GOPMom Note: you heard it here first - Updated 10/9/08
September 25th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under
Illegal Immigration and the Mortgage Mess
See Mom’s comment on the 18th September in the ‘The sky is not falling thread’ .
UPDATED 10/9/08
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/10/09/calling-old-media-five-million-illegals-have-illegal-mortgages-u
Popularity: 23% [?]
Comment by Ian on 25 September 2008:
Michelle Malkin? Please, you have to expect some bias here.
Touche!
Comment by Ian on 25 September 2008:
Don’t worry. With high inflation rates, worthless money, high unemployment rates, rising fuel prices, terrorist threats, a government that’s becoming a three ring circus, etc. nobody is going to want to come to America anyway.
I hate to say it, but our country looks a lot like Germany before the Nazi party took over. The “silent majority” was desperate and needed relief. The rest as they say is history. Hitler took power, gave the people a scapegoat to blame for all of their problems (the Jews) and started a war. Please don’t mistake me here. I’m not saying that either McCain, Bush, or Obama are reincarnations of Hitler, or that America is in any way headed toward Nazism. I’m just pointing out that we need to be careful. We all want easy answers and we all want to point the finger at someone other than ourselves. Our current situation is not insurmountable - we are Americans for crying out loud. Why are we getting so desperate to blame someone. We do need to figure out what went wrong (and a lot went wrong, as I’ve stated in another post), but more importantly we need to fix it. Playing the blame game and looking for an easy scapegoat is not going to help us.
We live in a complex world that often produces complex problems, which in turn call for complex solutions. America is a vast web of interconnections. We don’t stand alone.
Comment by gopmom on 25 September 2008:
Ian, I think you’re being simple. The putzes in Washington are threatening to steal $1 trillion from us to give to banks that gave money to unqualified candidates, based on legislation derived from the Democrats liberal agenda. I think it is our right to know where all this came from so that when a policy is agreed upon it includes corrections so that we don’t give away any more money. And yes, based on Michelle Malkin’s article today, I’m willing to throw W in with that bunch of putzes. So stop saying we have to stop blaming people and just fix the problem. You have to understand the problem.
And Michelle Malkin is not biased, she’s a conservative and that is reflected in her writing just as it is in mine. She’s not paid to deliver news. She’s paid to give an opinion. Fortunately, she researches the facts before delivering her opinions.
Comment by ATG on 25 September 2008:
Oh please - we shouldn’t trust economists writing a guest post on a blog linked to the NY Times website, but Michelle Malkin isn’t biased. You’re a joke.
Comment by Ian on 25 September 2008:
I’ve received many comments Gopmom, but I’ve never been accused of being simple. You need to start reading my comments before you reply. I specifically said:
“We do need to figure out what went wrong (and a lot went wrong, as I’ve stated in another post), but more importantly we need to fix it.”
Excuse me if I wasn’t clear, but I thought you’d understand that I wasn’t saying we shouldn’t understand the problem (especially since I reiterated that we’re dealing with a complex problem).
Blame is a different issue. What good does blame do now? What do you want to do? Round the evil-doers up and burn them? Democrats, Republicans, bankers, stock brokers, mortgagees, illegal immigrants getting loans, bad legislation, poor oversight, poor judgment, public complacency, lobbyists, terrorists, oil prices, unemployment rates, war, etc. are all partly responsible for the financial problems we’re facing now. We need smart people to get together and look at this rationally. We need to not only figure out the problem, we need to find a solution that will help us in the present and prevent it from happening in the future. There’s nothing simple about that. Nothing at all, in fact it’s very complicated.
If anything you’re the one being simple. Hypothetically, let’s say you’re right - it was all the liberals fault. So now we have an entire group of people responsible for the problems. Will that make the problems go away? The damage has already been done, we need to get to work to fix it. Once it’s fixed - if you want to go after the people who caused the problems, go right ahead. Just don’t waste any time doing it beforehand, because we don’t have the time to spare. Typical bureaucratic thinking.
And please don’t contradict yourself - you’re too good for that:
“And Michelle Malkin is not biased, she’s a conservative and that is reflected in her writing just as it is in mine. She’s not paid to deliver news. She’s paid to give an opinion. Fortunately, she researches the facts before delivering her opinions.”
