Glenn Reynolds links to the below video of Rep. Barney Frank ably defending himself against the fallacy that is now Republican gospel about who had what role in the mortgage crisis (somehow the fact that the economic collapse happened under a conservative Republican obsessed with deregulation never comes up, or Bush campaigning on subprime mortgages). What’s even funnier is that Reynolds says Frank is being “defensive”. Well, people often defend themselves when they are attacked, and in the case of Rep. Frank, Instapundit has been one of the attack dogs leading the fallacious charge.
Reynolds calls it a “meltdown” as well. The only thing melting in the last couple years has been the economy and conservative credibility.
If that’s a “meltdown,” then Mr. Frank has one just about every time he speaks in public. That’s just how the guy talks.
Just as an exercise, here’s where I think Frank’s questioner went wrong (and I’m guessing at this without seeing the full Q & A): he assumed facts not in evidence. It is accepted as given among some conservatives that a) Freddie and Fannie “caused” the subprime crisis, and b) Mr. Frank blocked tighter regulation of Freddie and Fannie.
I doubt Mr. Frank would accept either proposition as true.
Still in denial over the Democrats role in this mess I see.
Deny deny deny.
Sad.
Jay: “Still in denial over the Democrats role in this mess I see.
Deny deny deny.
Sad.”
If you have something to add to the debate, do it. Otherwise fuck off.
Answer Mr. Frank’s question. What should he have done differently?
Answer that, or fuck off.
QiB: “Just as an exercise, here’s where I think Frank’s questioner went wrong…”
He also accused Barney Frank of calling people who opposed him racist. I would like to see his evidence for that as well.
Jay, still turning complicated issues into inane comebacks.
Whatever gets you through the day, buddy.
[Jayspeak] Deny = stating facts. [/Jayspeak]
Don’t be too hard on him, Jay’s still reckoning with the fact that the perfect conservative policy brew led to disaster.
I see Jay is still in denial about the Republican’ts role in this mess.
Blame the Democrats!
Blame the Democrats!
Blame the Democrats!
Sad…
Answer Mr. Frank’s question. What should he have done differently?
Fish, barrel, meet shotgun.
Well, for starters, he probably should not have gotten into a romantic relationship with a top Fannie Mae executive while he was overseeing it.
For another, he should probably have never said on July 14, 2008, that “I think this is a case where Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are fundamentally sound. They’re not in danger of going under. They’re not the best investment these days from a long term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward. They’re in the housing market. I do think their prospects going forward are very solid.”
For another, he should not have said in 2003 that “These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
For another, I bet he regrets saying on September 25, 2003, that “I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing….”
He also might have supported increased regulation of Fannie and Freddie in 2003, instead of being one of the leading opponents.
Gosh, that was easy…
J.
He also sounds like elmer fudd.
That wasn’t a meltdown, that was a BEATDOWN. Politico ran a story today about Republicans ambushing Freshmen Dems on the floor of the House and who do you think the Dems in the story held up as the gold standard of floor debate? Barney Franks thats who. The student had all of his facts wrong as is usual with conservatives of any age and Barney Franks just corrected him. Of course he did it in a way that made the whole room laugh at the kid but hey if you aren’t ready for prime time don’t step up to the mike. Funny thing is the student probably got his “facts” from Instaputz’s website or one much like it.
One thing that is true, Glenn Reynolds would NEVER want to debate Barney Franks on policy. He would eat Reynolds’ lunch.
And don’t forget the time Barney Frank made Joe Cassano invest all that money in CDS deals and run one of the largest financial services in history into the dirt. I bet Randian Supermen like Jake DeSantis were on the phone every day with Barney Frank.
“Please, Congressman, don’t make us repackage subprime loans into collaterized debt obligations so we can treat them like AAA investments, thus creating an even greater incentive for banks to make even more subprime loans.”
“Hop to it, sailor! Now get Phil Gramm on the phone! Tell him to start deregulating the sixty-two trillion dollar securities market toot sweet, or I’ll slap you all with my big, gay penis”
“Nooooooo.”
