Wall Street Socialism

THE CONSERVATIVE NANNY STATE
How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer
By Dean Baker / http://tinyurl.com/e7gyr
This book is written in frustration and hope. People in the United States who consider themselves progressive must be frustrated over the extent to which conservative political ideologies have managed to dominate public debate about economic policy in the last quarter century. Even when progressives have won important political battles, such as the defeat of efforts to privatize Social Security, they have done so largely without a coherent ideology; rather, this success rested on the public’s recognition that it stood to lose its retirement security with this “reform.” It also helped that the public was suspicious of the motives of the proponents of Social Security privatization. However, success in the goal-line defense of the country’s most important social program is not the same thing as a forward looking agenda.

The key flaw in the stance that most progressives have taken on economic issues is that they have accepted a framing whereby conservatives are assumed to support market outcomes, while progressives want to rely on the government. This framing leads progressives to futilely lash out against markets, rather than examining the factors that lead to undesirable market outcomes. The market is just a tool, and in fact a very useful one. It makes no more sense to lash out against markets than to lash out against the wheel.

The reality is that conservatives have been quite actively using the power of the government to shape market outcomes in ways that redistribute income upward. However, conservatives have been clever enough to not own up to their role in this process, pretending all along that everything is just the natural working of the market. And, progressives have been foolish enough to go along with this view.

The frustration with this futile debate, where conservatives like markets and progressives like government, is the driving force behind this book, along with the hope that new thinking is possible. We shall see. http://www.conservativenannystate.org/cns.htm...

I just found this:

Did Clinton Administration affirmative action cause the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and put Fannie Mae

http://www.amazon.com/tag/politics/forum...

...interesting sources:

"Have you read this Harvard study?" For more information please go to: http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/mark...

Some facts in the report: According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, "Accounting for nearly two-thirds of household growth in 1995 to 2005, minorities contributed 49 percent of the 12.5 million rise in homeowners over the decade." ... "Without the sudden expansion of sub-prime lending, most of these homeowners would have been denied access to credit."

Sub-prime growth from $210 billion in 2001 to $625 billion in 2005 represented 20% of the dollar value of loans and 7% of originations of outstanding mortgages.[$35 billion in 1994,$125 billion in 1997]

The Harvard study reports that in 2004 high-income minority communities (more than 50% minority) have about 19% of all mortgages as high-cost mortgages compared to 7% for predominantly white. They have 25% vs. 12% in moderate income communities and 28% to 18% in Low-income areas.

By the mid-90s, sub-prime instruments like ARMs had been around since the deregulation of the early 80s. They took off in the 90s. Sub-prime growth from $210 billion in 2001 to $625 billion in 2005 represented 20% of the dollar value of loans ...

BOSTON, Oct. 13, 1999 (Reuters)- "The mortgage industry intends to pursue minorities with greater intensity as federal regulators turn up the heat to increase home ownership in underserved groups.

`We need to push into these underserved markets as much as we can,' said David Glenn, president and chief operating officer of Freddie Mac. Glenn made his remarks at the annual convention of the U.S. Mortgage Banker Association of America (MBA) this week.

In September, Freddie Mac launched a new lending program, based on research done in collaboration with five black colleges, to bring more African-Americans into the market.

The call for greater efforts to broaden minority home ownership comes at a time when interest rates are pinching mortgages. A record $1.5 trillion mortgages were granted in 1998 in a refinancing boom fueled by the lowest interest rates in nearly three decades.

The federal government in the meantime has increased pressure on lenders to seek out minorities, as well as low-income groups and borrowers with poor credit histories.

Fannie Mae recently reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to commit half its business to low-and moderate-income borrowers. That means half the mortgages bought by Fannie Mae would be from those income brackets.(Based on Reuters, via Builders On-Line 10/13/99, by Richard Leong)[deadlink http://builder.hw.net/news/1999/oct/13/mort13... ]

"Sen. Phil Gramm, the new chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, last week proclaimed that the Community Reinvestment Act was resulting in banks being compelled to make `kickbacks and bribes' to [minority] activist groups-a process Mr. Gramm said `is little more than extortion.' Mr. Gramm's denunciation could open the door to the exposure of some of the worse bureaucratic abuses occurring across the land."

