This is a little late but I want to show just where John stood before anyone thought to do something that even looked like leadership in this time of stress.
Keep the faith
John McCain's Remarks on the Economic Crisis
New York, NY Wednesday, September 24, 2008
America this week faces an historic crisis in our financial system. We must pass legislation to address this crisis. If we do not, credit will dry up, with devastating consequences for our economy. People will no longer be able to buy homes and their life savings will be at stake. Businesses will not have enough money to pay their employees.
If we do not act, ever corner of our country will be impacted. We cannot allow this to happen. Last Friday, I laid out my proposal and I have since discussed my priorities and concerns with the bill the Administration has put forward. Senator Obama has expressed his priorities and concerns.
This morning, I met with a group of economic advisers to talk about the proposal on the table and the steps that we should take going forward. I have also spoken with members of Congress to hear their perspective. It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the Administration's proposal. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time.
Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington after speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative. I have spoken to Senator Obama and informed him of my decision and have asked him to join me. I am calling on the President to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself.
It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem. We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved. I am directing my campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the commission on presidential debates to delay Friday night's debate until we have taken action to address this crisis. I am confident that before the markets open on Monday we can achieve consensus on legislation that will stabilize our financial markets, protect taxpayers and homeowners, and earn the confidence of the American people.
All we must do to achieve this is temporarily set politics aside, and I am committed to doing so. Following September 11th, our national leaders came together at a time of crisis. We must show that kind of patriotism now. Americans across our country lament the fact that partisan divisions in Washington have prevented us from addressing our national challenges. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Coming Entitlements Disaster Far Worse Than Financial Meltdown
The coming total disaster that is the entitlement programs will be our undoing - consider this - they are more than equal to this bail out but happen every year for ever.
Will our 'do nothing' government fix this? Sure, but only if there is millions to be made for some in congress. Greed is the lever for representitives.
Heritage Foundation is trying to foucus our legistaltors to the coming catistrophic disaster.
Keep the faith -
Think $700 billion is a lot?
On Monday, the House of Representatives voted to block the $700 billion package to bail out the struggling financial sector. The Senate is expected to consider similar legislation Wednesday.
But even this staggering cost—and the $140 billion already spent to bail out AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—pales in comparison to the massive bill taxpayers will face for runaway spending on entitlement programs.
A new Heritage Foundation graphic sent to news media demonstrates that this $840 billion is just a drop in the bucket compared to the long-term liabilities from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
"Together, these programs hold unfunded obligations totaling $41 trillion - 60 times larger than the proposed Wall Street bailout," Heritage's Brian Riedl writes in the San Francisco Chronicle.
This is a real crisis we face, Riedl explains. "Imagine a taxpayer bailout even larger than what's proposed for Wall Street. Now imagine it recurring every year in perpetuity. That's our fiscal future unless we fundamentally reform these unsustainable entitlement programs."
Will our 'do nothing' government fix this? Sure, but only if there is millions to be made for some in congress. Greed is the lever for representitives.
Heritage Foundation is trying to foucus our legistaltors to the coming catistrophic disaster.
Keep the faith -
Think $700 billion is a lot?
On Monday, the House of Representatives voted to block the $700 billion package to bail out the struggling financial sector. The Senate is expected to consider similar legislation Wednesday.
But even this staggering cost—and the $140 billion already spent to bail out AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—pales in comparison to the massive bill taxpayers will face for runaway spending on entitlement programs.
A new Heritage Foundation graphic sent to news media demonstrates that this $840 billion is just a drop in the bucket compared to the long-term liabilities from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
"Together, these programs hold unfunded obligations totaling $41 trillion - 60 times larger than the proposed Wall Street bailout," Heritage's Brian Riedl writes in the San Francisco Chronicle.
This is a real crisis we face, Riedl explains. "Imagine a taxpayer bailout even larger than what's proposed for Wall Street. Now imagine it recurring every year in perpetuity. That's our fiscal future unless we fundamentally reform these unsustainable entitlement programs."
Monday, October 06, 2008
Congress IS Responsible for Financial Meltdown
It seems almost impossible to find out just who is responsibility for the mess that is the congress of our great country if you rely on the main stream media. Well ,maybe not so impossible when you listen to the loudest voices and the furious finger pointing that goes on on the floor of the house of representatives and the senate. It looks like they are all liberal Democrats. Who knew?
I wonder who is shouting the loudest? Maybe it's the ones that are the most responsible for lack of any coherent leadership or those that are doing their level best to cover their personal tracks directly related to the meltdown. I wonder who actually headed up Fannie and Freddie for six years and made 100 million in salary and bonuses?
I believe it's time to vote these people out of office this November and then at the midterm elections. When the Democrats took office in 2006 they said they will fix everything - hmmm - they have, in reality, made things worst by accomplishing nothing over the last two years except blocking the oversight efforts of John McCain, and others, to bring Fannie and Freddie in line.
The results of the straight line vote by the Democrats to block any fix of these two monsters in the past three years should be most revealing given the current financial disaster. Vote these people out.
Keep the faith. We can do this.
545 PEOPLE ****
By Charlie Reese *
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflationAnd high taxes,
WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall . No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.
Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to. It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility.
I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.
If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ.
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,' 'inflation,' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power. They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess! * *
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando SentinelNewspaper
I wonder who is shouting the loudest? Maybe it's the ones that are the most responsible for lack of any coherent leadership or those that are doing their level best to cover their personal tracks directly related to the meltdown. I wonder who actually headed up Fannie and Freddie for six years and made 100 million in salary and bonuses?
I believe it's time to vote these people out of office this November and then at the midterm elections. When the Democrats took office in 2006 they said they will fix everything - hmmm - they have, in reality, made things worst by accomplishing nothing over the last two years except blocking the oversight efforts of John McCain, and others, to bring Fannie and Freddie in line.
The results of the straight line vote by the Democrats to block any fix of these two monsters in the past three years should be most revealing given the current financial disaster. Vote these people out.
Keep the faith. We can do this.
545 PEOPLE ****
By Charlie Reese *
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflationAnd high taxes,
WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall . No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.
Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to. It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility.
I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.
If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ.
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,' 'inflation,' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power. They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess! * *
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando SentinelNewspaper
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Marxist Liberals Hate God, Believers : Common People
The Democrats, and the liberal press, have demonstrated in recent weeks just how far left they are and that any sense of being non-partisan is gone. Then to is the notion that the pundits in the press are journalists - that is just a laugh - a fantasy - journalism died decades ago when the press joined the liberal Democrats, now known as The National Socialist Progressive Party, NSPP, in their quest to destroy the American way of life. The Democrat Party of past decades is gone, dissolved, over run by the far left.
The attacks on Sara Palin and her family's way of life is in step with the agenda of destruction, or recreation of America. That is, we all must be alike and do things that are in step with the people that know what's best for all man kind. The Marxist socialist Democrats. Belief in God, or any power that isn't based on the agenda of the liberal left, can't be tolerated in the reconstruction efforts of the NSPP.
Ralph Peters, as usual, goes right to the heart of the problem.
Keep the faith and your religion - it's the foundation of America.
