This was so successful the first time…
…let’s do it again!—says the Obama administration:
The Obama administration is engaged in a broad push to make more home loans available to people with weaker credit, an effort that officials say will help power the economic recovery but that skeptics say could open the door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first place.
President Obama’s economic advisers and outside experts say the nation’s much-celebrated housing rebound is leaving too many people behind, including young people looking to buy their first homes and individuals with credit records weakened by the recession.
In response, administration officials say they are working to get banks to lend to a wider range of borrowers by taking advantage of taxpayer-backed programs ”” including those offered by the Federal Housing Administration ”” that insure home loans against default.
Housing officials are urging the Justice Department to provide assurances to banks, which have become increasingly cautious, that they will not face legal or financial recriminations if they make loans to riskier borrowers who meet government standards but later default.
Fool or knave?
Knave.
I’m not all that financially sophisticated. Is this what is meant by trading in derivatives?
Going with the Knave meme: why not do it again? If the goal is to further push the US into oblivion, why not create another housing crash on top of an already weak economy? Wile E. Coyote is teetering on the edge of the cliff and just needs a bit of a nudge from the Road Runner.
“… the nation’s much-celebrated housing rebound…”
This is the Obama Administration seeing a dead cat bounce of the housing market and putting a party hat on the dead cat.
How about an AND operator instead of the OR?
What is the definition of insanity? doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Have we learned nothing in the past 5 years?
That Washington Post article doesn’t even mention that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were largely responsible for that risky lending that caused the 2008 crash.
Or did I miss it?
As has been said before, if Obama was deliberately trying to destroy the United States, what would he be doing differently?
Blowing up speculative bubbles is all that they know how to do. Look back at the last 20+ years; its all bubbles. This is just another attempt to stay afloat.
Just remember that it’s not economic reality that drives this administration, it’s social utopianism. The left truly believes that if you construct the social utopia, the economy will fall into line. Any student of reality however, knows that this approach has been proven demonstrably false.
The most recent evidence is the rush to purchase firearms and ammunition in blue-state utopian Connecticut prior to the legislature’s vote on new “utopian” and draconian (but I repeat myself) gun laws.
Yup. The FHA, that insures against mortgage default. That would be you and me, since by our taxes we “insure” the FHA.
To sleep, perchance to dream, but it is and will be a very long national nightmare.
Obama is trying to show that he cares about people as compared to those mean banks which won’t give people with bad credit money. The guy is shameless.
Rinse, Cycle, Repeat.
Right, Mr. Frank. At bottom, it is more demagoguery. The LIVs are meant to take away the message that “Obama and the Democrats care about the poor and want to help them. The mean/racist/capitalist Republicans don’t.”
Really, there is no hope until voting becomes an earned privilege, not a right. People sucking at the government teat should under no circumstances be allowed to vote.
Once again, the Founders were well aware of the perils of democracy and sought to avoid it at all costs. They would not be surprised to see our predicament today after ~100 years of a universal franchise.
Well, I think I have finally learned the rules of the game.
This time around, I’m going to buy a house.
LOLOL.
Come the inevitable crisis, let’s pay off the loans by selling the organs of the people who pressured the banks. Seems only fair.
Time to post this link again. The outstanding online magazine City Journal predicted in *2000* that pressuring banks to make subprime loans would lead to financial catastrophe:
The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown
Remember when a trillion dollars was a lot of money?
And speaking of knaves, my link above points out that we had Clinton to thank. The CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) that was the pretext for all this was passed in the ’70s but lay mostly dormant until Clinton decided to enforce it.
Knave. Wants to do this with auto loans, too.
Those who tried it first time, can claim to be fools. Anyone doing it now we must assume is deliberately trying to destroy this nations economic system once and for all.
Just like those who voted for Obama in 08 can claim they were fooled. But in 12 you made yourself our nations enemy.
Sam is absolutely right. Since 2011 there’s been talk of financing to people with poor credit, simply to raise car sales. BTW Ford and another car manufacturer (Chrysler?) hit a high in auto sales last year, but it was mostly due to the continued ripple of Cash-for-Clunkers: Most of the new car sales were to people replacing old cars (an average of 13 years old according to the report I heard).
Another housing bubble will further damage the lives of the folks in their late 20s and early 30s who have been scrambling to get security deposits for rentals, let alone down-payments for a house during this buyers’ market.
Opportunist.
That said, I suggest a trillion dollar distribution to every man, woman, and child. Tada! Instant trillionaires, right?
My take on the “fool or knave” debate:
Obama is a knave.
Obama voters (especially the 2012 ones) are fools.