She’s a conservative and that is reflected in her writing - well I’d say that means she puts a conservative “spin” on things. Argue semantics all you want, but spin is certainly close to bias - it’s a way of arranging “facts” to support an opinion. If, as you say, she’s just giving opinions - why do you accept them as facts? How can they be ‘just’ opinions and facts at the same time? It would seem that if she’s delivering facts, then it’s not her opinion - it would be, well, it would be a fact. Unless of course she’s spinning the facts to support her opinion - which as you conceded, in her case, reflect conservative views. It would seem that you believe what she writes simply because you agree with her. I say that because you’ve provided no evidence of your own to support anything that she’s said - and I didn’t see her references (of course she wouldn’t have them, or need them, because it’s just her opinion).
Oh, and Democrats do this too. Lots of people do it. Lots of people don’t question what they agree with. Truth is, you should question that most of all because that’s when you’re the most apt to become complacent.
Do you know why she targets Bush in this? Bet you don’t. Well here’s a free rhetoric lesson. She willingly throws Bush under the bus here because Bush has become inconsequential to conservatives and to this election. This is done to give credence to what she’s writing about. People, like yourself, say “Wow! She’s a conservative and she’s willing to put some of the blame on Bush - she must be telling the truth!” It’s done so you won’t check her “facts.” It’s a very popular trope. It doesn’t mean that what she’s saying is a lie, but don’t get thrown off by it.
Here’s another one. You, being her target audience, knew what she was really saying (even though she never states it explicitly in this article): the Democrats Liberal ‘entitlement’ agenda is to blame for all this. Isn’t it funny how that works. Go back and read it and you’ll find no reference to the liberal agenda in it. Surprising isn’t it? Now ask yourself, if she didn’t say, how did you know that’s what she meant? Maybe now you know, but you didn’t even question it before did you? Can you say indoctrination?
Comment by gopmom on 26 September 2008:
ATG, If Michelle Malkin claims to be a Conservative, bases her life’s work on forwarding conservative theory, and is paid to do it, IMHO that’s not biased. You always know what you’re going to get. Bias is when someone paid to report news adds their opinion of it. Admittedly, I lean conservative so when I read something, I’m scanning for liberal bias - I saw a bit of it in that article, mostly based on the writer(s) not doing enough historical research and pinning the whole debacle on current events ie the current political system. Which is why I then found three more articles that I felt went more in depth.
But remember, I’m not paid so I can say what I want. And enough people seem to see it my way that I don’t think I’m all wrong.
Comment by gopmom on 26 September 2008:
Ian, Ian, Ian, You exhaust me. This is unconstitutional legislation. We shouldn’t even be discussing it. Let the banks fail.
But since that message doesn’t seem to be getting through, all I’m asking is that we put the breaks on and do a bit more reading. If the policy that is enacted includes more of the same “lending practices” we’ve solved nothing. What is the difference between ‘loaning’ money to a bank that can’t pay it back and loaning money to a person that can’t pay it back? Only about $699,999,800,000.
And I still disagree with you about Michelle Malkin. In my opinion, she is very well informed (I wish I had her staff) and she has an opinion. She backs up her opinion with facts and statistics - especially in her syndicated column. After reading her article yesterday, I did a bit of hunting too. She’s spot on. Remember when I was chastised for asking how many foreclosed mortgages went to illegals and my fan club said I was bashing the poor? Turns out they’re a big problem. And that’s why I’m teed off at W - because he’s been at the switch all this time as the illegals have been flooding in. But it was the liberal policy of “credit as a civil right” and “everyone should own a home” that required banks to not ask questions for fear of massive class action lawsuits. (And I said all of this before I read that article yesterday. I read Michelle for information and entertainment. Sue me.)
Before we give away $700,000,000,000, let’s tighten the restrictions a bit, ok?
Comment by Ian on 26 September 2008:
Gopmom, Gopmom, Gopmom. You just don’t read anything. Nothing seems to sink in.
“We need to not only figure out the problem, we need to find a solution that will help us in the present and prevent it from happening in the future.”
Do I have to explain everything to you twice? Does that sentence not say that we need to prevent this from happening in the future??? That would mean that I’m agains any legislation that would get us into the same situation. Please don’t make me spell everything out - I hate to feel like I’m being condescending. Did I ever say I agree with the current bailout? I’ve made no comments about it, yet you assume that I’m defending it. Show me where I’m defending it?
You hear what you want to hear.
Comment by Ian on 26 September 2008:
Another perspective.
Source: Kara Rowland. Washington Times, The (DC); 09/18/2008
Publishing tycoon and former Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes on Wednesday urged people to put the crisis on Wall Street in perspective, saying it “will quickly pass” so long as the Bush administration and financial regulators strengthen the dollar and enforce rules on the short-selling of securities.
