The Pooryly Played Blame Game

[one...two...tree 2,762]

To hear conservatives, most notably John McCain, tell it, four not-so-simple words explain the entire financial meltdown: "Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac." David Goldstein and Kevin G. Hall have a terrific item for McClatchy that sets the record straight.

Federal housing data reveal that the charges aren't true, and that the private sector, not the government or government-backed companies, was behind the soaring subprime lending at the core of the crisis.

Subprime lending offered high-cost loans to the weakest borrowers during the housing boom that lasted from 2001 to 2007. Subprime lending was at its height vrom 2004 to 2006.

Federal Reserve Board data show that:

* More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.

* Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.

* Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.

Yglesias added, "You expect a certain amount of dishonesty in politics. But you would think that amidst a bona fide emergency situation whose consequences threaten everyone's well-being that conservatives would try to pay some attention to what's actually going on."

That would be nice, but it's clearly not happening.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/

[mendeleev 68]

It is to be expected that Republican fundamentalists will develop new myths about how our current problems are, at root, due to government, poor people, and minorities rather than due to the fraud, greed, and misfeasance of big, rich, powerful, conservative individuals and corporations.

It will be important to follow this mythology, which already has parallels to rightwing (eventually Nazi) stab-in-the-back mythology during Wiemar. Right now the myth appears frightened and powerless. It may not be that way a few years down the line.

[IAMX 3,055]

* More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.

This is what confuses me about people blaming the CRA. It's clearly an attack on the poor, because it was independent lenders who fall outside of CRA and semi-or-entirely outside of government regulation (depending on how independent from the bank itself) that got us into this trouble, along with the people taking loans, and the government loosening regulation in the late 90s.

[HAL 9000 96]

It is very funny how not too long ago they didn't want to play the blame game since they suspected people would quickly associate them with Bush and two terms of financial recklessness. Now since many people are confused with the bailout package, and McCain's campaign looks worse every day, of course its natural to see more pointed, repetitive Democrat blaming. Sure, Democrats are also to blame... but very much as what could be seen as a small part of a much larger equation.