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TMFBent (99.85)

Bush gets one right

Recs

4

August 09, 2007 – Comments (4)

Good on Shrubbie, or, more likely, the guys pulling the strings on the puppet. 

"Despite mounting concern over the downturn in the housing market, he dismissed proposals advanced by prominent Democrats to grant government-chartered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac more freedom to buy mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. And he ruled out any taxpayer bailout of lenders threatened by the subprime home-loan crisis."

"

On housing, Bush said he is concerned but believes the market will find "a soft landing" without substantial government intervention beyond enforcing existing policies on predatory lending. "Somebody said, 'Should we be using taxpayer money to bail out lenders?' And the answer is: No, we shouldn't be. The market will work." Instead, he said, policymakers should focus on ways to help people who might lose their homes to refinance, and he called on Congress to change the Federal Housing Administration."

Chuckie Schumer, as usual on economic issues, sounds like the poodle of the Wall Street crowd that he depends on to stay in office.

"Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of the Senate banking committee, said some on Wall Street are "on the edge of being panicked" about mortgage markets. "There's a prominent notion that the regulators should get together and do something," he said. "And a good number of people think Fannie and Freddie are the answer, including some very conservative people.""

Thank God. No reward for greedy citizens and their corporate enablers.

Am torn on a corporate tax break. That would no doubt help me, but what it would do to our already-enormous, head-in-the-sand federal defecit, I'm unsure about.

4 Comments – Post Your Own

#1) On August 09, 2007 at 1:27 PM, billddrummer (41.77) wrote:

I agree with you that the government should stay out of the market.  Free markets are by defiinition going to rise and fall, and any intervention by governmental entities will impede the market's efficiency.  Rather let markets determine the direction of capital flows, not the government.

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#2) On August 09, 2007 at 2:11 PM, mschmalf (70.76) wrote:

Agreed. If business chooses to go after that risk then let them fail if it goes wrong. They wouldn't give the government any more than required if they did exceedingly well so why should we bail them out when they fail.

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#3) On August 11, 2007 at 12:16 PM, EScroogeJr (< 20) wrote:

"Instead, he said, policymakers should focus on ways to help people who might lose their homes to refinance"

Noticed that anyone who lies his way to a mortgage loan, automatically gets into the category of people Bush's sympathies extend to? A renter who will never own a house because he is honest about his income? Fine, let him never own a house. A guy who owned a house briefly to become a renter again? No way! That would be a tragedy! This plight is happening not to some ordinary guy, but to a homeowner. Everyone to the rescue!

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#4) On August 12, 2007 at 11:52 AM, saunafool (98.67) wrote:

I was watching CNBC and one of the guys against a bailout was saying, "if these people are so stupid that they don't read their contract, then tough." He kept calling them stupid, and I was thinking, "how many well-educated people actually read all the terms of their mortgage?"

During the boom, lenders sold option ARMs and similar "products" to buyers, acting as though they were providing professional advice. Buyers listened, and now they are screwed.

The problem with the "no bailout" argument I'm hearing is that they also say "no more regulation." Well, I think maybe regulation requiring income verification and such might not be such a bad deal, eh...

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