Journal pudge's Journal: Democratic Dissembling on "Regulation" 11
Republicans generally want less regulation. Democrats generally want more.
This is -- generally -- true.
So if people (generally) believe that in a specific case there should have been more or stricter regulation, it's obvious that the Democrats were right, and the Republicans wrong
This is the Democratic talking point, and it's nonsense. It's barely worth mentioning how stupid this line of reasoning is, because it's so obviously nonsensical, but it's repeated so often that apparently some people think it's true.
We know, for example, that both Bush and McCain have pushed for tighter regulations on Freddie and Fannie for several years, and we know that Democrats have blocked and opposed it.
Being generally against increased regulation does not mean being for or against all regulations anymore than being generally for increased regulation means you are for all regulations.
The Democrats know that if they talk about the specific regulations at issue, they will look bad for having opposed regulations such as those proposed by McCain (and worse, make McCain look good). So instead they talk about generalities in an obvious attempt to deceive the public.
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
Democrats are--generally--wrong (Score:2)
What the regulation lovers always seem to miss is that the actions of the actors are nearly always because
It's good to see... (Score:1)
...some evidence of what I'd heard, that Dems pushed Freddie and Fannie to get lower income people, than traditionally could, into homes. And I'm not clear on exactly how this was done, as Barney F... (gotta get that Dick Armey snafu outta my head) ...-rank only went as far as to say: "...they have a mission that this Congress has given them in return for some of the arrangements which are of some benefit to them to focus on affordable housing,..." I don't know what these "arrangements" are that he speaks o
Re: (Score:2)
And I'm not clear on exactly how this was done
Well, it was done in two parts, in no particular order:
Step A) you abandon the standards that you originally came up with that defined the mortgage market for decades: you start buying subprime loans. [nytimes.com] (Start here for pushing... in 1999)
Step B) you buy into the hysteria around the magically-AAA-rated subprime credit derivatives, and you buy in big [reuters.com].
"Right" GSE regulation (whatever that may be) might have saved Fannie and Freddie from their own stupidity, but that
Re: (Score:2)
leaves 12+ collapsed banks
Whoops, make that 13+ [cnn.com]
Obviously this one's the democrats fault too, if only they had just given the billions and billions to Paulson to do whatever he wanted no questions asked, surely Washington Mutual would have survived its own stupidity!
I guess WaMu was counting on those billions to be able to pay out the promised interest on their 5% 1 year CDs [marketoracle.co.uk]
Re: (Score:2)
WaMu didn't collapse or fail. They could have survived. However, they had serious problems with credit that drove down their stock price, making them an easy target.
Re: (Score:2)
WaMu didn't collapse or fail
Low stock prices make banks easy targets for federal regulators to seize just for the hell of it?
Re: (Score:2)
WaMu didn't collapse or fail
Low stock prices make banks easy targets for federal regulators to seize just for the hell of it?
That was only because idiots with deposits pulled them out for no good reason.
Re: (Score:1)
They [WaMu] could have survived.
That [their being seized] was only because idiots with deposits pulled them out for no good reason.
That's like saying the guy who jumped off a 20-story building wouldn't have died from the fall, it was only because of the sudden deceleration just at the very end there. And if it wasn't for that, he'd have been just fine.
Re: (Score:2)
That was only because idiots with deposits pulled them out for no good reason.
Maybe those "idiots" were the ones with $101,000 in the bank, but I guess that's the fault of those idiotic regulations like the caps on FDIC insured deposits.
FWIW I've still got my money in my WaMorganChase account. It wasn't anywhere near the $100k limit, so thanks to the FDIC, watching wamu's swan dive didn't convince me to invest in coffee cans and a backyard to bury them in.
regulation (Score:2)
Republicans generally want less regulation. Democrats generally want more.
This is -- generally -- true.
So if people (generally) believe that in a specific case there should have been more or stricter regulation, it's obvious that the Democrats were right, and the Republicans wrong ... right?
Looking at it another way, isn't part of the reason we're in this mess *increased* regulation vis a vis expansion of regulation like the CRA, making sure loans are available to people who wouldn't normally qualify for th
Re: (Score:2)
Looking at it another way, isn't part of the reason we're in this mess *increased* regulation vis a vis expansion of regulation like the CRA, making sure loans are available to people who wouldn't normally qualify for them?
Sure, absolutely. I wasn't making a point for or against regulation, just saying that the narrative from the Democrats was antiintellectual garbage.
My read on it is similar to yours.