WHY OUR ELITES FEAR FAITH
By RALPH PETERS
September 11, 2008
NOTHING in recent memory has driven home the divide between our self-appointed aristocracy and "commoners" as sharply as the intelligentsia's rush to mock Gov. Sarah Palin's religious faith.While the attacks and insults are backfiring on the mortified elites, the double standard applied to "Sarah America" is a disgrace that can't be excused as "just politics.
"Certainly, much of the left-wing fury over Palin stems from the Democratic Party's assumption that it "owned" the exclusive right to nominate women to the executive branch (despite the crushing of Hillary Clinton's candidacy). How dare the /Republicans/ advance a woman? How dare they change this year's election script?
But the root of the left's dread of this happily married mother of five seems to be that she actually believes in God: How could anyone be that stupid? Such a woman wouldn't fit in Washington (nor would a man of equal faith).
In the DC area (where I live), plenty of government-affiliated men and women regularly attend a church or synagogue. But their appearances are perfunctory and well-mannered. /Passionate/ faith is regarded as an embarrassment. Washington /fears/ faith - even nominal believers inside the Beltway have been shaped by secular educations and secular caste values. Humans fear what they can't understand, and our comfortable ruling class just can't comprehend the power and the glory, the beauty and the ecstasy, the awe and commitment experienced by those who /believe/ in a divine power.
To paraphrase the late Leona Helmsley, "Faith is for the little people."
Believers are mocked (if not too publicly at election time). Sen. Barack Obama's behind-closed-doors remark in San Francisco to the effect that worried blue-collar chumps cling to God and guns perfectly captured the left's worldview, equating faith and firearms as equal menaces to an enlightened society.
Then along came Palin to appall the establishment - a moose-hunting Christian with a working-class husband, the precise stereotype Obama had mocked. The media's attacks on her since her nomination have been the most unfair I've ever seen. Let me be clear: I disagree with Palin on a number of issues. But I believe in fairness. And I believe in freedom of religion for all who do not attempt to force their faith on others. One of the many glories of our country is that men and women are free to find their individual paths to God - or to disbelieve, should they so choose.
But I can't accept the snotty condescension of those who assume that faith is for dopes. I come from a world where belief is powerful - small-town, hardscrabble America. I have relatives whose faith is embedded in exuberant communal worship and public celebrations of redemption and joy. Washington, the professorate and the media not only don't understand such believers, they despise them.
Earlier this week, I watched, sickened, as CNN did its best to excite fear of Palin's religious beliefs. She grew up in a Pentecostal congregation - whose members, a smug reporter told us, often talk in tongues. Though the report noted that there's no "proof" that Palin herself had done so, the implication was that Sarah Barracuda /must/ be a nut job.Then CNN told us about an Alaskan pastor's remark that his state might become a refuge in the "end times." The implication was that Palin must share that belief, too. The coverage just piled on, unjust, unfair and un-American. The unspoken bottom line was that active religious faith disqualifies a candidate.
Well, for all the joyous noise at those Alaskan churches, I'll bet my life that none of the pastors who preached to Palin over the years ever shouted "God damn America!" or blamed the United States for the world's ills, or accused our government of creating AIDS to kill black Americans. None of the bigoted, hate-filled rants of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright have been replayed to counterbalance the mockery heaped upon Palin's religious background.
Of course, Wright's anti-American tirades fit the worldview of the Dems' left-wing base - so Obama got a pass when he claimed that, over 20 years, /he/ never heard any hate speech in Wright's church.Besides, Dems believe that blacks are /supposed/ to jump around and shout in church - but whites who do that are wackos. (No stereotypes there, folks!) I /don't/ see extremism in Palin's faith. I see the love of God that prevails beyond the Beltway.
The media's bigotry toward her tells us far more about the political biases and snobbery of journalists than it does about Sen. John McCain's running mate. In recent years, a succession of pundits has compared our country to ancient Rome. Most of the assertions are silly. But our governing elite certainly shares the Roman patricians' disdain for the faith of the common citizen.
Ralph Peters' latest book is "Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World."/Home http://www.nypost.com/--NEW YORK POST is a registered trademark of NYP Holdings, Inc. NYPOST.COM, NYPOSTONLINE.COM, and NEWYORKPOST.COMare trademarks of NYP Holdings, Inc.
The attacks on Sara Palin and her family's way of life is in step with the agenda of destruction, or recreation of America. That is, we all must be alike and do things that are in step with the people that know what's best for all man kind. The Marxist socialist Democrats. Belief in God, or any power that isn't based on the agenda of the liberal left, can't be tolerated in the reconstruction efforts of the NSPP.
Ralph Peters, as usual, goes right to the heart of the problem.
Keep the faith and your religion - it's the foundation of America.
WHY OUR ELITES FEAR FAITH
By RALPH PETERS
September 11, 2008
NOTHING in recent memory has driven home the divide between our self-appointed aristocracy and "commoners" as sharply as the intelligentsia's rush to mock Gov. Sarah Palin's religious faith.While the attacks and insults are backfiring on the mortified elites, the double standard applied to "Sarah America" is a disgrace that can't be excused as "just politics.
"Certainly, much of the left-wing fury over Palin stems from the Democratic Party's assumption that it "owned" the exclusive right to nominate women to the executive branch (despite the crushing of Hillary Clinton's candidacy). How dare the /Republicans/ advance a woman? How dare they change this year's election script?
But the root of the left's dread of this happily married mother of five seems to be that she actually believes in God: How could anyone be that stupid? Such a woman wouldn't fit in Washington (nor would a man of equal faith).
In the DC area (where I live), plenty of government-affiliated men and women regularly attend a church or synagogue. But their appearances are perfunctory and well-mannered. /Passionate/ faith is regarded as an embarrassment. Washington /fears/ faith - even nominal believers inside the Beltway have been shaped by secular educations and secular caste values. Humans fear what they can't understand, and our comfortable ruling class just can't comprehend the power and the glory, the beauty and the ecstasy, the awe and commitment experienced by those who /believe/ in a divine power.
To paraphrase the late Leona Helmsley, "Faith is for the little people."
Believers are mocked (if not too publicly at election time). Sen. Barack Obama
Then along came Palin to appall the establishment - a moose-hunting Christian with a working-class husband, the precise stereotype Obama had mocked. The media's attacks on her since her nomination have been the most unfair I've ever seen. Let me be clear: I disagree with Palin on a number of issues. But I believe in fairness. And I believe in freedom of religion for all who do not attempt to force their faith on others. One of the many glories of our country is that men and women are free to find their individual paths to God - or to disbelieve, should they so choose.
But I can't accept the snotty condescension of those who assume that faith is for dopes. I come from a world where belief is powerful - small-town, hardscrabble America. I have relatives whose faith is embedded in exuberant communal worship and public celebrations of redemption and joy. Washington, the professorate and the media not only don't understand such believers, they despise them.
Earlier this week, I watched, sickened, as CNN did its best to excite fear of Palin's religious beliefs. She grew up in a Pentecostal congregation - whose members, a smug reporter told us, often talk in tongues. Though the report noted that there's no "proof" that Palin herself had done so, the implication was that Sarah Barracuda /must/ be a nut job.Then CNN told us about an Alaskan pastor's remark that his state might become a refuge in the "end times." The implication was that Palin must share that belief, too. The coverage just piled on, unjust, unfair and un-American. The unspoken bottom line was that active religious faith disqualifies a candidate.