Barney Frank. World’s greatest monster? Time will tell…
Uhmm Jay Tea I hate to break this to you but Barney Frank couldn’t have stopped regulation of Fannie and Freddie if he wanted to in 2003. The Republicans had all the votes they needed in both halls of Congress to pass tougher regulations if that was their intent and they had the Presidency. Obviously it wasn’t. And believe it or not Fannie and Freddie could have been just fine in 2003 and still collapsed in 2008. Isn’t that what the former CEO of AIG Hank Greenberg said was true of his firm just a week ago and the Republicans were eating it up hook line and sinker.
Man that was even easier.
That was even easier.
J.G.Thayer: “Gosh, that was easy…”
You mean simple. As in you are a simpleton.
You attacked his love life and gave a few quotes, but you didn’t answer the fucking question.
What should he have DONE to prevent subprime mortgage collapse. Got it? Or are you too stupid to understand English?
As for what you did provide…
“Well, for starters, he probably should not have gotten into a romantic relationship with a top Fannie Mae executive while he was overseeing it.”
And you have evidence this affected his performance?
“For another, he should probably have never said on July 14, 2008, that ‘I think this is a case where Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are fundamentally sound. They’re not in danger of going under. They’re not the best investment these days from a long term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward. They’re in the housing market. I do think their prospects going forward are very solid.’”
And if he had said, ‘Things are bad at Freddie / Mae.’ you would have attacked him for causing a panic.
His quote was reassuring, but realistic.
“For another, he should not have said in 2003 that ‘These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.’”
Were they in trouble in 2003?
“For another, I bet he regrets saying on September 25, 2003, that “I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing….’”
And how did subsidized housing cause the subprime mess?
Subprime was about people buying houses as investments, not low income people buying affordable homes. Remember, there’s a price cap on the houses if Fannie / Mac get involved.
Again, the connection between the subprime leading crisis and Freddie / Mae is so tenuous that it practically doesn’t exist.
J.G.Thayer: “Fish, barrel, meet shotgun.”
Indeed.
Jay Tea, the biggest mistake Barney Frank made was in assuming that the Republicans couldn’t screw up the entire global economy. Republicans and their right wing ideology did exactly that: screw up the global economy and realy, really screw up America’s financial system.
So a lot of things that would have been doing fine at any other time in the last 75 years got sucked down the drain with the global financial collapse.
The right wing ideology set up a lot of home buyers to fail. Deregulation of the banks combined with lax oversight of the remaining regulations allowed banks to provide loans to buyers that frankly shouldn’t have gotten them.
But since the banks could turn around and dump those subprime loans on someone else after the fraudulent credit rating agencies sprinkled magic pixie dust on them to make triple xxx crap look like triple aaa rated securities, the big banks really didn’t care if home buyers could pay off the loans.
Because those loans were sliced up and sold as securities to someone else, the banks that were providing the loans (that would predictably fail to be paid off using any traditionally conservative measures of risk analysis) could wash their hands of their bad loans.
But since those banks were also buying triple aaa rated securities that were actually the same triple xxx crap they thought they were flushing out their back end, the big banks got burnt by their own fire.
In all of this, Republican Bush was pushing for more subprime loans to people who weren’t economically in a place to weather a downturn. Republican Bush called it an “ownership society” by which he meant “banks will own your homes if anything goes wrong but banks are who Republicans serve so don’t translate this out of Republican doublespeak.”
Freddie and Fannie, because they to were too deregulated (a right wing ideological keystone) they took too many chances and ate too many crap loans (as I understand it).
What’s particularly perverse about the right wing’s attacks on Frank is that Frank is a very careful regulator. Frank tried to not overregulate, which is what the right wing (who hate to regulate) are slamming him for: not regulating enough. So the Republicans, who hate regulation, are slamming Frank for not regulating enough.
Frank’s second mistake was in trying to work with right wingers on how much regulation there should be. He got suckered and is now getting blamed for getting suckered by the people who suckered him. It’s what Republicans do.
It’s what you, Jay Teabagger, are doing right now.
I know you guys have a hangup cause Rep. Frank is gay, but the idea that a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts stopped a Republican House and Senate from enacting regulation is the kind of bullshit nobody can believe without a lobotomy. And even then.