"The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 was supposed to prevent banks from taking deposits in one neighborhood and making loans in other neighborhoods. But since President Clinton took office, the federal government has largely ignored the law and instead relied on massive threats against banks to force them to loan more to favored groups. As former Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts observed,`The Justice Department is simply trying to establish by consent decree [also known in the Clinton administration as `Alternative Dispute Resolution', or ADR] a system of racial quotas in lending regardless of credit risks." (Washington Times, page A16, by James Bovard, 01/19/99, no link available.)

answering letter to the editor:

The Community Reinvestment Act has worked for homeowners and lenders

What James Bovard calls "shakedowns" in his outrageous attack on the Community Reinvestment Act ("Urban bank loan shakedowns targeted," Commentary, Jan. 19), is actually the flow of much needed credit to communities long denied by discrimination. The "payoff" dollars he refers to are mortgages for credit-worthy lower-income and minority first-time home buyers ... "

McCain guru linked to subprime crisis
3/28/08 / http://tinyurl.com/2ujo9b
The general co-chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign, former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), led the charge in 1999 to repeal a Depression-era banking regulation law that Democrat Barack Obama claimed on Thursday contributed significantly to today’s economic turmoil.

“A regulatory structure set up for banks in the 1930s needed to change because the nature of business had changed,” the Illinois senator running for president said in a New York economic speech.“But by the time [it] was repealed in 1999, the $300 million lobbying effort that drove deregulation was more about facilitating mergers than creating an efficient regulatory framework.”
Gramm’s role in the swift and dramatic recent restructuring of the nation’s investment houses and practices didn’t stop there.

A year after the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealed the old regulations, Swiss Bank UBS gobbled up brokerage house Paine Weber. Two years later, Gramm settled in as a vice chairman of UBS’s new investment banking arm.

Later, he became a major player in its government affairs operation. According to federal lobbying disclosure records, Gramm lobbied Congress, the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department about banking and mortgage issues in 2005 and 2006.

During those years, the mortgage industry pressed Congress to roll back strong state rules that sought to stem the rise of predatory tactics used by lenders and brokers to place homeowners in high-cost mortgages.

For his work, Gramm and two other lobbyists collected $750,000 in fees from UBS’s American subsidiary. In the past year, UBS has written down more then $18 billion in exposure to subprime loans and other risky securities and is considering cutting as many as 8,000 jobs. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/924...

Stop Oil Speculation Now
http://www.stopoilspeculationnow.com/

Stop Oil Speculation Now Press Conference
http://www.stopoilspeculationnow.com/site/pag...

TEXAS REPUBLICAN SENATOR PHIL GRAMM & ENRON MANIPULATING OIL PRICES./ Michael Greenberger, Former Director, Commodities Future Trading Commission 1997-1999.
Michael Greenberger discusses the role of unregulated oil speculators on the buying and selling of oil futures. He says legislation passed in 2000 created an environment where oil speculators influence the current day price of oil and other crude products.
5/27/2008: WASHINGTON, DC: 28 min.
http://www.c-span.org/VideoArchives.asp...

Most if not all Bush Republican supporters are not conservatives. They are Neo-Cons who are apologist for the wealthiest top 1% percentile.

They have been thoroughly bamboozled for the last 30 years of rightwing propaganda and corrupt corporate mainstream media, which they believe is liberal!

Sincerely,
Leo Strauss

WOW! You mean to tell me that the rich, wealthy and powerful actually write rules only to benefit themselves? I’m shocked!