Well, for all the joyous noise at those Alaskan churches, I'll bet my life that none of the pastors who preached to Palin over the years ever shouted "God damn America!" or blamed the United States for the world's ills, or accused our government of creating AIDS to kill black Americans. None of the bigoted, hate-filled rants of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright have been replayed to counterbalance the mockery heaped upon Palin's religious background.
Of course, Wright's anti-American tirades fit the worldview of the Dems' left-wing base - so Obama got a pass when he claimed that, over 20 years, /he/ never heard any hate speech in Wright's church.Besides, Dems believe that blacks are /supposed/ to jump around and shout in church - but whites who do that are wackos. (No stereotypes there, folks!) I /don't/ see extremism in Palin's faith. I see the love of God that prevails beyond the Beltway.
The media's bigotry toward her tells us far more about the political biases and snobbery of journalists than it does about Sen. John McCain's running mate. In recent years, a succession of pundits has compared our country to ancient Rome. Most of the assertions are silly. But our governing elite certainly shares the Roman patricians' disdain for the faith of the common citizen.
Ralph Peters' latest book is "Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World."/Home http://www.nypost.com/--NEW YORK POST is a registered trademark of NYP Holdings, Inc. NYPOST.COM, NYPOSTONLINE.COM, and NEWYORKPOST.COMare trademarks of NYP Holdings, Inc.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
More Evidence Democrats Cause Financial Meltdown : New York Times 1999
It seems one can't turn a page of any media outlet without getting the spin from the liberal left that the Republicans are responsible for the financial mess we are in today. Of course, this is the way the liberal Democrats operate, condemn others for the misdeeds of your own making.
The liberal knows if the they howler loud enough and long enough, the general public will believe what they are screaming about. The theory here is 'tell a lie long enough and it will become fact'. Actually it isn't a theory - it works.
The main stream media, being the puppet for the Democrats, is very good at this as they have done it for the last sixty years. It isn't hard to understand when virtually all media, television, newspapers and magazines, that is nearly all magazines, even auto and food type publications, they sneak in little jabs that are mostly over looked, we are so use to seeing them everywhere, endorse the liberal agenda of socialist big government as being the answer to of our problems.
This article from 1999 in the New York Times is just one more nail the casket of the liberal screed of Republican culpability in this mess. The liberals know the Republicans had nothing to do with this, so they have to deflect the attention from themselves by publicly denouncing the Republicans for this mess. Witness, again, that towering intellect of Nancy Pelosi on the floor of congress.
A bold faced lie but who cares. It always works on the true believers and a large percentage of the general public that is too lazy, and maybe too stupid, to figure out that what the liberal Democrats are saying doesn't make sense.
I sincerely hope now that that we have good sources of information from the alternative media the tide will change in favor of common sense. But the passage of the 'bailout bill' is not helping our cause.
Keep the faith, I think we are gaining ground in the battle for sanity.
Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: September 30, 1999
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.
''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''
Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.
''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''
Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.
Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.
Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent. In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.
Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.
In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.
The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.
The liberal knows if the they howler loud enough and long enough, the general public will believe what they are screaming about. The theory here is 'tell a lie long enough and it will become fact'. Actually it isn't a theory - it works.
The main stream media, being the puppet for the Democrats, is very good at this as they have done it for the last sixty years. It isn't hard to understand when virtually all media, television, newspapers and magazines, that is nearly all magazines, even auto and food type publications, they sneak in little jabs that are mostly over looked, we are so use to seeing them everywhere, endorse the liberal agenda of socialist big government as being the answer to of our problems.
This article from 1999 in the New York Times is just one more nail the casket of the liberal screed of Republican culpability in this mess. The liberals know the Republicans had nothing to do with this, so they have to deflect the attention from themselves by publicly denouncing the Republicans for this mess. Witness, again, that towering intellect of Nancy Pelosi on the floor of congress.
A bold faced lie but who cares. It always works on the true believers and a large percentage of the general public that is too lazy, and maybe too stupid, to figure out that what the liberal Democrats are saying doesn't make sense.
I sincerely hope now that that we have good sources of information from the alternative media the tide will change in favor of common sense. But the passage of the 'bailout bill' is not helping our cause.
Keep the faith, I think we are gaining ground in the battle for sanity.
Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: September 30, 1999
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.
''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''
Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.
''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''
Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.
Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.
Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent. In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.
Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.
In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.
The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Resume of A Government Criminal : Jamie Gorelick
This article highlights the fine points of Jamie Gorelicks experience during the Clinton years, she was appointed by Clinton, and into the Bush years until 2003.
She is instrumental in creating the economic disaster that we have now in the financial markets and is as responsible as Clinton for the lead up to the 9/11 attack on America. She along with Franklin Raines and Barny Frank drew down hundreds of millions in bonuses and salary while indulging in criminal activity at Fannie and Freddy by misrepresenting accounting figures. She, and others, did this strictly for financial gain. They were stealing the taxpayers blind.
Jamie Gorelick and her friends are still in the government and have suffered no repercussions from their personal illegal involvement in Fannie and Freddy. Why are they getting away with not having to take responsibility for this incredible disaster you ask?
Easy, they are all Democrats. The Democrats are the party in power in both houses of the government and they protect their own no matter what the circumstances. Worse, these same criminals are now in charge of fixing their own catastrophic misdeeds. They must be giddy with delight as they stand to make millions more from the taxpayers.
Keep the faith, we can do this!
Mistress of Disaster: Jamie Gorelick
September 19, 2008*By* *C. Edmund Wright* http://www.americanthinker.com/c_edmund_wright/
Ken Lay and Jack Abramoff must be green with envy over the all the mischief that has been accomplished by Jamie Gorelick, with scarcely any demonization in the press. Imagine playing a central role in the biggest national defense disaster in 50 years. Imagine playing a central role in one of the biggest economic disasters in your country's history. Imagine doing both as an un-elected official. Imagine getting filthy rich in the process, and even being allowed to sit self-righteously on a commission appointed to get to the bottom of the first disaster, which of course did not get to the bottom of that disaster or anything else for that matter. criminal
Imagine ending, ruining or at least causing signficant quality deterioration in the lives of millions of people, most of whom will never know your name. Imagine counting your millions of dollars while people who tried to stop you from causing all this mayhem were getting blamed for most of the ills you actually contributed to.
Well, as un-imagineable as this is, there is one American who /doesn't have to imagine/ it. One Jamie Gorelick is this American. And without pretending that she caused the loss of countless thousands of lives and countless billions of dollars of wealth by herself, she certainly did push some of the early domino's in catastrophic chain events that are a major factors in life in America today.This is not a bad millineums's work, when you think about it.
Gorelick, an appointee of Bill Clinton, is the one who constructed the wall of separationthat kept the CIA and the FBI from comparing notes and therefore invading the privacy of nice young men like, say, Muhammed Atta and Zacarius Moussaoui. While countless problems were uncovered in our intelligence operations in the wake of 9-11, no single factor comes close to in importance to Jamie Gorelick's wall. In fact, it was Gorelick's wall, perhaps more than any other single factor, that induces some people to blame Clinton himself for 9-11 since he appointed her and she acted consistent with his philosophy of "crime fighting."
