What kind of claptrap drivel is that?

Matticus Finch on October 29, 2008 at 11:03 AM

I’m pretty sure that’s what Hank and Ben thought when they got his letter.

Obama wrote a letter

Before the debates, I advised
the John McCain campaign that they needed to make an issue of Barack
Obama’s repeated bragging about writing a letter as a response to the
pending subprime market collapse. ……

Compare and contrast. The weak letter about the subprime catastrophe he had created. But he didn’t feel a mere letter was enough when it came to a cause he was passionate about: Obama made the enemy combatants’ defense his personal……

You forgot to point out, at the end of the letter he says: “please forward this letter to 10 friends right now!”

America in chains.

jeff_from_mpls on October 29, 2008 at 11:06 AM

….or you won’t get $100 from Bill Gates.

What use would it have been for Obambi to have sponsored a bill, he would have only voted “present” on it anyway.

But Obama saying he wrote a letter is certainly too little.

Now if Obama had been serious about the subprime crisis, he would have scheduled a speech in Germany with big fake Greek columns to be televised on all networks and cable channels in primetime.

Question: What did you do to prevent Iran from nuking Israel?

Obama: I offered a prayer.

promachus on October 29, 2008 at 10:46 AM

And strongly urged Israel to show restraint.

Yet, for Obama to swear that he will uphold and defend the ‘deeply-flawed’ Constitution, with a straight face! You’d know he is lying (day 1, on the job).

Yikes!

I stopped subscribing to their magazine a few months back.

upinak on October 29, 2008 at 10:50 AM

A few years back for me. I couldn’t stand the obvious bias. I looked at the Economist recently in an airport newsstand, and was shocked at how far it had descended even in the few years since I canceled my subscription. What a tragedy: that once-excellent newspaper reduced almost to the level of “Time” or “Newsweek”.

Barry O’s UN styled response to the mortgage meltdown.

Abby Adams on October 29, 2008 at 10:48 AM

oops, my bad.

1. In 2006, Senate Republicans were already sounding the alarm about exotic mortgages and NINJA loans. Senators Wayne Allard and Jim Bunning held a very important hearing in September of 2006 that forced the bank regulators to finally issue some tough guidelines on these loans. The Fed also held hearings around the country in 2006 on updating its subprime lending rules.

2. After the Democrats took over the Senate in 2007, after the housing bubble burst and the subprime default rates and foreclosures were escalating, Chris Dodd made a deliberate decision to make this a political issue and try to pin blame on the Fed and the bank regulatory agencies, while ignoring the role of Fannie and Freddie.

BuckeyeSam on October 29, 2008 at 11:31 AM

Oh, you are absolutely right about that. McCain went out of his way as a Senator who was not on the Banking Committee, to endorse a bill that was heavily opposed, not only by Fannie and Freddie, but by a lot of big mortgage lenders who were dependent on them for funding. S. 190 was a very tough bill. I regret to admit that even I thought it was too tough. I didn’t see a need in 2005 to rein in the GSEs’ purchases or subject them to a “systemic risk” test. I thought the bill was too tough in imposing prior-approval rules for new products and services — but if those rules had been in effect in 2005, the GSEs would likely have been denied permission to invest so heavily in subprime MBS or purchase exotic mortgages, which led directly to the meltdown.

Even if Obama’s letter had been significant, it addressed the symptoms and not the causes of the problem. The cause of the problem was Fannie and Freddie distorting the market, chasing high share prices while increasing their commitments to risky lending. It was a recipe for disaster, and a lot of people saw it coming, but the Democrats were owned by the GSEs.

These are all meaningless phrases that my 8th grade Language Arts teacher wouldn’t allow me to use in a letter. (at this level my school didn’t teach english-they assumed we already knew it)

Quick question. Isn’t being able to pay back the loan the best practices in mortgage lending to consider?

Tommy_G on October 29, 2008 at 11:06 AM

Really? I got a ‘C’ in ‘Government’ for not using them…

- Lyrics from the song “Mr. Cellophane” from the movie Chicago

Chicago? Whoa! That’s weird!