Jay. Please. Your entire “Fish, barrel, meet bucket of bullshit” spiel assumes that Fannie and Freddie were the prime cause of this crisis, which one would only think if they were terribly uninformed or profoundly dumb.
Unless, of course, you can direct me to some hard data showing the flow of a host of bad credit products flowing through Fannie and Freddie onto the balance sheets of the rest of the world. And by host I mean clear majority. That would be well over 50%.
But let’s assume, just for shits and giggles, that Fannie and Freddie did cause the whole crisis, bringing down the governments of Iceland, Latvia, Hungary and the Czech Republic in the process.
Your fish in a barrel evidence for how Barney Frank could have single-handedly averted the disaster is that he could have said a couple of different things?
Jesus dude, that’s all you’ve got?
How many times can you be wrong before you stop giving answers, Tea?
Best line in the video was Barney clowning the student for saying his criticism of the stimulus bill caused the subprime mortgage crisis. “Oh my God he’s being critical, lets default”
Priceless!
but the idea that a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts stopped a Republican House and Senate from enacting regulation is the kind of bullshit nobody can believe without a lobotomy.
Much like expecting a “Democrat” like Obama to keep his promise to “never raise taxes on people earning less than $250k/yr”- unless you smoke cigarettes (where the federal tax just tripled on April 1).
I cannot wait until “obesity” is also a “crime” in a Democrat Health Care Regime…
“Libertarians” who work for state schools never learn
Farris-wheel, here’s the deal, Dems take responsability for FM^2, and the pubs take the rest. Fair enough?
Saying Fannie and Freddie did it is like a pack-a-day smoker saying the aspartame in his diet coke gave him cancer.
Barney Frank remains one of my favorite legislators. He’s got his flaws, and he sounds funny, but he’s actually willing to fight for things. And he’s good at it.
mambochicken23: “How many times can you be wrong before you stop giving answers, Tea?”
Maybe he’s a sociological experiment.
Re: my reference to Frank’s love life: see “Interest, Conflict Of.”
Re: Frank’s obstruction. Having a simple majority in Congress does NOT mean that a party has absolute power. As I recall, the Democrats have held both Houses since 2006, but that didn’t stop a lot of people from blaming Republicans for what Congress has (and hasn’t) done for the last couple of years.
Frank is a very capable legislator. Being in the minority didn’t keep him from still wielding considerable power and influence.
Re: Fannie and Freddie role. Feel free to argue how significant their collapse was, but no one can argue that 1) their failure was clearly foreseen by Republicans; 2) their failure was the first major element of the meltdown; and 3) it certainly did NOT help the situation in the least.
J.
So if the majority party (and the Prez to boot) “clearly foresees” the problem and does nothing to fix it, what do we call that?
That’s right — responsible.
OK, in Jaim’s world, if one side sees a problem and tries to fix it (yes, Jaim, they TRIED — at least twice) and is thwarted by the opposition, they’re at fault. Meanwhile, if the other side denies that there is a problem and manages to forestall the attempts of the majority to address it, they’re blameless?
Got it.
That’s a very useful principle (and that’s a word that isn’t often used around Jaim) to remember now that the Republicans are in the minority… they’re blameless for everything that happens now, and the Democrats, as the majority, are responsible for everything.
Pity it’s untainted with anything resembling reality…
J.
mambochicken23, April 7, 2009 at 10:29 pm
How many times can you be wrong before you stop giving answers, Tea?
The better question would be – how many times can the Teabagger avoid answering questions and misrepresenting the facts, and still make comments here? I’m voting for the undefined concept known as infinity…
Jay Tea, April 8, 2009 at 6:24 am
Pity it’s untainted with anything resembling reality…
…says the teabagger who has never put a reality-based comment here. Project much?
How exactly do you conclude that the Republican’ts tried to fix this at least twice while they were running the country into the ground? More tax cuts? Less regulatory oversight of the financial institutions and their
shellderivative games?Morally and intellectually bankrupt Republican’ts still thinking they have the right to be considered paragons of virtue and integrity don’t cut it these days, son. Stick to sending OW goofy pictures. That’s about the only positive contribution I’ve ever seen you make on this site.
Hmm. So Republicans aren’t so much responsible as they are incompetent at governance. Good thing nobody seems to want to vote for them any longer.
