Little help please? I've been receiving this video a LOT. Help me refute it.

[BigBearJohn]

Please don't tell me to ignore it.
These are people I live near and I
would like to argue intelligently
on the topic.

Does anybody have some good links
with substantial evidence that proves
who REALLY is responsible for the
financial crisis?

Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

If this post bothers you for any reason,
please just ignore it. I am honestly
seeking some friendly advice.

[iamjoy]

1. well, I Dunno

but it seems very selective...there could have been Democrats calling for more regulation and Republicans opposing it. Democrats could have been proposing other regulations and simply not trusting the proposal put forth by Republicans.

Still, I would like some documentation.

And, need we remind people that the Republicans controlled the House in 2004-2005. What was stopping them from passing whatever the hell they wanted, even if the Democrats didn't go along?

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. Excuse me, but the Republicans controlled the House from 1995-2007

Just sayin'.

[BigBearJohn]

3. I'm taking notes. thanks!

[Extend a Hand]

4. here ya go

http://iarnuocon.newsvine.com/_news/2008/10/01/1940028-the-republican-roots-of-the-subprime-crisis

Many people are still snookered by the right-wing blogosphere's accusation that the Democratic Party is solely to blame for the current financial crisis. As I noted in The Liberal Subprime Crisis: Myth and Reality, claims that the cause of the crisis was the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 are particularly overblown. Not only was there not much CRA activity during the period in which the current crisis bloomed, but the number of CRA loans involved in the crisis is particularly small.

Nevertheless, the hard Right insists that without Democrats pushing banks to make risky and ill-considered loans, the economy would be just fine. In their universe, it was perfidious Democrats who insisted that mortgage firms and banks grant loans to people who were high credit risks, and who could not afford mortgages. Again, one has to consider the facts before reaching a conclusion, and facts seem in scarce supply in these accusations against liberals and Democrats. How true is the assertion that Democrats forced reluctant bankers to give out loans to bad credit risks over the protests of the Republican party?

You'll no doubt be shocked to learn that the answer is "not very." Consider the following facts:

[BigBearJohn]

13. THANKS! That's all the ammo I needed. I'm glad I asked.

I'm glad somebody here took me seriously and
helped me out. Hope I can return the favor someday.

:hug:

[crossroads]

31. Great find! Thanks for sharing this link! nt

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. 1. Your friends are racists, as is that video

2. If you take information like that without researching the issue in more detail, you're an idiot.
3. Ask your racist friends to state the argument in full before you spread more propaganda on these boards, at least.

[BigBearJohn]

8. I was afraid you would accuse of me of spreading propaganda. But it simply is not true.

My record here on this board will prove that out. Besides that, who the FUCK are you
to be telling ME what to or not to post here on DU?

Your immediate judgement that my friends are racists is a rash and premature judgement on your part.
Do you always shoot off half-cocked from the hip? Does it make you feel superior in pointing out the obvious? You know, people forward things to me for my "take" on them (as I have in posting this on DU).

Since I have received at least 4 emails containing this youtube video, I became concerned
and sought out help from fellow DUers.

Your point "if you take information like that without researching the issue in more
detail, you're an idiot." -- Well, what the hell do you think I posted this for?
I wanted to get other people's opinion on it and ways of opposing it. That is is not idiocy.
Your striking out at a fellow DU'er without taking a moment to find out why they were asking
something is more akin to idiocy, if you ask me.

Instead of insulting other DUers who are seeking help and information from others, why
don't you take a moment to intelligently answer the original question instead of just
making an ASS our of yourself?

[alcibiades_mystery]

23. Your friends ARE racists

As for your own tendencies, those have become increasingly clear, to be sure.

[iamjoy]

24. What Do You Think This Is

Really, you say some one taking information like this without researching more is an idiot...

uh, what do you think posting on DU is? For me (and I was not the original poster, but shared the sentiments) DU is a great place to research. I don't have the time or patience to go sifting through all the information on the web trying to figure out what is reliable and what is not.

a little lazy perhaps, but not an idiot.

[alcibiades_mystery]

25. The OP claims to have received it many times

Yet provides the information here with no context whatsoever. Yes, lazy at best. Other things at worst...

[Clovis Sangrail]

6. fanny and freddy *were screwed up

they used lobbyists massively to get both republican and democratic leaders to side with them.

Point out that John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis headed up the joint fanny/freddy lobby group until 2005.
In 2006 it was believed McCain was going to run in 08 and Rick Davis would likely be his manager.
Freddy rehired his company to the tune of $20k/month.. for that sole reason.
The reports are that he did nothing for them but send a monthly bill.
His company continued to bill Freddy up until all the lobbyist contracts were killed after the govt take over.

McCain says Davis hasn't played any role in his company since 2005.
The McCain campaign, however, makes Davis' pay checks out to the same company.

If I had the links I'd give them to you, but that should be enough for you to find the info via google.
I think the story originally ran in the Herald Tribune.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. Ask them a simple question: why wasn't there regulation of all the other

financial institutions holding bad mortgage backed securities? Oh, yeah. Those other financial institutions wouldn't have allowed them to string together a line of BLACK PERPETRATORS. Vile racist shit, this video. And what kind of moron looks at that and doesn't ask after the context? Why isn't there an opening summary of the issue under consideration?

Next, how can you prove that Fannie and Freddy were the sole cause of the financial crisis rather than one cause among others? Why was a Republican controlled Congress unable to push through whatever regulations it saw fit to push through? They pushed through everything else they wanted to, didn't they? So, why didn't they do it? Are we to believe that these four or five (mostly) black Congresspeople could hold up the mighty GOP Congress if it saw a crucial issue affecting the American economy? Is that what your racist friends would have us believe? It's a ludicrous proposition.

[BigBearJohn]

11. Thanks for this. I honestly have received at least 4 emails with this youtube link.

My initial idea was to just write them off.
But then I thought, there are a lot of ignorant
people and somebody has to set them straight.

If I offended anybody for posting this, I'm sorry.
However, I really believe we are all adults here
and can discuss things that are occuring across
the nation, even if they are racist.

I also post positive things too. I wanted some
information from fellow DUers. Nothing more
devious than that.

I guess in the final analysis it really DOES
hurt to ask questions, even if they appear dumb
to "some" other people here.

[BigBearJohn]

9. Just found out some more info.

Here is a quick look into 3 former Fannie Mae executives who have brought down Wall Street!!


Franklin Raines - A Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregulaties in Fannie Mae's accounting activities. At the time of his departure The Wall Street Journal noted, ' Raines, who long defended the company's accounting despite mounting evidence that it wasn't proper, issued a statement late Tuesday conceding that 'mistakes were made' and saying he would assume responsibility as he had earlier promised. News reports indicate the company was under growing pressure from regulators to shake up its management in the wake of findings that the company's books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years.' Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion.


Raines left with a 'Golden Parachute' valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear. http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/.


The Government noted, 'The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls, misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public. The Notice explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner.' These charges were made in 2006. The Court ordered Raines to return $50 Million Dollars he received in bonuses, based on the miss-stated Fannie Mae profits.


Tim Howard - Was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard 'was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that would ensure a 'stable pattern of earnings' at Fannie. In everyday English - he was cooking the books. The Government Investigation determined that, 'Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae,'


On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie Mae executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied manipulating the mortgage-finance giant's income statement to achieve management pay bonuses.


Investigations by federal regulators and the company's board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004.


Howard's 'Golden Parachute' was estimated at $20 Million!


Jim Johnson - A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, and you'll see some interesting things about Johnson. Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million, when it fact it was $21 million.' Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae.


Johnson's 'Golden Parachute' was estimated at $28 Million.

All were appointed by G.W. Bush

[goletian]

10. fact of the matter is repubs have had control. its nonsense. theyve had control.

they wanna blame it on dems in the 90s. guess what, dems havent been in power and we didnt have a crisis in the 90s. you wanna blame the guy who invented airplanes for the 911 attacks? its nonsense. dismiss it as such.

[Rincewind]

12. Alternet

www.alternet.org/topstories/ look under top 11 lies Conservatives tell about the mortgage crisis. It might help.

[BigBearJohn]

14. Thanks! Now THAT's something I can use.

I appreciate your effort.

[anigbrowl]

15. I suggest taking it on the chin, to an extent

There were real problems at Fannie and Freddie that predated the Bush administration, some of the Democrats did look the other way (especially Waters, who I don't have much time for), and they did a poor job in their oversight. Our party failed on that issue, led astray by political considerations. So, the bad thing is we fucked up - denying that is foolish, our partly is partly on the hook for this issue and we have to accept that failure. The good thing is that Obama wasn't in the senate for this time and wasn't carrying lots of water for the GSEs. More background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae

A lot of people are not going to like hearing that, but it's true. Fannie and Freddie were badly managed, and they got away with it for quite a while because they lobbied the right Democrats in Congress. That's why Franklin Raines had to hand back a lot of the bonuses he collected.

Now where the GOP are wrong, very wrong, is in alleging that the entire mortgage crisis is a product of Fannie and Freddie. The GSEs bought a lot of mortgage backed securities, but they weren't securitizing them the same way the privat banks were, and they weren't vastly over-leveraging themselves. So I suggest you refute it by pulling back and looking at the big picture, and pointing out that the problem was far bigger than the GSEs. There is no definitive easy answer that's going to short-circuit the discussion - your best hope is to point to Phil Gramm, architect of the deregulation that relaxed rules about what sort of financial entity could take part in what sort of banking activity, and which allowed hedge funds to operate like banks without being under the watchful eye of the Fed.

