Bill Moyers: Mortgage Meltdown

[Phred42]

If you missed this Friday Night - Don't miss it again - here's your chance.

Link includes video and transcript. Excellent!


Bill Moyers: Mortgage Meltdown
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07182008/profile.html


July 18, 2008


America is leading the world in a way it would rather not. The meltdown in the mortgage market has triggered turmoil on Wall Street and in banking establishments around the globe. THE ECONOMIST labels the root of the problem "America's deeply flawed system of housing finance." RealtyTrac Inc., a seller of default data, said that by July 2008, more than 252,000 properties, one in 501 U.S. households, had entered a stage of the foreclosure process. Some blame the banks, some blame the borrowers, some blame the bubble mentality. Was it a matter of giving credit where no credit was due or something more?

[asjr]

1. Well worth watching.

[Jazzgirl]

2. I saw it Friday. Excellent piece and definitely should

be watched by everyone.

[Kip Humphrey]

3. More like, "...a matter of giving THE DEREGULATION TO GIVE credit where no credit was due"

[TexasObserver]

4. The blame rests with (1) Bush, (2) Greenspan, (3) Bernanke, and (4) Lenders.

Consumers are not blameless, but they could not create this situation. No consumer could make a lender loan them money. Lenders decided to stop behaving in a fiscally responsible manner, when they stopped requiring borrowers to prove they had the income to repay debts.

Bush wanted consumers to awash in buying power in the run ups to the 2004 and 2006 elections, and his Fed Chairs helped him have that.

Bernanke is the biggest tool in Washington, a complete and utter water boy for the Bushies and the banking interests. Neither he nor Greenspan were true to the fiscal principles both long espoused.

They'll try to save the largest banks, they'll cannibalize the smaller lenders that fail, consumers will pay the toll and feel the pain, and the bankers will all move to new banks, as if they did nothing wrong at all. Well, except for a few that get sent away for violating the PIG rule, those whose misconduct has been literally criminal.

[flashl]

5. Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime

How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers

By Eliot Spitzer
February 14, 2008

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.
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Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

...

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

...

(T)he unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Washington Post