Gotcha sparky.
“as the majority, are responsible for everything.”
When the economy turns around, yes. In spite of Republicans “hoping he fails,” America will get back on track with the help of a meager four Republican senators.
I’m kind of flummoxed at having to explain politics to you, Jay — of course the party in charge gets the credit and the blame. This is why Bush II will go down in history as one of our worst presidents ever. And this is why the Republican party is transforming itself into a sort of political cult for aging white males living in the South.
By his own admission, Jay received life-saving medical care at the expense of taxpayers like you and me. Now, he rails against “socialism” in all of the many forms only a warped wing-nut mind like his can see.
That’s all you really need to know about him, and by proxy the modern Republican party. The limited mental capacity, the constant misdirection which they think passes for intelligence, and most glaringly the outrageous hypocrisy of these people is pretty hard to take. Then again, it’s also pretty amusing. Lil’ John Galts living in their mom’s basements, fancying themselves to be He-men of conservatism. Who endlessly supported a president who made the Fed bigger than ever and bankrupted the country, merely because he called himself a Republican and started pretending to be a cowboy after graduating from Yale and Harvard.
Ooh, I LOVE it when the discussion changes from the topic at hand to little old me. It gets me all hot and bothered…
Thanks for the early-morning perk-me-up, Smiley and Jaim!
J.
Re: Fannie and Freddie role. Feel free to argue how significant their collapse was, but no one can argue that 1) their failure was clearly foreseen by Republicans; 2) their failure was the first major element of the meltdown; and 3) it certainly did NOT help the situation in the least.
Funny, Jay, but do you know what? I can clearly argue one of them, and it’s the only one that has any bearing at all on what you’re trying to prove, which is 2: Their failure in August was the first major element.
No. It was Bear Stearns. In March.
The other two have nothing to do with what we’re talking about. The question was, “What could Barney Frank have done differently to stop the crisis.” Your answer was “Say different things about Fannie and Freddie.”
I’m asking again: is that all you’ve got?
Anyway, there isn’t an argument to be had about their role. They participated in a giant asset bubble and got brought down when it popped. They neither created the bubble nor were the first or biggest company to ride it to profit. That’s the role they had. What, exactly, is there to argue in that?
J.G.Thayer: “Re: my reference to Frank’s love life: see ‘Interest, Conflict Of.’”
Prove it. Prove Barney Frank did something wrong.
“Re: Frank’s obstruction.”
What obstruction?
“Re: Fannie and Freddie role. Feel free to argue how significant their collapse was, but no one can argue that 1) their failure was clearly foreseen by Republicans;”
No it wasn’t. What they were complaining about and what happened were practically unrelated.
“2) their failure was the first major element of the meltdown;”
No it wasn’t. Fannie / Mac fell because of large scale defaults.
“and 3) it certainly did NOT help the situation in the least.”
It was a symptom. Not a cause.
It’s no wonder you work for Commentary Magazine Jay Tea. Glenn Grenwald was early in calling out Commentary Magazine’s editor and in house neoconservative Norman Podhoretz a “psychopath.”
Is Commentary Magazine paying you to be a dishonest troll, Jay Tea?
J.G.Thayer: “OK, in Jaim’s world, if one side sees a problem and tries to fix it (yes, Jaim, they TRIED — at least twice) and is thwarted by the opposition, they’re at fault.”
This is just a fucking lie. Do you know Republicans were complaining about? The Democrats made it so you couldn’t set rates based on the neighbourhood the house was in.
You see, for a long time Blacks, Latinos, etc. were charged more for mortgages. This is racist. So the government stepped in and said, ‘You can’t charge someone more based on their race.’
So banks started charging more based on neighbourhoods. However, charging a Black person more because they live in a Black neighbourhood is still racist. Democrats changed that.
Republicans under the guise of ‘less regulations’ claimed this was forcing banks to make too many risky loans and sought to reverse the rules that were put into place to prevent discrimination based on race. I’ll let you come to your own conclusion why.