She put the wall into place as Deputy Attorney General in 1995.And for good measure, she was appointed by Tom Daschle to serve on the "non partisan" 9-11 Commission. And we thought the fox in the henhouse was simply a metaphor. Of course, in a splendid example of "reaching across the aisle," feckless Republican Slade Gorton of Washington did all he could to exonerate Gorelick in the commission. Thanks, Slade.
God forbid the nation actually knows the truth. But for Ms. Gorelick, one earth shaking catastrophe is just not enough. You might think that she caused enough carnage to us infidels on 9-11 as to qualify her for the 72 virgins upon her death. (this would also keep her consistent with several of Clinton's philosophies). Alas, that's only part of her resume. Her fingerprints are all over the Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac mess, which is to say the mess that is central in the entire mortgage-housing crisis. Without so much as one scintilla of real estate or finance experience, she was appointed as Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae in 1997 and served in that role through 2003, which is when most of the systemic cancers that came home to roost today happened.
She was instrumental in covering up problems with Fannie Mae while employed there and took multiple millions in bonuses as she helped construct this house of cards. From Wikipedia: One example of falsified financial transactions that helped the company meet earnings targets for 1998, a "manipulation" that triggered multimillion-dollar bonuses for top executives. On March 25, 2002, Business Week Gorelick is quoted as saying, "We believe we are managed safely. Fannie Mae is among the handful of top-quality institutions." One year later, Government Regulators "accused Fannie Mae of improper accounting to the tune of $9 billion in unrecorded losses"
As we know, the financial damage done by the housing related problems in this country are still incalculable. Ms. Gorelick's evil tab is still growing. But it doesn't stop there. She managed to be on the wrong side of the Duke LaCrosse case, working for Duke University to protect that school from it's damaging knee jerk reactions to the spectacularly unbelievable charges filed by a stripper. (excuse me, exotic dancer). So, even on a smaller scale, she continues to make money while working to ruin the lives of innocent Americans in defense of liberal dogma.
From what can be gleaned, it all comes from being well connected. She was educated (is that what they call it?) at Harvard undergrad and Harvard Law. From there, she kept getting appointed to positions above her experience level where she could flex her liberal muscles, add a resume item, and move upward.
Sound familiar?
She is instrumental in creating the economic disaster that we have now in the financial markets and is as responsible as Clinton for the lead up to the 9/11 attack on America. She along with Franklin Raines and Barny Frank drew down hundreds of millions in bonuses and salary while indulging in criminal activity at Fannie and Freddy by misrepresenting accounting figures. She, and others, did this strictly for financial gain. They were stealing the taxpayers blind.
Jamie Gorelick and her friends are still in the government and have suffered no repercussions from their personal illegal involvement in Fannie and Freddy. Why are they getting away with not having to take responsibility for this incredible disaster you ask?
Easy, they are all Democrats. The Democrats are the party in power in both houses of the government and they protect their own no matter what the circumstances. Worse, these same criminals are now in charge of fixing their own catastrophic misdeeds. They must be giddy with delight as they stand to make millions more from the taxpayers.
Keep the faith, we can do this!
Mistress of Disaster: Jamie Gorelick
September 19, 2008*By* *C. Edmund Wright* http://www.americanthinker.com/c_edmund_wright/
Ken Lay and Jack Abramoff must be green with envy over the all the mischief that has been accomplished by Jamie Gorelick, with scarcely any demonization in the press. Imagine playing a central role in the biggest national defense disaster in 50 years. Imagine playing a central role in one of the biggest economic disasters in your country's history. Imagine doing both as an un-elected official. Imagine getting filthy rich in the process, and even being allowed to sit self-righteously on a commission appointed to get to the bottom of the first disaster, which of course did not get to the bottom of that disaster or anything else for that matter. criminal
Imagine ending, ruining or at least causing signficant quality deterioration in the lives of millions of people, most of whom will never know your name. Imagine counting your millions of dollars while people who tried to stop you from causing all this mayhem were getting blamed for most of the ills you actually contributed to.
Well, as un-imagineable as this is, there is one American who /doesn't have to imagine/ it. One Jamie Gorelick is this American. And without pretending that she caused the loss of countless thousands of lives and countless billions of dollars of wealth by herself, she certainly did push some of the early domino's in catastrophic chain events that are a major factors in life in America today.This is not a bad millineums's work, when you think about it.
Gorelick, an appointee of Bill Clinton, is the one who constructed the wall of separation
She put the wall into place as Deputy Attorney General in 1995.And for good measure, she was appointed by Tom Daschle to serve on the "non partisan" 9-11 Commission. And we thought the fox in the henhouse was simply a metaphor. Of course, in a splendid example of "reaching across the aisle," feckless Republican Slade Gorton of Washington did all he could to exonerate Gorelick in the commission. Thanks, Slade.
God forbid the nation actually knows the truth. But for Ms. Gorelick, one earth shaking catastrophe is just not enough. You might think that she caused enough carnage to us infidels on 9-11 as to qualify her for the 72 virgins upon her death. (this would also keep her consistent with several of Clinton's philosophies). Alas, that's only part of her resume. Her fingerprints are all over the Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac mess, which is to say the mess that is central in the entire mortgage-housing crisis. Without so much as one scintilla of real estate or finance experience, she was appointed as Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae in 1997 and served in that role through 2003, which is when most of the systemic cancers that came home to roost today happened.
She was instrumental in covering up problems with Fannie Mae while employed there and took multiple millions in bonuses as she helped construct this house of cards. From Wikipedia: One example of falsified financial transactions that helped the company meet earnings targets for 1998, a "manipulation" that triggered multimillion-dollar bonuses for top executives. On March 25, 2002, Business Week Gorelick is quoted as saying, "We believe we are managed safely. Fannie Mae is among the handful of top-quality institutions." One year later, Government Regulators "accused Fannie Mae of improper accounting to the tune of $9 billion in unrecorded losses"
As we know, the financial damage done by the housing related problems in this country are still incalculable. Ms. Gorelick's evil tab is still growing. But it doesn't stop there. She managed to be on the wrong side of the Duke LaCrosse case, working for Duke University to protect that school from it's damaging knee jerk reactions to the spectacularly unbelievable charges filed by a stripper. (excuse me, exotic dancer). So, even on a smaller scale, she continues to make money while working to ruin the lives of innocent Americans in defense of liberal dogma.
From what can be gleaned, it all comes from being well connected. She was educated (is that what they call it?) at Harvard undergrad and Harvard Law. From there, she kept getting appointed to positions above her experience level where she could flex her liberal muscles, add a resume item, and move upward.
Sound familiar?
Thursday, October 02, 2008
More Hard Evidence Shows Democrats Are To Blame in Meltdown
I know you are getting tired of hearing about this liberal mess but it never hurts to have all of the information on hand, from many sources, to form good opinions on this biggest of all financial disaster.
Again, the hard evidence is clear - Democrats caused this mess for purely monetary reasons, that is for reasons of GREED alone. That it might crush the country meant nothing. The motto of the Democrats is and always has been, i.e. New Orleans, 'take the money and run' and then blame others for the mess. Need proof - Nancy Pelosi's screed blaming the Republicans.
Keep the faith - we will win the battle.
(Powerline Blog)
September 29th, 20087:53 am Who caused “the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression?” Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our AdvertisersPowerline links to a video that answers this question with admirable clarity. I’ll link to the video below.
