than securitize them
>> off. It's is the securitization of loans that is the big problem.
>>
>> You are buying into half truths. You must be a ditto head.
>>> Share the wealth, babeeeee.
>> I got mine, screw you, baby...
>>
>> Jeff
>

== 6 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 6:39 am
From: clams_casino

Vladimir wrote:

>Learn the truth, whigger:
>
>
>
>While President Carter in 1977 signed the Community Reinvestment Act,
>which pushed Fannie and Freddie to aggressively lend to minority
>communities, it was Clinton who supercharged the process. After
>entering office in 1993, he extensively rewrote Fannie's and Freddie's
>rules.
>
>
>
So if Crater is still effecting the economy after 30 years, does that
mean we are doomed by the GW ineptness for another 30+ years?

== 7 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 7:13 am
From: not@work.org (Vladimir)

On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:39:23 -0500, clams_casino
<PeterGriffin@DrunkinClam.com> wrote:

>Vladimir wrote:
>
>>Learn the truth, whigger:
>>
>>
>>
>>While President Carter in 1977 signed the Community Reinvestment Act,
>>which pushed Fannie and Freddie to aggressively lend to minority
>>communities, it was Clinton who supercharged the process. After
>>entering office in 1993, he extensively rewrote Fannie's and Freddie's
>>rules.
>>
>>
>>
>So if Crater is still effecting the economy after 30 years, does that
>mean we are doomed by the GW ineptness for another 30+ years?

Thanks to Marxists now in power, I will be growing cabbages and you
potatoes and we will share, comrade.

== 8 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Feb 26 2009 7:13 am
From: not@work.org (Vladimir)

Nonsense.

Opinion of limousine socialists irrelevant.

Objective truth here: