Election Issues 4: Economy
September 19th 2008 18:31
This is a multi-part series on the issues. Hopefully my readers will gain what they need to convince their liberal friends. I’m a conservative. I’m writing this from a conservative point of view and this is not meant as journalism, but commentary.
Let’s first break down our current economic situation. In 2005, unemployment was at record lows. Housing prices were rising way too fast, but a lot of people were making good money on their homes. The economy was roaring.
In 2007, the price of that gluttony on home buying turned into economic indigestion. It turned out that mortgage lenders had been giving mortgages to people who couldn’t afford to pay them back. Banks and Fannie/Freddie had purchased these loans in bundles and on their own, looking to make a good margin on them. Fannie and Freddie, as quasi-government agencies, got money from the government at a cheap percentage rate to buy these loans up, while the mortgage holders fed in 7% or more interest on them. They bought hundreds of billions of dollars of these loans from 1999 through 2008.
Then, gasoline went up as supply climbed. That pushed gas and food and the prices of other items up, making it harder for people who couldn’t afford their mortgages to begin with to continue paying them. The banks and Fannie/Freddie that bought these loans still have to repay the money they borrowed at a lower interest rate to buy the loans to begin with. The financial sector began to suffer, prices on goods kept rising, and so on.
So, the root of this problem is the insolvency of banks.
Don’t be tricked that the sad thing here are the foreclosures. Those people lose their houses, hurt their credit for 7 years, and have to rent. They aren’t homeless, they just have to rent.
Both parties are responsible for this. It was Republicans in collusion with Bill Clinton and Franklin Raines in 1999 that both made it possible for banks to cross over a line and also invest, putting their customers’ money at risk. It was Bill Clinton and Franklin Raines that pushed Fannie and Freddie to back no documentation and 100% financing loans to people that couldn’t afford it to increase “minority and poor home ownership.”
With Fannie and Freddie guaranteeing the purchasing of these loans, mortgage brokers and banks then, admittedly out of greed, made these loans and sold them to Fannie and Freddie and banks like Lehman Brothers. Then Bill put Franklin in charge of Fannie.
It was both parties that killed the efforts of President Bush, Senator McCain and others in 2003 to increase the oversight, not the regulation, but the oversight of Fannie and Freddie. Mostly Democrats, but also some Republicans, were trying to ride the votes they got from saying “Look! We’re getting more people into their own houses! Aren’t we great!” They didn’t care what it was doing to the country’s financial system.
In 2005 and 2006 John McCain co-sponsored and spoke strongly for legislation to bring Fannie and Freddie under control. Mr. Obama did not vote to approve this legislation, helping to kill it.
What were some of the signs? Well, the fact that Franklin Raines had received $52.8 million in bonuses on fraudulent accounting practices, misstating their earnings by 10.6 BILLION dollars. Similar things were being done by Daniel Mudd, former Fannie Mae CEO.
Having established that John McCain has twice been involved with trying to get Fannie under control before it came to this, what has Obama done? He put the former CEO’s on his campaign team. Former Fannie CEO James Johnson was put in charge of vetting his Vice President. We can see how poor a job Mr. Johnson did, but since Biden thought Obama was the first “clean” black candidate, I guess that played into it. Besides Fannie fame, Mr. Johnson worked at Countrywide, the largest mortgage company making these bad loans. Mr. Johnson also made sweetheart lower interest deals for the likes of Sen. Chris Dodd (head of the Senate Finance Committee responsible for Fannie oversight) and other Democratic and Republican senators and congressmen.
How did Mr. Johnson get his position at Fannie after running Countrywide into near collapse? His friends in Congress.
Franklin Raines is Obama’s Senior campaign economic advisor. Raines in salary and bonuses looted by some estimates $90 million while Fannie was fined over $600 million for accounting and other fraud.
In only 4 years in the US Senate, Barack Obama has received the SECOND HIGHEST amount in total contributions from Fannie Mae and its PAC. McCain got ZERO from the PAC and $27,000 from the company, a sixth of Barack's, in the period from 1989 to 2008.
Given all of this, who is best to help our economy recover?
The reform ticket of McCain-Palin that have a history of calling these things to our attention and stopping them? Or Barack Obama who uses these people for his campaign?
McCain has called for a commission to find out and prosecute accountability. Obama has mocked this because it will point back to him and his friends.
McCain-Palin will also make the people involved with all of this famous, Republican, Democrat or Independent. The Secret Service will be very busy in their administration as these people answer for their dereliction.
They will keep taxes low. They will do things that help the free market work, while making it more responsible with other people’s money.
The Bush tax cuts increased the revenue received by the treasury by 20% over the Clinton years because it encouraged investment and growth in the economy. Where President Bush failed, and part of it is that he lost his bully pulpit because of Iraq, is that he didn’t use a louder voice about Fannie Mae and he didn’t cut spending to go along with the tax cuts.
Barack Obama would increase capital gains, income and payroll taxes on people making $250,000 a year and give it to people who pay little or no taxes. He would create a massive new health care bureaucracy. He wants to give money to college students as tax credits. All these are very costly programs.
In both his O’Reilly interview and on ABC last weekend Obama said he would not hurt the economy with tax increases if we’re in a recession, an admission from him that he KNOWS tax increases slow the economy. If you raise taxes on the people that hire and pay other people, you reduce the pay and hiring of those people.
McCain admits the economy is not his strength, but he does know a lot about it. Obama has almost no experience and has only been in the Senate for 143 working days when not spending most of his time running for President. His advice comes from the people who helped create this mess, running companies with massive fraud.
The Democrats answer on Oil prices and the resulting ripple effect? Allowing drilling offshore on only 10% of the offshore oil. Taxes on oil companies that will be passed onto consumers and businesses. No more coal, more nuclear included in there "comprehensive energy bill." Democrats are so in the pocket of radical environmentalists that they can't solve our energy problems. Not one bit.
McCain-Palin will drill responsibly, promote clean natural gas and clean coal, build safe nuclear plants, etc. The price of a barrel of oil has gone up when McCain is trailing and down when he is leading. I know there are other factors, but that IS one of them and it indicates what the market thinks will happen if McCain wins versus Obama.
Again, on the economy we have only one choice this year: McCain-Palin.
Let’s first break down our current economic situation. In 2005, unemployment was at record lows. Housing prices were rising way too fast, but a lot of people were making good money on their homes. The economy was roaring.
In 2007, the price of that gluttony on home buying turned into economic indigestion. It turned out that mortgage lenders had been giving mortgages to people who couldn’t afford to pay them back. Banks and Fannie/Freddie had purchased these loans in bundles and on their own, looking to make a good margin on them. Fannie and Freddie, as quasi-government agencies, got money from the government at a cheap percentage rate to buy these loans up, while the mortgage holders fed in 7% or more interest on them. They bought hundreds of billions of dollars of these loans from 1999 through 2008.
Then, gasoline went up as supply climbed. That pushed gas and food and the prices of other items up, making it harder for people who couldn’t afford their mortgages to begin with to continue paying them. The banks and Fannie/Freddie that bought these loans still have to repay the money they borrowed at a lower interest rate to buy the loans to begin with. The financial sector began to suffer, prices on goods kept rising, and so on.
So, the root of this problem is the insolvency of banks.
Don’t be tricked that the sad thing here are the foreclosures. Those people lose their houses, hurt their credit for 7 years, and have to rent. They aren’t homeless, they just have to rent.
Both parties are responsible for this. It was Republicans in collusion with Bill Clinton and Franklin Raines in 1999 that both made it possible for banks to cross over a line and also invest, putting their customers’ money at risk. It was Bill Clinton and Franklin Raines that pushed Fannie and Freddie to back no documentation and 100% financing loans to people that couldn’t afford it to increase “minority and poor home ownership.”
With Fannie and Freddie guaranteeing the purchasing of these loans, mortgage brokers and banks then, admittedly out of greed, made these loans and sold them to Fannie and Freddie and banks like Lehman Brothers. Then Bill put Franklin in charge of Fannie.