“Put things in perspective: We will get over it,” Mr. Forbes said in a speech hosted by the Ad Club of Metropolitan Washington on Wednesday morning. “But if we continue doing dumb things like make monetary mistakes, raise taxes, do crazy things on the regulatory side, you can get a real disaster on your hands.”
While he said there is plenty of blame to go around, Mr. Forbes strongly criticized the Federal Reserve, calling it the “big enabler” that allowed the crisis to reach its current magnitude.
“Long story short, in 2004 the Federal Reserve, then headed by Alan Greenspan, made a fatal miscalculation,” he said. “They underestimated the U.S. economy. They printed a lot of money because they thought the economy needed it, and the engine flooded.”
As a result, Mr. Forbes said, commodity prices shot up and the domestic economy became distorted. Housing prices were already going up, and the influx of money led people to build and buy more houses, lending standards eroded and a subprime-mortgage crisis erupted, he said.
“It just went berserk; a classic bubble, and thanks to high technology, global economy, securitization, it took on proportions it had never done before in history,” he said. “So how did the Fed respond? Having gone on one drinking binge, it went on another: It cranked up the money press again.”
The Treasury Department should have told regulators to “back off” at that time, but instead praised the move, said Mr. Forbes, who called the country’s “weak-dollar policy” the “biggest mistake of the Bush administration.”
“If cheapening your money was the way to wealth, then Zimbabwe and Argentina would own the world,” he said.
Comment by Ian on 26 September 2008:
Yet another perspective.
Source: Michel G. Crouhy, Robert A. Jarrow and Stuart M. Turnbull. Journal of Derivatives 16.1 (Fall 2008): p81(30).
The following factors contributed to the credit crisis:
1. A low interest-rate environment that generated a search for yield enhancement;
2. Demand for high-yielding assets to put into collateral pools in order to increase the profitability of securitization, and subprime mortgages were an ideal choice, along with auto loans and credit cards;
3. Mortgage originators not assuming default risk of risky mortgage loans so they had little incentive to perform due diligence, and there was fraud and lax regulatory oversight;
4. Banks employing an originate-to-distribute mode of operation to reduce capital requirements, resulting in little incentive to perform due diligence;
5. Equity holders of CDOs, CDO-squareds, SIVs, and DPCs selling many derivative claims, often resulting in the underlying collateral being CDS written on asset-backed bonds, thus implying that CDS written on the same asset could appear in many different structures, which increased systemic risk;
6. Rating agencies not monitoring the raw data, even though it was common knowledge that lending standards were declining and fraud increasing, which implied that assumptions used to estimate the probability of default, recovery rates, and default dependence did not reflect current conditions;
7. Rating agencies being tardy in recognizing the implications of the declining state of the subprime market for the ratings of monolines; (67)
8. Rating agency incentive problem arising because rating agencies are paid by clients and regulation limits competition, resulting in the rating of structured products being a very profitable business for the agencies;
9. Monolines accepting at face value the ratings for senior tranches from the agencies and sold insurance wraps;
10. Agency-shareholder problem of financial institutions giving bonuses based on short-run performance, resulting in little incentive to care about the long-run consequences of actions, and because labor markets are not perfect, failure, even spectacular failure, is rarely a barrier to getting another job;
11. New Basle II capital requirements that make it attractive for banks to invest in super senior tranches, and by requiring money market funds to invest only in triple-A rated assets and other financial institutions to invest only in investment-grade assets, provides a receptive market for triple-A rated asset-backed bonds;
12. Absence of complete data on the collateral pools for many structures that made valuation impossible even for sophisticated investors and made independent analysis of credit ratings impossible, resulting in a ratings process that was not transparent and which forced unsophisticated investors to rely on the rating agencies, while regulators ignored the problem;
13. Absence of complete and timely data and concern about valuation methodologies which made investors uncertain about valuations posted by banks in their trading books;
14. Lack of reporting to investors about the implicit commitments of banks to their SIVs and money market funds.
Comment by Ian on 26 September 2008:
Dean Starkman. “Boiler room: the business press is missing the crooked heart of the credit crisis.(THE AUDIT).” Columbia Journalism Review 47.3 (Sept-Oct 2008): p48(6).
Morgan O’Rourke. “Shelf life.(Forefront).” Risk Management 55.9 (Sept 2008): p22(2).