First, here are a few data points from the video and other sources:*The Root Cause** According to Senator Chris Dodd (D. CT) the “root cause” of the problem is “the housing foreclosure crisis.” Not 100% accurate, perhaps–it’s really a /credit/ crisis–but close enough for government work, especially from someone who has just happens to chair the Senate Banking Committee and who, completely coincidentally, has been such a conspicuous beneficiary of preferential mortgages and who, also coincidentally, leads the list of those who have received campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (Guess who comes in 2nd and 3rd http://schneiderhome.blogspot.com/2008/09/who-have-fannie-may-and-freddie-mac.html?)*
But what caused the housing crisis to which Senator Dodd alludes? The housing “bubble.”* And what caused the housing bubble? “Sub-prime,” i.e., risky, mortgages; that is, mortgages made to people who, in the normal course of things would have to pay a premium in order to obtain a mortgage (if they could obtain one at all) because they had bad or non-existent credit their income was insufficient or both.*
Packaging the American Dream*A home of your own. It’s part of the American dream. Work hard, save up for a down payment, pay your bills on time and, presto, you, too, can buy a home. For decades the government has done things to help Americans to realize the dream, e.g., graciously allowing citizens to keep some of their own money to help pay for the interest on a mortgage (the official term for this is a “tax deduction,” but I prefer my locution since it emphasizes the fact that it is YOUR MONEY we are talking about).
But what about people who do /not/ work hard (if they work at all)? What about people who have not saved up for a down payment? What about people who do not pay their bills on time (if they pay them at all)? Why shouldn’t they get to live the American dream? That was the question that led to”The Community Reinvestment Act” (see herefor more).*
The original Community Reinvestment Act was signed into law in 1977 by Jimmy Carter. Its purpose, in a nutshell, was to require banks to provide credit to “under-served populations,” i.e., those with poor credit.The buzz word was “affordable mortgages
,” e.g., mortgages with low teaser-rates, which required the borrower to put no money down, which required the borrower to pay only the interest for a set number of years, etc.*
In 1995, Bill Clinton’s administration made various changes to the CRA, increasing “access to mortgage credit for inner city and distressed rural communities,” i.e., it provided for the securitization, i.e. public underwriting, of what everyone now calls “sub-prime mortgages.”Bottom line? It forced banks to issue $1 trillion in sub-prime mortgages./$1 trillion/, i.e., a thousand billion dollars in sub-prime,i.e., risky, mortgages, in order to push this latest example of social engineering.
But wait: how did it /force/ banks to do this? Easy. Introduce a federal requirement that banks make the loans or face penalties. As Howard Husock, writing in /City Journal/ way back in 2000 observed http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_the_trillion_dollar.html:
“Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by neighborhood, income group, and race, to rate banks on performance. There would be no more A’s for effort. Only results—specific loans, specific levels of service—would count.” Way back in 1994, for example, Barack Obama sued Citibank on behalf of a client who chargedthat the bank “systematically denied mortgages to African-American applicants and others from minority neighborhoods.”*
In 1997, Bear Stearns–O firm of blessed memory–was the firstto get onto the sub-prime gravy train.* Fannie Mae & Freddy Mac –were there near the beginning, too.*Anatomy of a bubble*
Step 1. /The intoxication/: “My house is worth millions!” From 1995 - 2005, the number of sub-prime mortgages skyrocket. So did the house prices.
Step 2. /The hangover/: “Oh my God, my house isn’t selling. What went wrong?”*Why didn’t someone try to stop it?*Someone did: “The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago,” /The New York Times/, September 11, 2003.
But someone intervened to stymie the Bush administration. Who? /The New York Times/ reports: Supporters of the companies said efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under those agencies might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower-income families. . . . “These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee.
“The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”*Why didn’t someone else ring the alarm?*Someone else did.
In 2005, John McCainco-sponsored the “Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act ,” which among other things provided for more oversight of Freddie & Fannie. The bill didn’t pass. Guess who blocked it?
The bill was reintroduced in 2007. But again, no luck. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had friends in the Senate:* Chris Dodd, a recipientof “sweetheart” loans from a Freddie and Fannie backed company.*
The junior senator from Illinois, i.e., Barack Obama, who turned to Jim Johnson, former head(1991-1998) of Fannie Mae, to help advise him on whom to pick for the vice-presidential slot on his ticket. From 1985 to 1990, incidentally, Johnson was managing director of Lehman Brothers. Remember them?* You might also want to check out one of Barack Obama’s other advisors: Franklin Raines, former CEO of Freddie Mac:
see here, for example,
or here http://hennessysview.com/2008/09/15/franklin-raines-criminal-enterprise-and-barack-obama-his-accomplice/,
or here.Towards the end of the video, we read this salutary observation: “Everyone deserves a home, not a house of cards.”Who gave us the house of cards?
Watch the whole thing here(original link was here ). And then pass it along to everyone you know.
Again, the hard evidence is clear - Democrats caused this mess for purely monetary reasons, that is for reasons of GREED alone. That it might crush the country meant nothing. The motto of the Democrats is and always has been, i.e. New Orleans, 'take the money and run' and then blame others for the mess. Need proof - Nancy Pelosi's screed blaming the Republicans.
Keep the faith - we will win the battle.
(Powerline Blog)
September 29th, 2008
First, here are a few data points from the video and other sources:*The Root Cause** According to Senator Chris Dodd (D. CT) the “root cause” of the problem is “the housing foreclosure crisis.” Not 100% accurate, perhaps–it’s really a /credit/ crisis–but close enough for government work, especially from someone who has just happens to chair the Senate Banking Committee and who, completely coincidentally, has been such a conspicuous beneficiary of preferential mortgages and who, also coincidentally, leads the list of those who have received campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (Guess who comes in 2nd and 3rd http://schneiderhome.blogspot.com/2008/09/who-have-fannie-may-and-freddie-mac.html?)*
But what caused the housing crisis to which Senator Dodd alludes? The housing “bubble.”* And what caused the housing bubble? “Sub-prime,” i.e., risky, mortgages; that is, mortgages made to people who, in the normal course of things would have to pay a premium in order to obtain a mortgage (if they could obtain one at all) because they had bad or non-existent credit their income was insufficient or both.*
Packaging the American Dream*A home of your own. It’s part of the American dream. Work hard, save up for a down payment, pay your bills on time and, presto, you, too, can buy a home. For decades the government has done things to help Americans to realize the dream, e.g., graciously allowing citizens to keep some of their own money to help pay for the interest on a mortgage (the official term for this is a “tax deduction,” but I prefer my locution since it emphasizes the fact that it is YOUR MONEY we are talking about).
But what about people who do /not/ work hard (if they work at all)? What about people who have not saved up for a down payment? What about people who do not pay their bills on time (if they pay them at all)? Why shouldn’t they get to live the American dream? That was the question that led to”The Community Reinvestment Act” (see here
The original Community Reinvestment Act was signed into law in 1977 by Jimmy Carter. Its purpose, in a nutshell, was to require banks to provide credit to “under-served populations,” i.e., those with poor credit.The buzz word was “affordable mortgages
In 1995, Bill Clinton’s administration made various changes to the CRA, increasing “access to mortgage credit for inner city and distressed rural communities,” i.e., it provided for the securitization
But wait: how did it /force/ banks to do this? Easy. Introduce a federal requirement that banks make the loans or face penalties. As Howard Husock, writing in /City Journal/ way back in 2000 observed http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_the_trillion_dollar.html:
“Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by neighborhood, income group, and race, to rate banks on performance. There would be no more A’s for effort. Only results—specific loans, specific levels of service—would count.” Way back in 1994, for example, Barack Obama sued Citibank on behalf of a client who charged
In 1997, Bear Stearns–O firm of blessed memory–was the first
Step 1. /The intoxication/: “My house is worth millions!” From 1995 - 2005, the number of sub-prime mortgages skyrocket. So did the house prices.
