Meas, Golnik criticize finance-reform vote

Sam Meas and Jon Golnik are absolutely correct with respect to how this bill represents an ever expanding federal government and control over private enterprise. It is another example of Barny Frank socialism. For those who thought Scott Brown would bring a refreshing change to Massachusetts politics, be aware that he voted for this bill.

Vote em all out. Every single one.

I agree with Sam Meas that the legislation did not go far enough by not providing clear authority to break up "too big to fail" financial institutions. However, not voting for a bill because it does not do everything you want is the wrong approach, when the bill you get is at least a step in the right direction. Nothing says a problem has to be solved with a single piece of legislation. You can alays take what you can get, then come back with other legislation later, once you have built support for it.

Amused wrote:

I agree with Sam Meas that the legislation did not go far enough by not providing clear authority to break up "too big to fail" financial institutions. However, not voting for a bill because it does not do everything you want is the wrong approach, when the bill you get is at least a step in the right direction. Nothing says a problem has to be solved with a single piece of legislation. You can alays take what you can get, then come back with other legislation later, once you have built support for it.

If you can't solve a problem with a bill that is over 2400 pages long, then perhaps it is time to recognize that Congress is totally inept and needs to be replaced.

True. If the bill is so great, then why did Barney Frank need to sponsor another bill to "correct" issues with the first one ?

These elite insdiers in D.C. don;t know what they are doing. Our founders created a very simple country with a set of very explicit common sense rules. The entreanched politicians will do whatever they want if we don't vote them out.

Meas is right-without reforming Fannie and Freddie-who is responsible for starting the mess, why have a bill at all ??

Mike B wrote:

True. If the bill is so great, then why did Barney Frank need to sponsor another bill to "correct" issues with the first one ?
These elite insdiers in D.C. don;t know what they are doing. Our founders created a very simple country with a set of very explicit common sense rules. The entreanched politicians will do whatever they want if we don't vote them out.
Meas is right-without reforming Fannie and Freddie-who is responsible for starting the mess, why have a bill at all ??

No, Fannie and Freddie were latecomers. They did not get in on this until after Goldman Sachs had figured out that the derivatives they were creating were a bad investment and started shorting (i.e. betting against their own products) them.

Well, who was giving out all the bad ( high risk) loans at the direction of the Community Re-investment Act ? There were 19 Senators lead by McCain who warned of their potential problems years ago. They need to be disolved.

What is their current debt now ?? We are still bailing them out to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

All one needs to know is that the bill is over 2,000 pages long (meaning that few, if any, legislators have read it) and that it was drafted by public sector "lifers" Barney ("Never Met A Regulation I Didn't Really Like") Frank and Chris (I'm Outta Here") Dodd.

Mike B wrote:

Well, who was giving out all the bad ( high risk) loans at the direction of the Community Re-investment Act ? There were 19 Senators lead by McCain who warned of their potential problems years ago. They need to be disolved.
What is their current debt now ?? We are still bailing them out to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

CRA had nothing to do with it. The housing bubble started when banks and mortgage companies started selling mortgage loans to syndicators like Goldman Sachs. The syndicators turned the loans into "mortgage backed securities", a financial instrument kind of like bonds that were backed by the mortgage debts. Since the risk of the loss shifted to the investors who bought the mortgage backed securities, the banks had no incentive to hold on to lending standards. The more mortgages they wrote, the greater the profit, with no risk. As the pool of people who qualified for mortgages needed to grow to keep prices rising, banks lowered their lending standards and created all kinds of "exotic" mortgage "products" like no-document loans where the borrower did not have to provide proof of their income, which quickly became known as "liar loans", option ARMS, where the borrower could decide how much to pay each month, even if it was less than the amount of interest owed, with the rest added to the amount owed. Lots of people got deeper in debt with option ARMs, and now owe far more than their home is worth. Not to say FANNIE and FREDDIE didn't act irresponsibly when the private market for these loans dried up, but there was considerable pressure on them to keep the loans flowing, as that was all that held up the house of cards.