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POPS Thomas Sowell Opines --- Do Facts Matter? So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, five years ago. Yet, today, what are we hearing? That it was the Bush administration "right-wing ideology" of "de-regulation" that set the stage for the financial crisis. Do facts matter? We also hear that it is the free market that is to blame. But the facts show that it was the government that pressured financial institutions in general to lend to subprime borrowers, with such things as the Community Reinvestment Act and, later, threats of legal action by then Attorney General Janet Reno if the feds did not like the statistics on who was getting loans and who wasn't. Is that the free market? Or do facts not matter? Then there is the question of being against the "greed" of CEOs and for "the people." Franklin Raines made $90 million while he was head of Fannie Mae and mismanaging that institution into crisis. Who in Congress defended Franklin Raines?
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POPSDo Facts Matter? "We also hear that it is the free market that is to blame. But the facts show that it was the government that pressured financial institutions in general to lend to subprime borrowers, with such things as the Community Reinvestment Act and, later, threats of legal action by then Attorney General Janet Reno if the feds did not like the statistics on who was getting loans and who wasn’t. Is that the free market? Or do facts not matter?"
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POPSCyberbullying of Teens Common
"Why do so few teenagers tell their parents about being bullied online? The most common reason for not telling an adult, cited by half the bullied participants, was that teens believe they "need to learn to deal with it." In addition, 31 percent reported that they do not tell because they are concerned their parents might restrict their Internet access. This concern was especially common among girls between the ages of 12 and 14, with 46 percent fearing restrictions, compared with 27 percent of boys in the same age group. One-third of 12-to-14-year-olds reported that they didn't tell an adult out of fear that they could get into trouble with their parents. Many parents have little understanding of their children's Internet use." "Of those participants who experienced bullying, 51 percent said the bullying was done by schoolmates, 43 percent said they were bullied by someone they knew only online and 20 percent said they were bullied by someone they knew, but who was not from s
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POPSWHO DUNNIT???THIS MEGA CRISIS Summary of facts of who did what, where and why. Enough blame to go around and it begs the question? WHO COULD REALLY IMPLEMENT CHANGE?????
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POPSWho REALLY warned of the Mortgage Mess? "I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.", McCain finished after saying, "OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay."
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POPSCommunity Organizing at The Roots Meeks will inherit the blame.And Franks.And Clay. This turns my stomach! These people disgust me as never before. Sickening bastards! Listen to them today. Will these people be, seriously now, removed from office as Bush's last act, brought up on charges, and sentenced to penitentiary time!!!!!
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POPSFactCheck: Who's really responsible for crisis? "Screwing up takes a great deal of cooperation." D's blame R's and R's blame D's - but those accusations (and I have made them, too, sorry to say) are far too simplistic to help us fix the problem. Here's a list of contributors to the perfect storm.
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POPS95 democrats voted against the bill Yet all we here is how it is the republican's fault. How the minority party in the house is responsible for the failure of a bill pushed by the majority even though quite a few of the minority voted for the bill. Pelosi couldn't (or more likely, wouldn't) reign in her own troops in support of the bill, so how is it the republicans are to blame?
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POPSRolling Over to Rescue the Bailout
contAll of cable and the networks are rolling over for their bellies to be scratched, helping the dodge that the bailout supporters were not really asking for a bailout, only a rescue. See? There was a great deal of hyperventilating last night on most of the talkies and news, sort of an "Oh No! What have we done!" chorus: We misnamed the rescue a bailout. Missing from this steady stream of thumb-sucking was any mention of the substantive reasons voters were outraged. What precisely was in the bailout bill for taxpayers, homeowners, renters? Was there any real cap on the greedy executive compensation packages? Investment in job creation? Rescue for homeowners in foreclosure? Along with the Oh No What Have We Done is the mantra of The Great Credit Freeze: small businesses won't be able to meet payroll; 401k and pension funds are cascading in value; there may not even be money in the ATM machine. The media herd, incredulous that its losing supporters of the bailout, is re-tool
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POPSSocial engineers are bad bankers Why do we have to go elsewhere to hear the truth about this? Common sense people knew that you don't loan money to people who can't afford to pay it back, let alone don't have a job! Same goes with credit cards. Free credit cards everywhere...and then the personal fall-out when the chickens come home to roost. I blame both sides; the Credit Card Companies and the irresponsible users of them.
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POPSBill Clinton Agrees That Democrats To Blame For Crisis Sept. 25, 2008, A Day That Will Be Recorded In History: With incentives in place, banks poured billions of dollars of loans into poor communities, often "no doc" and "no income" loans that required no money down and no verification of income. By 2007, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed nearly half of the $12 trillion U.S. mortgage market -- a staggering exposure. Worse still was the cronyism. Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of-work politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. An informal survey of their top officials shows a roughly 2-to-1 dominance of Democrats over Republicans. Then there were the campaign donations. From 1989 to 2008, some 384 politicians got their tip jars filled by Fannie and Freddie: #1 Senator Dodd #2 Senator Obama
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POPS"Should a belief in witchcraft exclude someone from holding high office?"
article continues: Despite whatever you may feel about the moderate adherent of christianity, surely you can agree that witches and general witchery do not exist. Human beings have made some progress over the years, and a portion of that progress is our disbelief in notions like witchcraft and demon possession. In my view, an earnest belief in something so outrageous indicates a defect in one's mental faculties. Accusations of witchery have largely been a political construct. That is not to deny that many people over history have chosen to describe themselves as such, but allegations of congress with the devil and the ability to cast spells on others was merely maneuver of the church accomplish political gains. Most of the victims of this happened to be women of insignificant standing in their community; often they were old and barely lucid, or outcasts due to appearance or behavior. Factoring in primitive attitudes and easily incited citizens looking to blame someone for what were
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POPSCSPAN Video Exposes Democrat Support of Sub Prime Mess I just love how the 'mainstream' media never once mentions any of these hearings when discussing how we got in this mess in the first place. After all, don't they have producers, researchers, etc. whose job it is to find this information. The thing is, they don't want this information reported on because it does not fit in their own narrow minded world view of 'blame the Republicans and George W. Bush for everything" model.
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POPSMcCain: Campaign by Anecdote Never mind that the stories have little to do with the topic, or that he, among Senators, bears more responsibility than most for the current financial debacle.
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POPSDid the Community Reinvestment Act cause the subprime meltdown? There have been many clips here arguing that the Community Reinvestment Act (legislation forcing banks to loan in areas from which they take deposits, enacted in 1977 and strengthened in 1995) caused the subprime meltdown, because banks were forced to make loans in poor areas. Robert Gordon shows that the CRA could not have been responsible for the subprime meltdown for two reasons: 1. Timing--CRA activity largely slowed down by 2002, yet sub-prime lending continued to intensify. 2. Lenders NOT covered by CRA played a huge role in sub-prime lending. "Half of sub-prime loans came from...mortgage companies beyon the reach of CRA...Most important, the lenders subject to CRA have engaged in less, not more, of the most dangerous lending...Independent mortgage companies...not covered by CRA, made high-price loans at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts."
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POPSObama - a popular Freddie Mac Senator Obama is in the top 4 of political contribution recipients from Freddie Mac. The other 3, also Democrats. Then add Chris Dodd and Barney Frank to the mix and it's very 'clear' how they blame the Bush administration for the debacle.
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POPSYour Average Voter Congress is to blame. Those that voted for the Community Reinvestment Act. But who does your average American voter blame, the current party that holds the presidential office.
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