NYT - The big lie - an oped on the RW lie that Freddie and Fannie caused the economic collapse

[karynnj]

You begin with a hypothesis that has a certain surface plausibility. You find an ally whose background suggests that he’s an “expert”; out of thin air, he devises “data.” You write articles in sympathetic publications, repeating the data endlessly; in time, some of these publications make your cause their own. Like-minded congressmen pick up your mantra and invite you to testify at hearings.

You’re chosen for an investigative panel related to your topic. When other panel members, after inspecting your evidence, reject your thesis, you claim that they did so for ideological reasons. This, too, is repeated by your allies. Soon, the echo chamber you created drowns out dissenting views; even presidential candidates begin repeating the Big Lie.

Thus has Peter Wallison, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a former member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, almost single-handedly created the myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the financial crisis. His partner in crime is another A.E.I. scholar, Edward Pinto, who a very long time ago was Fannie’s chief credit officer. Pinto claims that as of June 2008, 27 million “risky” mortgages had been issued — “and a lion’s share was on Fannie and Freddie’s books,” as Wallison wrote recently. Never mind that his definition of “risky” is so all-encompassing that it includes mortgages with extremely low default rates as well as those with default rates nearing 30 percent. These latter mortgages were the ones created by the unholy alliance between subprime lenders and Wall Street. Pinto’s numbers are the Big Lie’s primary data point

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/24/opinion/nocera-the-big-lie.html?_r=1&hp

It is important to fight this and other Republican lies. (A case could be made that Peter Schweitzer did the same with Congressional Inside trading. The Boston Globe reported a study that looked at ALL the trades made for Congressmen - and they did worse than a passive index fund would have done - http://articles.boston.com/2011-12-14/bostonglobe/30516909_1_insider-suspicious-trades-portfolio )

[karynnj]

1. Kick in hopes more see this - countering these lies is important

[edzdidit]

2. Credit default swaps of $64 Trillion

have morphed into $720 Trillion (est'd.) in infernal bets that things will go very wrong.

These idiots Wallison & Pinto parlay minimum insight into prejudice and ignorance. They ignore that hundreds if not thousands of times more value was lost in WORTHLESS CDO's and UNFUNDED CDS issued by AIG....that the entire value of the world's credit system was underwritten [bold]without a sou of prudent reserve[/bold] nor judicious oversight from Greenspan or the SEC, or the CFTC! In fact, having colluded with ratings agencies that they own, as well as regulatory agencies which they controlled, the BANKS ARE OBVIOUSLY GUILTY OF CONTROL FRAUD!

All of this shit could not have occurred without the total abnegation of the BushCheney administration

The ideas of these AEI creeps Wallison and Pinto are not worthy of intelligent discussion at all, but for our pal at NYTimes, Joe Nocera. "Both sides do it," I guess, and Joe's work is notable for his elevation of these lies and distortions as well as for his abject failure to renounce and disprove these cretins.

Need we say more than "American Enterprise Institute" to obtain a full knowledge of their bias, their bullshit and their dazzling intellectual bankruptcy? I have not ever read a single word from their institute without thinking it was basically & fundamentally tripe and biased dis-, or mis-information.

[oldhippydude]

3. dont forget

John Mc Cains toadie....... Phil Graham, who made it all possible in congress with all the deregulation legislation..

[roseBudd]

5. AEI is funded by Koch

[roseBudd]

4. the lie won't stand if the 99% stand up to it, just posted this to facebook