Step 2. /The hangover/: “Oh my God, my house isn’t selling. What went wrong?”*Why didn’t someone try to stop it?*Someone did
But someone intervened to stymie the Bush administration. Who? /The New York Times/ reports: Supporters of the companies said efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under those agencies might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower-income families. . . . “These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee.
“The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”*Why didn’t someone else ring the alarm?*Someone else did.
In 2005, John McCain
The bill was reintroduced in 2007. But again, no luck. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had friends in the Senate:* Chris Dodd, a recipient
The junior senator from Illinois, i.e., Barack Obama, who turned to Jim Johnson, former head
see here
or here http://hennessysview.com/2008/09/15/franklin-raines-criminal-enterprise-and-barack-obama-his-accomplice/,
or here
Watch the whole thing here
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
More Information Linking Democrats to Subprime Mess
There seems to be a wealth of information on this subprime issue that spells out how this all started and where we might end up. It isn't surprising that all of the information links Democrats as the perpetrators.
This article sheds light on Bill Clinton as one of the 'prime movers' in the subprime slide into disaster.
Keep the faith.
How A Clinton-Era Rule Rewrite Made Subprime Crisis Inevitable
BY TERRY JONES
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 9/24/2008
One of the most frequently asked questions about the subprime market meltdown and housing crisis is: How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing market?
The answer is: President Clinton wanted it that way.
Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac, (FRE) even into the early 1990s, weren't the juggernauts they'd later be.
While President Carter in 1977 signed the Community Reinvestment Act, which pushed Fannie and Freddie to aggressively lend to minority communities, it was Clinton who supercharged the process.
After entering office in 1993, he extensively rewrote Fannie's and Freddie's rules.
In so doing, he turned the two quasi-private, mortgage-funding firms into a semi-nationalized monopoly that dispensed cash to markets, made loans to large Democratic voting blocs and handed favors, jobs and money to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and the Fannie-Freddie collapse.
Despite warnings of trouble at Fannie and Freddie, in 1994 Clinton unveiled his National Homeownership Strategy, which broadened the CRA in ways Congress never intended.
Addressing the National Association of Realtors that year, Clinton bluntly told the group that "more Americans should own their own homes." He meant it.
Clinton saw homeownership as a way to open the door for blacks and other minorities to enter the middle class. Though well-intended, the problem was that Congress was about to change hands, from the Democrats to the Republicans. Rather than submit legislation that the GOP-led Congress was almost sure to reject, Clinton ordered Robert Rubin's Treasury Department to rewrite the rules in 1995.
The rewrite, as City Journal noted back in 2000, "made getting a satisfactory CRA rating harder." Banks were given strict new numerical quotas and measures for the level of "diversity" in their loan portfolios. Getting a good CRA rating was key for a bank that wanted to expand or merge with another.
Loans started being made on the basis of race, and often little else.
"Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by neighborhood, income group and race, to rate banks on performance," wrote Howard Husock, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute. But those rules weren't enough. Clinton got the Department of Housing and Urban Development to double-team the issue. That would later prove disastrous.
Clinton's HUD secretary, Andrew Cuomo, "made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis," the liberal Village Voice noted. Among those decisions were changes that let Fannie and Freddie get into subprime loan markets in a big way.
Other rule changes gave Fannie and Freddie extraordinary leverage, allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments, vs. 10% for banks. Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks due to implicit government guarantees for their debt, the government-sponsored enterprises boomed.
With incentives in place, banks poured billions of dollars of loans into poor communities, often "no doc" and "no income" loans that required no money down and no verification of income.
By 2007, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed nearly half of the $12 trillion U.S. mortgage market — a staggering exposure. Worse still was the cronyism.
Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of-work politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. An informal survey of their top officials shows a roughly 2-to-1 dominance of Democrats over Republicans.
Then there were the campaign donations. From 1989 to 2008, some 384 politicians got their tip jars filled by Fannie and Freddie. Over that time, the two GSEs spent $200 million on lobbying and political activities. Their charitable foundations dropped millions more on think tanks and radical community groups.
Did it work? Well, if measured by the goal of putting more poor people into homes, the answer would have to be yes. From 1995 to 2005, a Harvard study shows, minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners. The problem is that many of those loans have now gone bad, and minority homeownership rates are shrinking fast.
Fannie and Freddie, with their massive loan portfolios stuffed with securitized mortgage-backed paper created from subprime loans, are a failed legacy of the Clinton era.
Copyright 2000-2008 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.
This article sheds light on Bill Clinton as one of the 'prime movers' in the subprime slide into disaster.
Keep the faith.
How A Clinton-Era Rule Rewrite Made Subprime Crisis Inevitable
BY TERRY JONES
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 9/24/2008
One of the most frequently asked questions about the subprime market meltdown and housing crisis is: How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing market?
The answer is: President Clinton wanted it that way.
Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac, (FRE) even into the early 1990s, weren't the juggernauts they'd later be.
While President Carter in 1977 signed the Community Reinvestment Act, which pushed Fannie and Freddie to aggressively lend to minority communities, it was Clinton who supercharged the process.
After entering office in 1993, he extensively rewrote Fannie's and Freddie's rules.
In so doing, he turned the two quasi-private, mortgage-funding firms into a semi-nationalized monopoly that dispensed cash to markets, made loans to large Democratic voting blocs and handed favors, jobs and money to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and the Fannie-Freddie collapse.
Despite warnings of trouble at Fannie and Freddie, in 1994 Clinton unveiled his National Homeownership Strategy, which broadened the CRA in ways Congress never intended.
Addressing the National Association of Realtors that year, Clinton bluntly told the group that "more Americans should own their own homes." He meant it.
Clinton saw homeownership as a way to open the door for blacks and other minorities to enter the middle class. Though well-intended, the problem was that Congress was about to change hands, from the Democrats to the Republicans. Rather than submit legislation that the GOP-led Congress was almost sure to reject, Clinton ordered Robert Rubin's Treasury Department to rewrite the rules in 1995.
The rewrite, as City Journal noted back in 2000, "made getting a satisfactory CRA rating harder." Banks were given strict new numerical quotas and measures for the level of "diversity" in their loan portfolios. Getting a good CRA rating was key for a bank that wanted to expand or merge with another.
Loans started being made on the basis of race, and often little else.
"Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by neighborhood, income group and race, to rate banks on performance," wrote Howard Husock, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute. But those rules weren't enough. Clinton got the Department of Housing and Urban Development to double-team the issue. That would later prove disastrous.
Clinton's HUD secretary, Andrew Cuomo, "made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis," the liberal Village Voice noted. Among those decisions were changes that let Fannie and Freddie get into subprime loan markets in a big way.
Other rule changes gave Fannie and Freddie extraordinary leverage, allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments, vs. 10% for banks. Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks due to implicit government guarantees for their debt, the government-sponsored enterprises boomed.
With incentives in place, banks poured billions of dollars of loans into poor communities, often "no doc" and "no income" loans that required no money down and no verification of income.
By 2007, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed nearly half of the $12 trillion U.S. mortgage market — a staggering exposure. Worse still was the cronyism.
Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of-work politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. An informal survey of their top officials shows a roughly 2-to-1 dominance of Democrats over Republicans.
Then there were the campaign donations. From 1989 to 2008, some 384 politicians got their tip jars filled by Fannie and Freddie. Over that time, the two GSEs spent $200 million on lobbying and political activities. Their charitable foundations dropped millions more on think tanks and radical community groups.
Did it work? Well, if measured by the goal of putting more poor people into homes, the answer would have to be yes. From 1995 to 2005, a Harvard study shows, minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners. The problem is that many of those loans have now gone bad, and minority homeownership rates are shrinking fast.
Fannie and Freddie, with their massive loan portfolios stuffed with securitized mortgage-backed paper created from subprime loans, are a failed legacy of the Clinton era.
Copyright 2000-2008 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.
Options To Consider If Attacked by Islamic Terrorist
You have to think fast and then act - very important to know ahead of time what you will do in this situation. If you are not sure then this little tid-bit will give you some direction.
What to do if Confronted by a Terrorist
Here is a little test that will help you decide. The answer can be found by posing the following question:
You're walking down a deserted street with your wife and two small children.Suddenly, an Islamic Terrorist with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with you,screams obscenities, praises Allah, raises the knife, and charges at you.
You are carrying a Colt 1911 cal. 45 ACP, and you are an expert shot.
You have mere seconds before he reaches you and your family. What do you do?
.................................................. ........
THINK CAREFULLY AND THEN SCROLL DOWN:
Democrat's Answer :
Well, that's not enough information to answer the question!
Does the man look poor or oppressed?
Have I ever done anything to him that would inspire him to attack?
Could we run away?
What does my wife think?
What about the kids?
Could I possibly swing the gun like a club and knock the knife out of his hand?
What does the law say about this situation?
Does the pistol have appropriate safety built into it?
Why am I carrying a loaded gun anyway, and what kind of message does this send to society and to my children?
Is it possible he'd be happy with just killing me?
Does he definitely want to kill me, or would he be content just to wound me?
If I were to grab his knees and hold on, could my family get away while he was stabbing me?Should I call 9-1-1?
Why is this street so deserted?
We need to raise taxes, have paint and weed day and make this happier, healthier street that would discourage such behavior.
This is all so confusing! I need to debate this with some friends for few days and try to come to a consensus.
.. .................................................. ..........
Republican's Answer:
BANG!
.................................................. .................................................. .........
Redneck's Answer:
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!BANG! BANG!BANG !
Click... (Sounds of reloading)BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!BANG! Click
Daughter: 'Nice grouping, Daddy! Were those the Winchester Silver Tips or Hydrashocks?! 'Son: 'Can I shoot the next one?!'
Wife: 'You ain't taking that to the Taxidermist
What to do if Confronted by a Terrorist
Here is a little test that will help you decide. The answer can be found by posing the following question:
You're walking down a deserted street with your wife and two small children.Suddenly, an Islamic Terrorist with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with you,screams obscenities, praises Allah, raises the knife, and charges at you.
You are carrying a Colt 1911 cal. 45 ACP, and you are an expert shot.
You have mere seconds before he reaches you and your family. What do you do?
.................................................. ........
THINK CAREFULLY AND THEN SCROLL DOWN:
Democrat's Answer :
Well, that's not enough information to answer the question!
Does the man look poor or oppressed?
Have I ever done anything to him that would inspire him to attack?
Could we run away?
What does my wife think?
What about the kids?
Could I possibly swing the gun like a club and knock the knife out of his hand?
What does the law say about this situation?
Does the pistol have appropriate safety built into it?
Why am I carrying a loaded gun anyway, and what kind of message does this send to society and to my children?
Is it possible he'd be happy with just killing me?
Does he definitely want to kill me, or would he be content just to wound me?
If I were to grab his knees and hold on, could my family get away while he was stabbing me?Should I call 9-1-1?
Why is this street so deserted?
We need to raise taxes, have paint and weed day and make this happier, healthier street that would discourage such behavior.
This is all so confusing! I need to debate this with some friends for few days and try to come to a consensus.
.. .................................................. ..........
Republican's Answer:
BANG!
.................................................. .................................................. .........
Redneck's Answer:
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!BANG! BANG!BANG !
Click... (Sounds of reloading)BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!BANG! Click
Daughter: 'Nice grouping, Daddy! Were those the Winchester Silver Tips or Hydrashocks?! 'Son: 'Can I shoot the next one?!'
Wife: 'You ain't taking that to the Taxidermist
Troubled Financial Institutions Favor Democrats 2:1
Contributions to candidates from the 'bailout' firms indicates they are over whelming Democrat. It figures that this would be the case given the laws laid down by the Democrats in the 90's and how the Democrats ran interference every time someone came along to fix these institutions.
They were successful, as seen by the collapse of these firms, in keeping the regulators and new laws away from these and other financial institutions that are in trouble now.
John McCain spearheaded these new laws again and again but was stopped by straight line voting by Democrats to deny any over sight.
This is an excellent article outlining totals given to each party and individual candidates.
Keep the faith, the battle goes on.
(From National Review on Line)
Mr. Smith Didn't Do This
The blame game has begun. To liberals, the financial meltdown results from recklessness by Wall Street’s “big banking boys” who, as socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) explains, were “empowered by the extreme economic views of [former] Senator Phil Gramm, President George Bush, Sen. John McCain,” and their ilk.
Derbyshire: September EndsGoldberg: AccountabilityEditors: There She Goes, Speaker ‘Anything Goes’McCarthy: Obama’s Assault on the First AmendmentMitchell: MisleadLopez: She’s a Free Woman!Sowell: Penny-Wise PoliticsGoldberg: No One’s Clean
Malkin: Debate, TankedParker: Speak CorrectlyKudlow: Our Bair NecessityHemingway: Googling the GSEsFreddoso: Where Credit Is DueKerpen: Rescuing the Rescue PlanEditors: Failed VoteGoldblatt: Palin’s Moment
Beginning in the 1990s, this narrative goes, free market, Republican extremists told government regulators to take a hike so the barons of high finance could indulge in an economic free-for-all, thus producing our current travails.
Numbered among these extremists, it seems, is retired liberal Rep. Jim Leach (R., Iowa), who coauthored a deregulatory measure now being ritualistically denounced by the Left. This narrative assumes that the typical Wall Streeter takes time off from Caligula-style orgies of predatory capitalism only to reread tattered copies of The Road to Serfdom. Or anything by Ayn Rand. Also assumed: that employees of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, and all other institutions now seeking Uncle Sam’s assistance must be the financial muscle behind the modern conservative movement and the Republican party. How else could things have gone so terribly awry?
“Isn’t it ironic,” one pundit asked recently in the Washington Post, “that the same firms that preached free-market capitalism are now the ones begging for a taxpayer bailout?” But are these firms really staffed by legions of modern-day Adam Smiths? A review of Federal Election Commission data for the current presidential-election cycle sheds light on this important question.
