Sunday, February 12, 2012

The Democratic Folks in Congress, Um, Not So Much

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJiQRe8Mqao&feature=related

7 comments:

Dervish Sanders said...

Bravo Nancy. Certainly one of MY top Democratic legislators.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

@4:21 and 4:51. Absolutely priceless.

Dervish Sanders said...

The video is BS. Nancy Pelosi is talking about the financial crisis, then the video switches to Republicans warning about F&F... the implication is that Nancy Pelosi is "wrong". Whoever put the video together is conflating the two.

The Republicans never suggested tightening up regulations on the financial industry. What Nancy Pelosi says is correct.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Fannie and Freddie were a huge part of the financial crisis (no, not as big a part as the FED but big). They bought up tens of BILLIONS in toxic loans and stuck the taxpayer with a frigging 154 billion dollar bailout (the largest of ALL the bailouts).............And as for the deregulation component, don't forget that Mr. Gram had 38 Democratic co-sponsors for his bill. Ergo, even that was a bipartisan fiasco.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

How 'bout Mr. Frank, though? How frigging clueless was that guy?

Dervish Sanders said...

Will: Fannie and Freddie were a huge part of the financial crisis...

Not really. Also, that isn't the case the video is making. It's saying Nancy Pelosi says the Republicans weren't for regulation, but they really were.

But ONLY for F&F... or so it appears from the video. As Rep. Frank pointed out, the Republicans were in control and could have rammed through legislation during the first 2 years of the bush administration (if they REALLY wanted to tighter regulate F&F). They chose not to.

Also, F&F were (to some degree) victims of the financial institutions that sold them crap. I've linked to the article before.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

No, you're wrong. Fannie and Freddie lowered drastically the standards by which they were buying up these toxic loans from the other lending institutions and they didn't give a rat's ass about any of it because they knew (quite correctly) that the taxpayer would bail them out. Yes, for that I blame Mr. Greenspan but for the shoddy mismanagement I blame the shitty oversight of Mr.s Raines and Johnson and HUD. And the fact that their bailout was the largest of all (a 160 billion one and counting) de facto proves that they were at least a significant actor in this whole shoddy episode.............And I've NEVER blamed completely the Democrats in Congress (again, nice try) for the lack of oversight. There were more than enough pander-bears on the Republican side to form a blockade for sensible regulation.