It was both parties that killed the efforts of President Bush, Senator McCain and others in 2003 to increase the oversight, not the regulation, but the oversight of Fannie and Freddie. Mostly Democrats, but also some Republicans, were trying to ride the votes they got from saying “Look! We’re getting more people into their own houses! Aren’t we great!” They didn’t care what it was doing to the country’s financial system.
In 2005 and 2006 John McCain co-sponsored and spoke strongly for legislation to bring Fannie and Freddie under control. Mr. Obama did not vote to approve this legislation, helping to kill it.
What were some of the signs? Well, the fact that Franklin Raines had received $52.8 million in bonuses on fraudulent accounting practices, misstating their earnings by 10.6 BILLION dollars. Similar things were being done by Daniel Mudd, former Fannie Mae CEO.
Having established that John McCain has twice been involved with trying to get Fannie under control before it came to this, what has Obama done? He put the former CEO’s on his campaign team. Former Fannie CEO James Johnson was put in charge of vetting his Vice President. We can see how poor a job Mr. Johnson did, but since Biden thought Obama was the first “clean” black candidate, I guess that played into it. Besides Fannie fame, Mr. Johnson worked at Countrywide, the largest mortgage company making these bad loans. Mr. Johnson also made sweetheart lower interest deals for the likes of Sen. Chris Dodd (head of the Senate Finance Committee responsible for Fannie oversight) and other Democratic and Republican senators and congressmen.
How did Mr. Johnson get his position at Fannie after running Countrywide into near collapse? His friends in Congress.
Franklin Raines is Obama’s Senior campaign economic advisor. Raines in salary and bonuses looted by some estimates $90 million while Fannie was fined over $600 million for accounting and other fraud.
In only 4 years in the US Senate, Barack Obama has received the SECOND HIGHEST amount in total contributions from Fannie Mae and its PAC. McCain got ZERO from the PAC and $27,000 from the company, a sixth of Barack's, in the period from 1989 to 2008.
Given all of this, who is best to help our economy recover?
The reform ticket of McCain-Palin that have a history of calling these things to our attention and stopping them? Or Barack Obama who uses these people for his campaign?
McCain has called for a commission to find out and prosecute accountability. Obama has mocked this because it will point back to him and his friends.
McCain-Palin will also make the people involved with all of this famous, Republican, Democrat or Independent. The Secret Service will be very busy in their administration as these people answer for their dereliction.
They will keep taxes low. They will do things that help the free market work, while making it more responsible with other people’s money.
The Bush tax cuts increased the revenue received by the treasury by 20% over the Clinton years because it encouraged investment and growth in the economy. Where President Bush failed, and part of it is that he lost his bully pulpit because of Iraq, is that he didn’t use a louder voice about Fannie Mae and he didn’t cut spending to go along with the tax cuts.
Barack Obama would increase capital gains, income and payroll taxes on people making $250,000 a year and give it to people who pay little or no taxes. He would create a massive new health care bureaucracy. He wants to give money to college students as tax credits. All these are very costly programs.
In both his O’Reilly interview and on ABC last weekend Obama said he would not hurt the economy with tax increases if we’re in a recession, an admission from him that he KNOWS tax increases slow the economy. If you raise taxes on the people that hire and pay other people, you reduce the pay and hiring of those people.
McCain admits the economy is not his strength, but he does know a lot about it. Obama has almost no experience and has only been in the Senate for 143 working days when not spending most of his time running for President. His advice comes from the people who helped create this mess, running companies with massive fraud.
The Democrats answer on Oil prices and the resulting ripple effect? Allowing drilling offshore on only 10% of the offshore oil. Taxes on oil companies that will be passed onto consumers and businesses. No more coal, more nuclear included in there "comprehensive energy bill." Democrats are so in the pocket of radical environmentalists that they can't solve our energy problems. Not one bit.
McCain-Palin will drill responsibly, promote clean natural gas and clean coal, build safe nuclear plants, etc. The price of a barrel of oil has gone up when McCain is trailing and down when he is leading. I know there are other factors, but that IS one of them and it indicates what the market thinks will happen if McCain wins versus Obama.
Again, on the economy we have only one choice this year: McCain-Palin.
| 34 |
| Vote |
Shared on
Subscribe to this blog
Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief