San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/...

# Expanding Homeownership. The President believes that homeownership is the cornerstone of America's vibrant communities and benefits individual families by building stability and long-term financial security. In June 2002, President Bush issued America's Homeownership Challenge to the real estate and mortgage finance industries to encourage them to join the effort to close the gap that exists between the homeownership rates of minorities and non-minorities. The President also announced the goal of increasing the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families before the end of the decade. Under his leadership, the overall U.S. homeownership rate in the second quarter of 2004 was at an all time high of 69.2 percent. Minority homeownership set a new record of 51 percent in the second quarter, up 0.2 percentage point from the first quarter and up 2.1 percentage points from a year ago. President Bush's initiative to dismantle the barriers to homeownership includes:

* American Dream Downpayment Initiative, which provides down payment assistance to approximately 40,000 low-income families;
* Affordable Housing. The President has proposed the Single-Family Affordable Housing Tax Credit, which would increase the supply of affordable homes;
* Helping Families Help Themselves. The President has proposed increasing support for the Self-Help Homeownership Opportunities Program; and
* Simplifying Homebuying and Increasing Education. The President and HUD want to empower homebuyers by simplifying the home buying process so consumers can better understand and benefit from cost savings. The President also wants to expand financial education efforts so that families can understand what they need to do to become homeowners.

August 9, 2004

Yeah, it was Democrats and poor people that caused this mess. Keep drinking the GOP kool-aid. The problem is systemic. Both parties, the fed and the bought and paid for media. Time to take the ideological blinders off.

Corrupted by wealth and power, your government is like a restaurant with only one dish. They've got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side. But no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen.
-- Huey Long

If elected officials were subject to background checks then this would be a good surprise.

http://www.secureputer.com/obamadeniedse...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/...

First, the single greatest barrier to first time homeownership is a high downpayment. It is really hard for many, many, low income families to make the high downpayment. And so that's why I propose and urge Congress to fully fund the American Dream Downpayment Fund. This will use money, taxpayers' money to help a qualified, low income buyer make a downpayment. And that's important.

One of the barriers to homeownership is the inability to make a downpayment. And if one of the goals is to increase homeownership, it makes sense to help people pay that downpayment.

...

And let me talk about some of the progress which we have made to date, as an example for others to follow. First of all, government sponsored corporations that help create our mortgage system -- I introduced two of the leaders here today -- they call those people Fannie May and Freddie Mac, as well as the federal home loan banks, will increase their commitment to minority markets by more than $440 billion. (Applause.) I want to thank Leland and Franklin for that commitment. It's a commitment that conforms to their charters, as well, and also conforms to their hearts.

This means they will purchase more loans made by banks after Americans, Hispanics and other minorities, which will encourage homeownership. Freddie Mac will launch 25 initiatives to eliminate homeownership barriers. Under one of these, consumers with poor credit will be able to get a mortgage with an interest rate that automatically goes down after a period of consistent payments. (Applause.)

Fannie Mae will establish 100 partnerships with faith-based organizations that will provide home buyer education and help increase homeownership for their congregations. I love the partnership. (Applause.)

George W. Bush, June 17, 2002

How can you watch the video and still say that it was not the Dems fault??

Why don't liberals put the country first instead of their ideology?

John

Look Pigs, it doesn't matter anymore who's fault it is. We have a problem that needs to be fixed and blaming parties isn't going to work. Greedy politicians and ignorant people are responsible for this financial catastrophe. We all need to agree that the economic health of this country should be the number one focus in this election. Neither one of these candidates excites me, but as you are all well aware the fiscal policy of the conservatives is where we should be voting if you worried about your own economic situation. Rarely is an election soley based on the financial status of this country, but this election is and I hope that all of you understand that we need the right party (regardless of candidate) in office!!!

Because the video is extremely biased.

* The push to coerce minorities and poor people into homeownership was bipartisan, Bush's speeches are evidence.

* Neither Republicans nor Democrats saw anything wrong with the idea of 0 down adjustable NINJA loans up until the s**t hit the fan in 2007.

* Fannie and Freddie only played a minor role in the subprime crisis:

http://www.time.com/time/business/articl...

"... more shocking was what followed from 2004 through 2006: The two mortgage giants got muscled aside by [b]Wall Street firms willing to underwrite bigger, riskier mortgages than Fannie and Freddie were allowed to touch[/b]. Their joint market share fell to only about 25% in 2006.

In other words, Fannie and Freddie were mostly bystanders to the worst excesses of the housing bubble"

John-You are not understanding me. Just because I bash Bush doesn't mean I am a liberal (whatever that means)

I believe the problem to be systemic not in terms of left and right. However if you want to look at in terms of left and right. The majority of the problems lay at the administrations feet because the provided the mechanisms i.e loose lending guidelines enabled by OFEHO which is a presidential appointed position. Couple this with Bush's homeownership challenge and Greenspan's encouraging of risky loans at the height of the bubble just to keep it going a little longer. Hell, the media kept trying to pump it up well over a year after is was dead and bubble bloggers were widespread.