Individualist wrote:

I just found this:
Did Clinton Administration affirmative action cause the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and put Fannie Mae
http://www.amazon.com/tag/politics/forum...
...interesting sources:
"Have you read this Harvard study?" For more information please go to: http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/mark...
Some facts in the report: According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, "Accounting for nearly two-thirds of household growth in 1995 to 2005, minorities contributed 49 percent of the 12.5 million rise in homeowners over the decade." ... "Without the sudden expansion of sub-prime lending, most of these homeowners would have been denied access to credit."
Sub-prime growth from $210 billion in 2001 to $625 billion in 2005 represented 20% of the dollar value of loans and 7% of originations of outstanding mortgages.[$35 billion in 1994,$125 billion in 1997]
The Harvard study reports that in 2004 high-income minority communities (more than 50% minority) have about 19% of all mortgages as high-cost mortgages compared to 7% for predominantly white. They have 25% vs. 12% in moderate income communities and 28% to 18% in Low-income areas.
By the mid-90s, sub-prime instruments like ARMs had been around since the deregulation of the early 80s. They took off in the 90s. Sub-prime growth from $210 billion in 2001 to $625 billion in 2005 represented 20% of the dollar value of loans ...

Harvard Sucks!

Pdamerica org wrote:

Stop Oil Speculation Now
http://www.stopoilspeculationnow.com/
Stop Oil Speculation Now Press Conference
http://www.stopoilspeculationnow.com/site/pag...
TEXAS REPUBLICAN SENATOR PHIL GRAMM & ENRON MANIPULATING OIL PRICES./ Michael Greenberger, Former Director, Commodities Future Trading Commission 1997-1999.
Michael Greenberger discusses the role of unregulated oil speculators on the buying and selling of oil futures. He says legislation passed in 2000 created an environment where oil speculators influence the current day price of oil and other crude products.
5/27/2008: WASHINGTON, DC: 28 min.
http://www.c-span.org/VideoArchives.asp...
Most if not all Bush Republican supporters are not conservatives. They are Neo-Cons who are apologist for the wealthiest top 1% percentile.
They have been thoroughly bamboozled for the last 30 years of rightwing propaganda and corrupt corporate mainstream media, which they believe is liberal!
Sincerely,
Leo Strauss

If I may interrupt with something trite?

Mr. Bill often goes surfing out near your ISP, at Moses 5.

Am looking for nice after-beach restaurants near the causeway.

Often go to Pier 44, Parkwood Cafe; need nice suggestions,
Thanks.

Thoreauing wrote:

WOW! You mean to tell me that the rich, wealthy and powerful actually write rules only to benefit themselves? I’m shocked!

BONK! BWHAHAHAHAHAAA

Actually the most world corruputed ruling elites... give us more headache than good!

America is on path of Corporatism and Fascism onces again!

Mr_Bill wrote:

<quoted text>
If I may interrupt with something trite?
Mr. Bill often goes surfing out near your ISP, at Moses 5.
Am looking for nice after-beach restaurants near the causeway.
Often go to Pier 44, Parkwood Cafe; need nice suggestions,
Thanks.

Mr. Bill my friend,

I used to have over 50 ISP locations on topix.

I'm sure many on topix remembers that. "Holysmokes" comes to mind.

I haven't been to Moses for many many years.

Thoreauing wrote:

<quoted text>
Harvard Sucks!

Why? Because they state the truth that you don't want known.

Pdamerica org wrote:

<quoted text>
Mr. Bill my friend,
I used to have over 50 ISP locations on topix.
I'm sure many on topix remembers that. "Holysmokes" comes to mind.
I haven't been to Moses for many many years.

That's okay, Mr Bill's probably never been surfing either.

Individualist wrote:

<quoted text>
That's okay, Mr Bill's probably never been surfing either.

Good One! LOL

MORE proof the housing & subprime problem originated with Bill Clinton:

Sept. 29, 2004 (CBS.MW)-- Franklin Raines, the powerful and politically connected chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae, faces long odds in surviving the worst controversy he's been confronted with in his years as a Washington power broker.
As federal regulators deepen their probes into the mortgage giant's accounting practices, Raines is at the center of a serious crisis from which he may not be able to emerge unscathed, Washington analysts and lawmakers say.

Raines, who has headed Fannie Mae since January 1999, is a formidable presence in Washington, having run President Bill Clinton's Office of Management and Budget from 1996 to 1998 during which time he was key in engineering the bipartisan Balanced Budget Act of 1997.

