AmericanPapist Comments
I was talking to a fellow parishioner yesterday morning who works for one of the major securities firms in the area. He said that the whole "fair housing" concept caused it so far as he sees it - people not having to provide evidence of their income, the amount of money they had in savings, and so on, when applying for a mortgage. However, he said, he is working on an article on moral relativism...the idea of each person in the food chain passing things along since they aren't directly hurt by them-the bank loan officer who is on straight commission writing a loan to someone who can't afford it because it doesn't hurt the loan officer, he can just pass it along to the big mortgage bank. The big mortgage bank guy packaging a bunch of bad loans and selling them as a security, because that doesn't hurt him. The securities company buying insurance from AIG, and AIG providing that, because it generates revenue. Then the whole thing unravels....
Of course it was a socialist ideology that got us into this: we must have economic equality, even if we have to impose it. Can anybody say "workers of the world unite"? Paranoid? Well, Senator Obama wants to continue to bail out those who cannot pay to what they, as free citizens, contractually agreed. It goes on and on, of course, too...like Senator Obama's two top economic advisers coming from the Freddie and Fannie. Don't here much about this, do you? We should never be scared to expose the darkness and to just call a spade a spade.
Timothy+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_...h?
v=_MGT_cSi7Rs Hey Thomas, here's a second video which highlights the efforts of the Republicans to regulate and "fix" the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac problems in anticipation of this present crisis. And it clearly shows the response of several Democrats who repeatedly deny any problem. I think the quote is, "Why should we fix something that isn't even broken. . .?"
Wow.
“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”
Norman Thomas*
Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
When the government says we're here to help, RUN! Although Democrats generally are clueless when it comes to economic matters, there were plenty of Republicans who stood by and did nothing. And allegedly they should have known better. I think its pretty funny that Barney Frank has been able to hold onto his chairmanship, given his role in this mess. If he were a Republican, the New York Slimes would be thundering for his resignation, along with Chris Dodd's too. Tom
The notion that Clinton and Carter are responsible is crazy. The policies taken during the past eight years have landed us in this mess because of the deregulation supported by fiscal conservatives. When you take away the refs from the field the players cheat and that's what has happened during the Bush years.
Will,
Do you know that there were regulations, already in place, which weren't exactly helpful.
. . . and when the chief regulator for Fan/Fred brought these issues to light in hearings in 2004, he was attacked by the Democrats as being partisan?
Will is invincibly ignorant when it comes to this issue because he suffers from Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Get back to us, Will, when you discover that Bush is not responsible for improper fractions and hangnails.
Will, read that NYT article. The problem is bad mortgage debt from lending recklessly to people who couldn't afford it. It was Clinton's idea. And they say the Democrats are the people's party. Clinton caused it, Bush will fix it, and Obama (if he wins) will take credit for it. Clinton did it at the end of his tenure, knowing it would blow up on the next guy. Bush's fault in this is letting it go on so long, because that bubble had to burst at some point.
So, why arent the Republicans citing the NYT article?? Man, I'd be making hay with it, now that Clinton's evil twin is gaining in the polls.
Never talk about politics and religion in public. That is why I love this blog. Obama is not evil, just misguided.
Also background reading:
Predatory Lending, or Mortgage Fraud?:
And yet the more time that passes the clearer we begin to see the extent to which many borrowers themselves may have participated in creating the mess from which we are preparing to rescue them. As more mortgages go bad and enter foreclosure, their details are coming under scrutiny, and the facts are not always pretty. They suggest that while lenders became too careless and some brokers were clearly swindlers, many borrowers were more than simply naïve or overly optimistic; a good many were probably cheating. Any federal legislation package that provides the financing to rework millions of thousands of subprime mortgages quickly is likely to reward quite a few of these chiselers.
The Democrats were complicit in willfully turning a blind eye to this.
Apparently, someone wasn't very happy about this little video as it is no longer available. Wow. I mean, wow.
"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Warner Music Group "
Obviously, someone over there holds particular political views.
Are you a Republican or are you a Catholic? I am not a Democrat by any means, I am a paleo-conservative, but you cannot make this an Dem-vs-Rep thing. Our current problems are the fault of the policies of Bush, of Clinton, of Bush, of Reagan, of Carter, of Nixon, etc etc... and the failure of a Fiat Monetary System, Central Banking, and an unjust Income Tax... We are just experiencing the Bubble about to Pop on 36 years of unbalanced budgets since Bretton Woods broke down and 95 years of the Federal Reserve's boom-bust cycles reaching its ceiling.
We have had a trade deficit for years and our chief export is our dollar. Our problems arise from runaway spending and other country's waking up to the debasement of our currency and switching to other reserve currencies like the Euro.
More than ever a Gold-Standard is needed; or at least the legalization of competing, commodity-backed currencies like the Liberty Dollar.
Social Justice Catholics are to blame for enabling that type of legislation and corporate complicity.
From CNS:
Ursuline Sister Valerie Heinonen, who helps manage assets for four U.S. women's religious orders including her own, has been trying to figure out the new relationships that will be necessary following the shakeout.
Sister Valerie has been working on neighborhood redlining issues since 1980, "when faith-based investors saw it, and knew that they could do something (to fight it) with their portfolios."
Redlining is the discriminatory practice of some lending institutions to deny loans for properties in certain neighborhoods.
She mused, "Freddie Mac was my particular long, longtime conversation (partner)," and was seized by the federal government.
She also worked on shareholder resolutions with General Motors and the Delphi auto-parts manufacturing firm after GM spun it off. "Now Delphi is bankrupt and can't arrange for financing to get out of bankruptcy," she said. Her fourth major corporate interest? AIG, which will be 80 percent government-owned, thanks to an $85 billion loan.
"I'm trying to find out what 'conservatorship' means" in the context of government takeovers, Sister Valerie said.
http://tinyurl.com/47uz8m
Hello Thomas,
I really like your blog and I would say I read it every day. Thank your for all your hard work. Sadly I have seeing that your blog -like in this post- is turning political. The issue pointed out in this post has nothing to do with Church Doctrine as is just a matter of personal opinion. Why not instead of trying to find the one responsible -let's history and justice do that- we pray that for the first time there is unity among the two ruling parties?
Once again, thank you so much for all your hard work but let's stay away from issues that are ONLY matters of personal preference. I agree that one needs to speak up when Church's Doctrine is put at stake as you have done in the past.
I have to disagree with German Martinez's sentiments. I am tired of having people say "don't talk about politics" on Catholic blogs. I come to catholic blogs to see how others view political issues within a Catholic perspective. Keep up the great work, Thomas.
Politics aside- American needs only the truth- un-abridged, unadultered-
Let the rest of the world watch this video
Buzz it up
http://buzz.yahoo.com/article/1:...b31d187f9?
usc=1
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