Strategically, it's an attempt by the GOP to hint that 'it's a black thing'. Just let that point slide in discussions, because any time those hints are thrown out it's a trap to lure you into sying something that could be interpreted as a double standard.

[BigBearJohn]

17. Superb reply. Really excellent and laser sharp. Thank you so much for this.

:toast:

[ihavenobias]

29. Sure, we can give the DLC Dems in the 90's 25-30% of the blame for sake of argument

But the bottom line on all of this is that the conservative philosophy of more and more deregulations is the main culprit.

Even the Democrats involved were simply promoting a *conservative* economic philosophy. We can never let anyone forget that fact and we need to pound it over and over until it really sinks in.

[anigbrowl]

30. Totally. And owning our own shortcomings makes us stronger.

A big reason I'm a centrist is that there is no perfect economic philosophy - capitalism is subject to booms and busts and left to itself veers towards Ponzi schemes. Socialism undervalues innovation and can end up rewarding inefficiency - if you have any doubts about this, look at the history of the USSR. I visited Russia back when Gorbachev was still President and while I liked the people and the country, I sure didn't think much of how their economy worked.

[ihavenobias]

32. IMO, the obvious answer is simply regulated capitalism

Some of the Nordic countries seem to be doing pretty damn well with that type of system, i.e. taking some of the best elements of capitalism and socialism.

[Lasher]

35. Sounds like a traditional Democratic approach.

The fly in the ointment's been that invisible hand thingy.

[Lasher]

16. I'm glad you posted this

It came up this Wednesday here in the Propaganda Debunking Group, and so far it's not been addressed. I see a couple of useful replies so far in this thread, and that's good food for thought.

There's a related email flying around, trying to blame all the current economic crisis on Clinton and other Democrats - with a sinister intent to generate resentment against minorities who got housing loans. Its origin is this Ann Coulter hit piece. The email includes part of the article, starting with the paragraph that begins, "Before the Democrats' affirmative action lending policies became an embarrassment..." The email is titled, What really happened

I have searched unsuccessfully for a proper debunking at Snopes and similar websites. I'm thinking about coming up with one of my own but doing that properly takes time I don't have right now.

Thanks for bringing this up.

[BigBearJohn]

18. You're quite welcome. The answers here really helped me.

[Lasher]

19. The Alternet article is useful.

We might as well dig in. There's going to be an endless shitstorm of GOP liemails on this subject.

[BigBearJohn]

20. Thanks to you too for posting the link for the debunking group. I'll post there from now on.

[barack the house]

21. Firstly most of the bad loans were made under 2000 - 06 tenure of GOP congress 2nd the clip is >

blatant race baiting, by whoever produced it. Setting the country against each other damages a country in itself economically, so if they want culprits look now further than the dividers. The clip even includes mention that regulation was the answer to any future crisis. If rules and
regulations had been put forward the orignal bad loans would not of got made by the predatory companies.

[No Elephants]

22. Refuting a video is not going to get the people who are sending it to you to change their

votes. They will vote Pub, no matter what.

You can refute the "Obama is an Islamic jihadist" emails until the cows come home, but that is not going to change anyone's mind

They are simply Dem bashing. Realize it and ask them to stop, if they wish to continue a cordial relationship with you.

[Lasher]

26. I see this differently.

I don't think it's a good policy to just let lies go unchallenged, particularly when they are designed to help perpetuate the failed policies of Reagan and his followers.

But your point is well taken. Sadly, there are many who have adopted right wing ideologies as a religion. Belief trumps facts with them. Give them undeniable truth to confront one of these fantasies and they stick their fingers in their ears, going 'la la la' to drown out the blasphemy.

But sometimes one of these messages is forwarded by someone who has not quite surrendered all respect for logic. And more often, there is someone like this who can be reached in a reply to all recipients.

These are the things which you should do: speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgment for peace in your gates. - Zechariah 8:16

[BigBearJohn]

33. Have to admit, you're probably right. So, I sent them all the ad I recently saw

showing the shooting of wolves from a helicopter.
With the announcer talking about how the wolves
bite at their hind quarters trying to dig out
the bullet shot at them from the helicopter.
It is a heartwrenching video. Totally supported
by Palin.

I then ask them: "Is this the candidate you
want to vote for?"

It's been rather effective in shutting them up.

[mscuedawg]

27. I got this video on a bulletin thru MySpace...

and I responded briefly...(b/c the person that posted it is a lost cause)...You neglected to include any videos off YouTube of McCain insisting on less regulation! : )

[succubus.blues]

28. here's a video I've seen that

also helps to explain the financial crisis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rpoYvsc3ho

[BigBearJohn]

34. thanks