============================
So why did Freddie / Mae collapse? The two companies had rules restricting which loans they could get involved with. Namely, they had to be less expensive than the average for the area. However, when the subprime phase was at its peak and people were flipping houses practically hourly, the ‘average’ price climbed so high that mortgages that were too high for Fannie / Mac to deal with were now commonplace for them.
In other words, the subprime mess cause the demise of Freddie / Mac. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.
J.G.Thayer: “Ooh, I LOVE it when the discussion changes from the topic at hand to little old me.”
Which explains why you do your best to ensure that happened.
Jay Tea represents what the right wing has degenerated into: sociopaths without conscience who can tell more lies in a minute than a ten minute response can correct. Which has given the right wing a significant advantage in America’s sound bite culture the last 40 years.
Lying is precisely the function he and most* of the other right wing trolls and writers and radio and tv and internet personalities provide for the Republicans: lies to cover up or excuse the right wing’s crimes.
So instead of discussing the right wing’s predatory ideology of deregulation being at the heart of the global financial collapse, Jay Tea has people spilling pixels to defend an ad hominem and completely dishonest attack on Barney Frank.
Unfortunately, it’s necessary to respond to sociopaths like Commentary Magazine’s troll Jay Tea.
It’s the Jay Teas on the right that are the serpents that enabled the Republican Party’s decent into madness.
Several of the right wing trolls that lurk here are nothing like Jay Tea. Where Jay Tea is just a pathological liar, several of the other right wing trolls are just true believers, fanatics conned by snake oil salesmen paid by sociopaths like Podhoretz and Murdoch.
* There are some notable exceptions to the right wing’s brigade of chickenhawk media sociopaths. Many ended up either directly supporting the Democratic contender in 2008 or were carefully non-supportive of the Republican candidate.
What C.S.Strowbridge is talking about, “for a long time Blacks, Latinos, etc. were charged more for mortgages,” is part of a pattern that is is sometimes called REDLINING (sometimes spelled RED-LINING). Red-lining is where companies that provide certain financial services draw a line (a “red-line”) around “certain” communities and either find excuses not to serve those communities or charge those citizens living in those communities significantly higher fees. Anyone living in the wrong neighborhood got screwed by the only financial service companies that were available to them.
“Red-lining” is a geographic prejudgment of everyone in that neighborhood. The prejudgment’s geographic boundaries just happened to often draw lines around racial group’s neighborhoods.
What the left tried to do and what the right wing has tried to undo (with the help of lying sociopaths like Jay Tea) was force companies to stop “red-lining.”
“Red-lining” is roughly analogous to refusing service, a ’seat at the counter’, the right wing, through distraction techniques exercised by people like Jay Tea, have tried to keep the left from preventing “red-lining.”
What the left has tried to do, and what the right has tried to undo, is make sure every American citizen gets a seat at the financial services counter despite where they live (or how many of their neighbors are “those people”).
Part of the lefts attempts at forcing the financial industry to allow “those people” a seat at the financial table was done through the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). It’s why the right was (is) trying to blame the CRA for the collapse.
Instead of the right wing being honest about their predatory bigotry, they obscure it with attacks on generic poor people or simplistic sloganeering that attacks certain other kinds of “those people,” in this case, Jay Tea’s casual and deceitful smear of Barney Frank.
That smear has become part of the right wing’s attack and it was that smear that was being pushed by the right wing college student in the video.
Wow. Barney Frank must be very good in bed.
“Please, Congressman, don’t make us repackage subprime loans into collaterized debt obligations so we can treat them like AAA investments,
Awesome. Asperas FTW.
Mr. Tea makes my point perfectly.
Way back at the start of the thread, I noted that the Harvard student in the video asks about Mr. Frank’s role in the financial crisis, not his role in the failure of Freddie and Fannie. He seems to take it as given that the two are the same.
Mr. Tea makes precisely the same error, as does Mr. Caruso.
Btw, Jay Tea, my comment was in response to you, not Farris (though the fact that you both have the default avatar doesn’t help matters). For that, I apologize. So do we have a deal?
J.G.Thayer go bye-bye?
Has he decided he can’t answer the question at hand and now that his bullshit deflections have been destroyed he’s decided to move on and hope we forget about this?
“J.G.Thayer go bye-bye?”
Yep. Another thread he ran away from.