The Subprime Mess

[silverscreenselect]

This is a long blog entry written a year ago, but it's as good an explanation of subprime lending as I've seen. Key point: The mess was not created by either "bad" risks who were primarily minorities looking for homes they knew they couldn't afford or by government housing initiatives "forcing" banks to make loans to such bad risks.

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2007 ... prime.html

As usual, it's greed on the part of lenders (and now those who bought up their loan packages) that caused the mess.

[Jeemie]

This is a long blog entry written a year ago, but it's as good an explanation of subprime lending as I've seen. Key point: The mess was not created by either "bad" risks who were primarily minorities looking for homes they knew they couldn't afford or by government housing initiatives "forcing" banks to make loans to such bad risks.

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2007 ... prime.html

As usual, it's greed on the part of lenders (and now those who bought up their loan packages) that caused the mess.

If you believe this, then why, in a previous thread, did you cite an article by Orson Scott Card that essentially blamed this on the Democrats as being an example of "journalistic integrity"?

[silverscreenselect]

This is a long blog entry written a year ago, but it's as good an explanation of subprime lending as I've seen. Key point: The mess was not created by either "bad" risks who were primarily minorities looking for homes they knew they couldn't afford or by government housing initiatives "forcing" banks to make loans to such bad risks.

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2007 ... prime.html

As usual, it's greed on the part of lenders (and now those who bought up their loan packages) that caused the mess.

If you believe this, then why, in a previous thread, did you cite an article by Orson Scott Card that essentially blamed this on the Democrats as being an example of "journalistic integrity"?

I cited Card's article, not for the point on the subprime lending, but for the general proposition that the media has given Obama a pass on every major campaign issue. And while I don't think it's fair to blame the subprime mess on "the Democrats in Congress" or Clinton's signing the housing bill, I do think that Obama's ties to people like Johnson, Raines and Pritzker and his excessive contributions from Fannie and Freddie raise questions about his judgment and his ability to handle this situation.

We are electing a president almost exclusively on two factors: (1) he's from a different political party than the one that has gotten us into the mess we're in, and (2) he can give a great speech off a teleprompter. No accomplishments (other than running a slick marketing campaign), no research into his background, no attempt to ascertain what his real positions on the issues are, and an enormous tendency to overlook gigantic warning flags about him.

When Obama messes up, and I'm positive it's more a matter of when than if and sooner rather than later, the media will bear a major part of the blame.