Rodney Nelsestuen. “Lessons from the dark side of the credit crunch: for auditors and clients, the credit crunch reaffirms that risk management can never be delegated.” Bank Accounting & Finance 21.5 (August-Sept 2008): p11(4).
Harald B. Malmgren. “The credit crisis is not over: the anatomy of a financial unravelling.” The International Economy 21.4 (Fall 2007): p58(4).
Michael R. Young, Paul B.W. Miller and Eugene H. Flegm. “The role of fair value accounting in the subprime mortgage meltdown.” Journal of Accountancy 205.5 (May 2008)p34(6).
Whalen, Charles. “Understanding the Credit Crunch as a Minsky Moment.” Challenge (05775132); Jan/Feb2008, Vol. 51 Issue 1, p91-109, 19p.
VON HAGEN, JÃœRGEN. HO, TAI-KUANG. “Money Market Pressure and the Determinants of Banking Crises.” Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking 39, no. 5 (2007): 1037-1066.
“Cool ride on a historic rollercoaster.” Fund Strategy (Sept 22, 2008): p.28.
Simon Dixon. “Pointing the finger of blame.” Investors Chronicle(Sept 19, 2008).
“Credit and blame; Buttonwood.(The credit crisis in print).” The Economist (US) 388.8597 (Sept 13, 2008).
Joseph V. Rizzi “Why This Crisis Goes Deeper than Credit . American Banker 173.172 (Sept 5, 2008): p.11.
“Future Shock; The 10 events that rocked the financial industry during the credit crisis, and how the fallout will shape the future of the global financial system.” US Banker 118.9 (Sept 1, 2008): p.24.
Comment by Ian on 26 September 2008:
Paul Mizen. “The credit crunch of 2007-2008: a discussion of the background, market reactions, and policy responses.” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review 90.5 (Sept-Oct 2008): p.531(37).
“This paper has argued that a number of factors provided conducive conditions for a credit crunch. First, there was a period of exceptional stability with very low long-term interest rates supported by the global savings glut flowing from emerging industrialized economies. Second, financial innovation had developed well-understood financial products such as MBSs and introduced greater complexity, higher leverage, and weaker underlying assets based on subprime mortgages. Third, no one anticipated that house prices would fall nationwide in the United States–these conditions were not built into the models used to assess risk–but house prices did fall and when they did so defaults increased in the subprime sector, which proved a trigger for the crisis as investors reappraised the risks associated with the high-yielding residential MBSs and CDOs composed of these assets. Any number of other high-yield asset markets might have provided the trigger for the 2007-08 credit crunch, including hedge funds, private equity, and emerging market equities; it just happened to be the subprime crisis that occurred first. The failure of a number of banks then spurred a reaction in the markets for short-term paper and banks of all kinds withdrew from lending in money markets. The authorities decided to act to provide liquidity to the markets and funding liquidity for failing banks such as Northern Rock, Bear Stearns, and government-sponsored enterprises. Central banks handled the crisis well from the perspective of providing liquidity to the markets, but spreads remain larger than before the crunch. They did less well in providing funding liquidity for failing institutions and the consequences of these actions for the taxpayer that are unquantifiable at this stage. Finally, regulation and supervision needs to be enhanced in the face of rapid financial innovation–the scope of regulation will need to increase to ensure systemic risks are minimized in the future.”
Comment by Ian on 26 September 2008:
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Michelle Malkin is not the end all be all on this subject. My advice to all: educate yourself and form an opinion of your own.
Comment by Ian on 26 September 2008:
And more readily available documents.
Bernanke, Benjamin S. “Deflation: Making Sure ‘It’ Doesn’t Happen Here.” Remarks before the National Economists Club, Washington, DC, November 21, 2002;
http://www.federalreserve.gov/BOARDDOCS/SPEECHES/ 2002/20021121/default.htm.
Bernanke, Benjamin S. “The Global Saving Glut and the U.S. Current Account Deficit,” Homer Jones Lecture, St. Louis, Missouri, April 14, 2005;
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2005/20050414/default.htm
Bernanke, Benjamin S. and Lown, Cara S. “The Credit Crunch.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1991, (2), pp. 205-47.
Clair, Robert T. and Tucker, Paula. “Six Causes of the Credit Crunch (Or, Why Is It So Hard to Get a Loan?),” Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Economic Review, Third Quarter 1993, pp. 1-19.
http://www.dallasfed.org/research/er/1993/er9303a.pdf
Sengupta, Rajdeep and Emmons, William R. “What Is Subprime Lending?” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Monetary Trends, June 2007; http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/mt/ 20070601/cover.pdf.