Lawmakers are scheduling hearings to look at the Fannie Mae situation, and even some long-time supporters of the agency, such as Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who has supported Fannie's housing mission, said that Raines's future could be on the line.

"You're the boss and sometimes you have to deal with it," Frank said in an interview Tuesday. Frank quickly added he did not know specifically whether Raines himself is to blame for any of the company's accounting woes. But he said about the alleged bonus-taking: "They [executives] should not have done this."

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.a...

----------

If this were a Republican appointee, you Liberal hypocrites would be demanding his head - and blaming GWB.

And EVEN MORE...

Will Fannie Mae's troubles ease? Will Franklin Raines's get worse?

Monday, January 2, 2006

The priority for 2006 at mortgage finance company Fannie Mae is getting its books in order. An army of employees is busy completing its estimated $10.8 billion accounting restatement. Leading the effort will be Robert T. Blakely, who is credited with cleaning up the books at MCI Inc., formerly WorldCom Inc., and restating $11 billion in previously reported earnings.

As Fannie Mae tackles that job, it will have to relive some of the dark days of 2004. A report on the company's management and accounting practices, commissioned by the board of directors, is expected this month, followed by a report from the company's chief regulator, the Office of Housing Enterprise Oversight. The reports could provide ammunition to Fannie Mae's critics on Capitol Hill, such as Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), who hopes to bring to a vote his bill to strengthen regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

After keeping a low profile during 2005, former Fannie Mae chief executive Franklin D. Raines could also be back in the spotlight in 2006. The two reports on Fannie Mae are likely to explain in more detail the role he played in the accounting scandals. Next year, a federal judge in Washington is expected to decide whether a shareholder lawsuit against Raines and Fannie Mae can go forward, unless the parties settle out of court first.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/...

Pdamerica org wrote:

Fred Dalton Thompson : enabled S & L crisis of '80s
Please spread the word....this is not the type of man we want as President.
In 1975, Thompson began his eighteen year engagement as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., eventually representing clients including Westinghouse, General Electric (the current corporate owner of the NBC Universal-NBC television network), Westinghouse used to own CBS TV and the Tennessee Savings and Loan League
By 1982, Thompson worked the U.S. Congress membership as a lobbyist for passage of the Savings and Loan deregulation legislation desired by the Tennessee Savings and Loan League --- in this case, federal deregulation legislation allowing for additional government support of ailing S&Ls; giving U.S. thrifts the freedom to invest in potentially more profitable, but riskier, ventures; and eliminating interest-rate ceilings on new accounts to increase S&Ls' competitiveness.
Enacted into law during in September 1982, the Senate bill pushed by Thompson was incorporated into the Garn - St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982.
The Garn - St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 is widely credited with having laid the groundwork for the U.S. Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s
The savings and loans crashes of the 1980s, themselves directly the result of Reagan’s deregulation of the banking industry, is more interesting because of how it reflects the rapacious nature of unbridled capitalism than of Neil Bush himself. Who by the way, is now embroiled in another scam with his latest venture, educational software, Ignite
(turnover $20 million, much of it from educational subsidies obtained in the state of Florida ,where,‘coincidentally’ of course, his bro Jeb, was governor).

Back to the 1880s
This is not the first time that America has looked as if it was about to succumb to what might be termed the British temptation. America witnessed a similar widening of the income gap in the Gilded Age. It also witnessed the formation of a British-style ruling class. The robber barons of the late 19th century sent their children to private boarding schools and made sure that they married the daughters of the old elite, preferably from across the Atlantic. Politics fell into the hands of the members of a limited circle—so much so that the Senate was known as the millionaires' club.
Yet the late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a concerted attempt to prevent America from degenerating into a class-based society. Progressive politicians improved state education. Philanthropists—many of them the robber barons reborn in new guise—tried to provide ladders to help the lads-o'-parts (Andrew Carnegie poured millions into free libraries). Such reforms were motivated partly out of a desire to do good works and partly out of a real fear of the implications of class-based society. Teddy Roosevelt advocated an inheritance tax because he thought that huge inherited fortunes would ruin the character of the republic. James Conant, the president of Harvard in 1933-53, advocated radical educational reform—particularly the transformation of his own university into a meritocracy—in order to prevent America from producing an aristocracy.