Keep in mind the repealing of glass-segal, which lead to the way mortgages were traded on wall street, was signed into law by Clinton but pushed by McCain's economic advisor Phil Gram and the behind the scenes guy begging for it was, you guessed it, Hanky Panky Paulson. Keep in mind this law was put into place to keep things like this from happening. On one level it's almost as if somebody decided to create the exact same economic dynamics as the depression. Well we got it and we are swan diving head first into it.

All that posturing that the dems do in the video does not add up to a hill of beans in terms of responsibility. They encouraged, big deal. And I am not saying those two scum bags Frank and Dodd are not guilty of something I am sure they are, I just have not looked hard enough to find anything.

Now if you really look hard enough you will notice the politicians are not in charge. They are bought and paid for arms of the Fed, Wall Street, military-industrial complex, energy industry, who really run the show. These entities don't give a shit about national or personal sovereignty.

The glue that keeps this big hoax together is the corp-gov media. The final ax in any possibility of an independent media was slick willy's signing of the Telecommunications Act in 1996 which allowed for deregulation of media. See Clinton was a friend to Republicans with all his deregulation. Now instead of 100 or so media companies we have 5 that own everything. And the owners of these big media conglomerates hang around with there super rich friends in the controlling industries and plot on how to keep you in line. One of the ways they do this is by creating a false dichotomy of left and right. Or I would not go as far as saying creating it, it preys on the difference in people to keep them separated. This gives you the illusion of choice. Makes you feel like part of a tribe that is superior to the other tribe and if anything goes wrong it is the other tribe that is corrupt or stupid. All the while a common agenda gets achieved while throwing emotionally laden issues that they could not care less about for you to fight over. And the best part is it keeps you from looking at the real power structure.

And now to keep us even more divided, and I have to give it to them they were very smart in their selections for presidential candidates. They pair a black man with a muslim name on one side and a creationist, bombs and jesus type on the other. I does not get anymore divisive than that.

So now the richest 400 Americans now have more money stashed away that the combined bottom 150 million Americans. Some $1.6 trillion bucks. Ironically they increased their wealth buy 700 billion over the past eight years.

This was accomplished by selling off or shipping out ever available asset, from jobs to seaports, smashing usury and anti-monopoly laws, raiding the public coffers and manipulating the medium of exchange and blackmailing the peasantry regarding common needs such as heath care and energy to keep their asses warm -- to name a few. The ultimate coup was to convince the entire nation that the well being of the rich, meaning the well being of Wall Street, was indeed the common man's well being.

Ok, got it, good. Go tell your family and friends.

"True affordability comes in
Submitted by CA renter on April 11, 2008 - 8:03pm."
I think this is well-written.

{True affordability comes in the form of lower prices, not gimmicky mortgages or public grants which actually serve to keep prices high and entirely UN-affordable.

The very best thing that could happen to "poor people" is massive deflation of housing prices that leave enough money (after paying for housing costs) to allocate toward education, retirement funding and (gasp!) discretionary income.

A primary house is an EXPENSE, it is not "The American Dream." The American Dream is the ability to improve one's lot in life and end up in a better situation than where you started.

I'm a liberal, economically-speaking, and am totally opposed to anything that serves to prop up prices so they remain unaffordable to the working class.}

Arraya,

You bash Bush because you have a twisted view of reality. Anyone who watch's that video with an open mind would see where the blame belongs.

John

Here would the mother of all surprises. Don't look like it will happen now though.

"As WND reported, prominent Pennsylvania Democrat and attorney Philip J. Berg filed suit in U.S. District Court two months ago claiming Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen and therefore not eligible to be elected president. Berg has since challenged Obama publicly that if the candidate will simply produce authorized proof of citizenship, he'll drop the suit.

Berg told WND the longer the DNC tries to ignore his lawsuit or make it go away – instead of just providing the documents – the more convinced he is that his accusations are correct.

"The real outrage is that there's nothing in our system that provides that a candidate must provide that his qualifications are true and correct before he or she runs, and that safeguard should be put into our system by law," Berg said.

http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PA...

John, please. I've been reading this blog since long before you arrived. Arraya is one of the most informed, analytical people on here, while you are consistently the most partisan of any poster. It's incredible to watch you accuse others of being close minded. Talk about twisted reality.

I'd have to agree with the post above. I have found arraya's analysis and opinions to be well thought out and objective. John, you're posts are neither.

(indignantly) I thought I was the most partisan of any poster? Ok guys get ready for daily threads with news from DailyKos ...

@arraya: Great post. You need to write a book, and I'll be first in line to buy it.

Whatever.

esmith,

I enjoyed this one as well:

Judgement, Experience

Have you caught the Palin debate flow chart yet? ;)

Excellent portrait gallery, JP!

And the labels are very true.

I must say the most surprising thing about the VP debate to me was how impressive Biden looked - very worthy of the VPs office.

I kind of expected Palin to do better than her horrid performances on Couric et al shows, how could she do worse?

But Biden, I liked Biden. I actually sent him a letter thanking him for keeping his composure in those moments when he wanted to launch into an attack that was deserved, but would not have been well received.

Thats only because we disagree.

John

Give us some examples of Obama's good judgement. Was it the racist church he attended for 20 years? How about being friends with Ayers of the Weather Underground? Was it his low interest loan he managed to get from Countrywide? Was it his trip to Iraq where he asked them to put off any decisions until the election? Is it his drug use?

Obama has neither experience nor judgement to be president.

Please give us some examples if you can.

John

LOL

While I think there's plenty of 20/20 hindsight blame to go around for both political parties, jficquette's posts are nakedly right-leaning and tiresome; Arraya's posts are insightful and openminded.

Esmith, enjoyed the political graphics!

Arraya's posts are excellent and informative. John, take off the rose colored glasses and try to put on your critical thinking hat for a change. This is beyond a "left" and "right" issue. It is all politicians. It is our government.

JP, that train photo was very funny! Political cartoons don't usually do much for me, but Palin having the toy train falling off the track was too good!

That comaprision is so unfair to Thomas. He really is a great little engine.

I have quite a few decent friends that are decent people whom support Obama.. They asked me about my take on things, and I told them, well, I don't support him. I asked them why they support him.. Not one of them had any substantial answer. Usually they say I think he would do a better job. When asked about his accomplishments, experience, or his regime of evil friends? They have absolutely no response. Most admit they are mad at Bush, which is fair, but they basically admit they are voting for Obama out of anger.

I don't think the arguments about the presidents' (Clinton and Bush) contributions to the GSE efforts are compelling.

They may have supported them initially, but both Clinton and Bush issued calls for reform. It was the core set of Democrats who blocked reform, despite clear warnings from the government regulator.

Concerning the point about Wall Street encouraging GSE expansion CONTEMPORANEOUS with Republican calls for reform, I haven't seen any evidence of this, just the Republican lead efforts to reform the GSEs.

Yes, everyone is to blame, but in my book two out of three the primary causes were from government action . . . the Feds keeping rates too low and for too long and CRA requirement that banks lend to unqualified borrowers in minority areas.

Concerning private sector "greed," it was a giagantic part of the mix. However, I think if most people on this board had a job in Wall Street at the time, they would have participated, as well.

Finally, the real point of this post was not blame but whether the GOP was going to use this extensively(whether biased or not). McCain, though, seems to have jumped on and embraced the greed/populist argument instead of defending private sector action. Things may get so bad with the private sector economy, though, that populist arguments be his only chance at winning the election.

With respect to the GSE leg of the problem, this was W's call for reform in 2003 (after Clinton had also warned of problems), from the NYT:

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: September 11, 2003
The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

. . .

I generally try to avoid these pig political columns, but I gotta interject here. I supported McCain back in 2000 when he really was a maverick that would care more about what got done than who got credit. Now, he moved right to the Bush wing and I dont like it. Dont know what I am gonna do come election day, cept vote against any incombent who voted Yay last friday. Unfornatually that includes BOTH prez canadates.

But those political cartoons being called spot on and insightful is CRAP. They are political cartoons, and while funny, they are neither insightful nor realistic. One protrays Obama as having Judgemnet. About what? As if McCain doesnt? Obama supported the bailout. He has supported the takeovers of Fannie and Freddie and AIG and all the rest. He didnt support the surge that actually worked, in fact, his international experience is on par with Palin's until last year. Remember that first really big international trip he went on when all major networks went with?
Again I ask 'What JUDGEMENT?' He voted against the IRAQ war, but that was from the Illonise state house. WOW. Voting against something unpopular when you have absoultly nothing on the line. Want a cookie for THAT!?!
(And last I checked Biden did vote for the Iraq war so if that is Obama's "Judgement" than Biden cant have both)

As far a John's posts. Dude, calm down. Pol's care about power and image because apparently that is all that matters to the voters. Obama will not be the savior so many want him to be because as soon as he is elected he will have to deal with the reality on the ground and not alot of hot air and that reality SUCKS.

And to Afx's or array's or such posts being any better. What a supprise, democrats agreeing with democrats bashing Republicans. Whats really funny is that they think they are being above the party politics they so detest in the Republican posts.

Now PLEASE, someone please tell me why you support Obama. This isnt mean, sarcastic or backhanded. I really want to know because then I could maybe support a canadate again. :( When you see "Judgement" what does that mean? I have seen nothing that he has had good judgement on when he had anything on the line. Some of that may be because he hasnt been around enough to rack up a long record, but that isnt a positive either. I dont care that he is black. I find it offensive that he gets special treatment, or political power, because of it. "I have a dream" was about equality, in all aspects including that a black man may not be the most qualified and there for shouldnt get the job.
I agree with the above post about Obama supporters not really knowing why they support him. I have run into the same thing ALOT. Mostly I get something about how they find him inspirational, but I equate that with "like like to have a beer with him". I like Pigg's. I think most of you are far more informed than those that I talk to everyday. So please, post some facts and tell me why you support Obama for Prez and not why you hate McCain. If I have to vote for the least detestable canadate instead of someone I want to, I will know the system is broken.

Using the old swift-boat technique:

http://keatingeconomics.com/