Comment by gopmom on 26 September 2008:
Ian, Are you under the impression that I am not responding because either A. I am reading all this drivel you are sending or B. I have seen the light and am too afraid to tell you I agree with you? The truth is even though I don’t have a job, I am just too busy to respond to all of your “look how smart I am” citings. You are not ever going to change my mind about politics and its ramifications because I’ve spent 20 years forming them. And because I think all your comments are pointless - you don’t even offer an opinion of your own - you just quote and cite others and yet you somehow believe that you are intelligent and informed (more so than me?) because you can google? Aren’t you afraid, with the coming economic disaster, that your employer is going to discover that you spend your day trying to lecture a stay home mom on a blog? Or are you just on the dole, hanging out at the library? Get a life. And you should also consider getting a blog of your own. And I mean that seriously.
Comment by Ian on 26 September 2008:
I’ve actually read all of those and I didn’t get them from google. I don’t think I’m brilliant - it’s hard work to educate oneself. It takes a lot of time and energy and a lot of thinking. I have a great life - I have a beautiful wife, I play sports, go to the gym regularly, have a good job - but what does any of that have to do with anything that I’m saying. I happen to believe it’s my duty as an American citizen to be well educated. Attack my comments, not me - or is that all you’ve got? I’m not trying to change your mind about anything. I’m just tired of all the drivel I read on blogs like yours. You take one opinion you agree with and run with it. And, I’ll worry about my own job thank you. You just take care of yourself.
My opinion - my opinion is that people don’t think. I’ve done nothing else here, but try to encourage free thinking. I was never here to debate politics. But you have to label me, don’t you - does that make you feel better about yourself?
Comment by Ian on 26 September 2008:
And after that last response, yes I’m 100% certain I’m more intelligent then yourself. I’ll stay away from your blog now. There are thousands of sheeple like yourself with blogs just like this one - from both parties.
Comment by gopmom on 26 September 2008:
Ian, You used “then” incorrectly in the first sentence. The word you wanted was “than”.
Best of luck.
See I knew you were a Liberal all along even if you tried to pretend otherwise. Now who’s got good intuition?
Comment by Ian on 26 September 2008:
Haha. I’ll admit that’s pretty funny - just as funny as when you made that grammatical error after claiming to have had a superior education. I guess that makes you a Liberal too. This is really my last post. I won’t be back - didn’t find any intelligent conversation here. Maybe I’ll find more intelligent people at Jay Severin’s j-blog. I should have known what I’d find at Graham’s blog.
Comment by gopmom on 27 September 2008:
Ian, I can’t say I’m sorry to see you go. I just could not understand your propensity for promoting Liberal opinion while claiming to be on neither side, your confusing refusal to pick a side, preferring to ride the fence (Liberal), your style of lecturing while only delivering others’ ideas and not your own and your continued pleas for Americans to think. Surprisingly, many of us out here do think and analyze and read and we still agree with Conservatives principles in the end. Why can’t you just accept that? You seemed very handy at advocating for “thinking” as if that alone makes you more intelligent - and maybe your IQ is through the roof - but at some point, action is required. You offer questions and no answers of your own. You do not stand up for anything but more discussion. So responding to you is pointless - you apparently just like seeing your comments on the screen. I’m told I should continue this just because traffic is good for the site, but I don’t do this as a boost for my ego. And I don’t go hunting for agreement or write off disagreement. But I believe that conservative theory is superior to liberal theory. And I believe people who advocate for liberal theory are fundamentally flawed - they are looking to someone else to take care of business for them while they enjoy the ride. If that makes me intolerant, I’ll keep the label. I have no doubt in my own beliefs. I don’t need others to agree with me and thereby verify my self-worth. And I’m not paid enough to be hounded by someone who gets his kicks out of nit-picking through every word someone writes without ever putting forth an original word of his own.
Comment by ATG on 27 September 2008:
Wasn’t the whole point of this thread you posting somebody else’s article?
Comment by gopmom on 28 September 2008:
No, the point was to point out I said the same thing earlier this week and was chastised for it.
Here’s more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/09/AR2008060902626.html
Comment by ATG on 28 September 2008:
Either it is acceptable to post articles bolstering one’s point of view or it isn’t, you pick
Comment by Jeff on 11 October 2008:
Does Ian have a job? He sure has a lot of time to write.
Comment by Ian on 11 October 2008:
Good one Jeff. Personal insults are always the way to go. That was indeed an original one though - never read that one before.