America’s infatuation with royalty continues even after it revolted against the crown in 1776. It wasn’t the glitz of the monarchy that dissuaded the colonies from being aristocratic as much as England’s heavy hand of taxation that squeezed the micromanaging out of them to the point of revolution. Distant from the King George but only by geographical separation, America romanced itself with the notion of creating its own class-based society funded by American capitalist who would further their own personal interest be endowing those academic institutions they predetermined as being worthy, hence, The Ivy League schools that were originally chartered by the King of England were funded as pedigree institutions of higher learning.

America’s king and queen are morphed into becoming our president and 1st Lady. This analogy is the assumptive condition that prevents the broader voting community from accepting a woman as president and/or a black as their sovereign even if you come to being a potential king or queen having been graduated from the Ivy League- America’s royal blue blood academic aristocracy. The chance of having the wider general population accept this distortion of royal roles is too perverse for it to become a reality.

Realizing their position, America’s aristocracy downplays the division of wealth by theme of "Noblesse oblige" an implied responsibility for those having less than. So the outcome of the wealthy is predictable, they write and enforce the rules that empower themselves. Whether you like it or not it’s not an option. It’s reality.

Bush Republicans are antidemocratic with an attraction to authoritarianism.

Liberals are always trying to enfranchise citizens and Bush Republicans always try to block some citizens from voting.( BLACKS )!

Liberals defend the Constitution and long standing institutions like Social Security and Medicare.

Bush Republicans want the USA to go back to the Gilded Age and privatize Social Security and undo “The New Deal”!

Kimbefly wrote:

The difference between Democrats and Republicans:
Democrats want to take money from rich people and give it to poor people. Republicans want to take money from poor people and give it to rich people.

Nope...Conservative policies generally emphasize empowerment of the individual to solve problems.
Support lower taxes and a smaller government. Lower taxes create more incentive for people to work, save, invest, and engage in entrepreneurial endeavors. Money is best spent by those who earn it. We need to provide opportunities to make it possible for poor and low-income workers to become self-reliant. It is far more compassionate and effective to encourage a person to become self-reliant, rather than keeping them dependent on the government for money.
Liberal policies generally emphasize the need for the government to solve people's problems.
High taxes enable the government to do good and create jobs. We need high taxes for social welfare programs, to provide for the poor. We can't afford to cut taxes.
We need welfare to provide for the poor. Conservatives oppose welfare because they are not compassionate toward the poor. We have welfare to bring fairness to American economic life. Without welfare, life below the poverty line would be intolerable.

OLD LADY wrote:

<quoted text>
Nope...Conservative policies generally emphasize empowerment of the individual to solve problems.
Support lower taxes and a smaller government. Lower taxes create more incentive for people to work, save, invest, and engage in entrepreneurial endeavors. Money is best spent by those who earn it. We need to provide opportunities to make it possible for poor and low-income workers to become self-reliant. It is far more compassionate and effective to encourage a person to become self-reliant, rather than keeping them dependent on the government for money.
Liberal policies generally emphasize the need for the government to solve people's problems.
High taxes enable the government to do good and create jobs. We need high taxes for social welfare programs, to provide for the poor. We can't afford to cut taxes.
We need welfare to provide for the poor. Conservatives oppose welfare because they are not compassionate toward the poor. We have welfare to bring fairness to American economic life. Without welfare, life below the poverty line would be intolerable.

While I agree with your post, I want to point out that Republicans - which is what "Kimberly" said - and Conservatives - which what you said - are not synonymous.

I used to use the words interchangibly, but have come to the conclusion we Libertarians & Conservatives do ourselves a GREAT disservice by doing so.

The reason I say this is: There are a LOT of Liberal Republicans - and Liberalism is the enemy.

If Conservatives would emphasize ideology, instead of party, I believe we would find it easier to define, clarify & defend our beliefs.