Judging by who they support for president, a strong majority of employees at the highest reaches of Wall Street’s big financial institutions are, well, big liberals. More Wall Streeters shower far more money — both overall as well as on average — on the more liberal presidential candidates than on their more conservative alternatives. And this tilt to the Left predates the current election cycle.
All of the following data comes from searches conducted on Fundrace2008, the user-friendly aggregation tool on Huffingtonpost.com. It lets you sort presidential campaign contributions by the contributor’s employer. The data presented below are solely individual contributions from employees of the firms in question and do not reflect third-party contributions from employee political action committees, which appear to tell a somewhat different story. Nor does this analysis delve into employee contributions to candidates for the House and Senate.
Individual contributions to presidential candidates offer a window into the political and ideological souls of those making the contributions. Analyzing these contributions, then, can tell us something about the political and ideological cultures that permeate modern day Wall Street. So, let’s start where this whole financial meltdown started, at Bear Stearns and JPMorgan Chase.
At Bear Stearns, 157 investment bankers, managing directors, senior managing directors, and other financial sophisticates contributed over $264,000 to Democratic candidates. In contrast, 77 of their colleagues sent about half that amount — $122,000 — to Republicans.
At JPMorgan Chase, the Democratic advantage, at 3 to 1, was even larger. Contributions to Sens. Obama, Clinton, Dodd, Biden, and Edwards totaled $275,000 from 238 elites in that firm. Republican presidential aspirants had to make do with $93,000 from 83 equally important-sounding people.
The story was much the same at Lehman Brothers. There, the Democratic field swept up over 560,000 pre-bankruptcy dollars from 272 former Lehman employees. Republican candidates received less than half that — $256,000 — from 145.
This Democratic advantage in both total contributions and number of employees contributing also holds at the latest casualties on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Goldman employees cut checks to Democratic candidates totaling an astounding $789,000. At Morgan Stanley, the generosity was even greater: $818,000.
Goldman Republicans contributed less than a third the amount of their Democratic colleagues; those at Morgan Stanley less than half.
But someone must have spiked the water coolers at Merrill Lynch. Alone among Wall Street’s storied firms, Merrill Lynch’s workforce favored the Republicans ($490,000) over the Democrats ($399,000). I’ll leave it to others to decipher why the ideological leanings of Merrill’s employees stand apart from the rest of the Street.
Employees at now-defunct American International Group also voted overwhelmingly Democratic with their dollars. According to FEC records, 118 AIG executives contributed $104,000 to the Democrats, about three times the $33,000 sent to the Republicans. AIG’s Democratic tilt, moreover, mirrors the Democratic presidential field’s strong performance in the insurance industry as a whole, as a review of contributions from employees of Met Life, New York Life, Prudential, The Hartford, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, Geico, Allstate, and State Farm reveals.
They were successful, as seen by the collapse of these firms, in keeping the regulators and new laws away from these and other financial institutions that are in trouble now.
John McCain spearheaded these new laws again and again but was stopped by straight line voting by Democrats to deny any over sight.
This is an excellent article outlining totals given to each party and individual candidates.
Keep the faith, the battle goes on.
(From National Review on Line)
Mr. Smith Didn't Do This
The blame game has begun. To liberals, the financial meltdown results from recklessness by Wall Street’s “big banking boys” who, as socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) explains, were “empowered by the extreme economic views of [former] Senator Phil Gramm, President George Bush, Sen. John McCain,” and their ilk.
Derbyshire: September EndsGoldberg: AccountabilityEditors: There She Goes, Speaker ‘Anything Goes’McCarthy: Obama’s Assault on the First AmendmentMitchell: MisleadLopez: She’s a Free Woman!Sowell: Penny-Wise PoliticsGoldberg: No One’s Clean
Malkin: Debate, TankedParker: Speak CorrectlyKudlow: Our Bair NecessityHemingway: Googling the GSEsFreddoso: Where Credit Is DueKerpen: Rescuing the Rescue PlanEditors: Failed VoteGoldblatt: Palin’s Moment
Beginning in the 1990s, this narrative goes, free market, Republican extremists told government regulators to take a hike so the barons of high finance could indulge in an economic free-for-all, thus producing our current travails.
Numbered among these extremists, it seems, is retired liberal Rep. Jim Leach (R., Iowa), who coauthored a deregulatory measure now being ritualistically denounced by the Left. This narrative assumes that the typical Wall Streeter takes time off from Caligula-style orgies of predatory capitalism only to reread tattered copies of The Road to Serfdom. Or anything by Ayn Rand. Also assumed: that employees of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, and all other institutions now seeking Uncle Sam’s assistance must be the financial muscle behind the modern conservative movement and the Republican party. How else could things have gone so terribly awry?
“Isn’t it ironic,” one pundit asked recently in the Washington Post, “that the same firms that preached free-market capitalism are now the ones begging for a taxpayer bailout?” But are these firms really staffed by legions of modern-day Adam Smiths? A review of Federal Election Commission data for the current presidential-election cycle sheds light on this important question.
Judging by who they support for president, a strong majority of employees at the highest reaches of Wall Street’s big financial institutions are, well, big liberals. More Wall Streeters shower far more money — both overall as well as on average — on the more liberal presidential candidates than on their more conservative alternatives. And this tilt to the Left predates the current election cycle.
All of the following data comes from searches conducted on Fundrace2008, the user-friendly aggregation tool on Huffingtonpost.com. It lets you sort presidential campaign contributions by the contributor’s employer. The data presented below are solely individual contributions from employees of the firms in question and do not reflect third-party contributions from employee political action committees, which appear to tell a somewhat different story. Nor does this analysis delve into employee contributions to candidates for the House and Senate.
Individual contributions to presidential candidates offer a window into the political and ideological souls of those making the contributions. Analyzing these contributions, then, can tell us something about the political and ideological cultures that permeate modern day Wall Street. So, let’s start where this whole financial meltdown started, at Bear Stearns and JPMorgan Chase.
At Bear Stearns, 157 investment bankers, managing directors, senior managing directors, and other financial sophisticates contributed over $264,000 to Democratic candidates. In contrast, 77 of their colleagues sent about half that amount — $122,000 — to Republicans.
At JPMorgan Chase, the Democratic advantage, at 3 to 1, was even larger. Contributions to Sens. Obama, Clinton, Dodd, Biden, and Edwards totaled $275,000 from 238 elites in that firm. Republican presidential aspirants had to make do with $93,000 from 83 equally important-sounding people.
The story was much the same at Lehman Brothers. There, the Democratic field swept up over 560,000 pre-bankruptcy dollars from 272 former Lehman employees. Republican candidates received less than half that — $256,000 — from 145.
This Democratic advantage in both total contributions and number of employees contributing also holds at the latest casualties on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Goldman employees cut checks to Democratic candidates totaling an astounding $789,000. At Morgan Stanley, the generosity was even greater: $818,000.
Goldman Republicans contributed less than a third the amount of their Democratic colleagues; those at Morgan Stanley less than half.
But someone must have spiked the water coolers at Merrill Lynch. Alone among Wall Street’s storied firms, Merrill Lynch’s workforce favored the Republicans ($490,000) over the Democrats ($399,000). I’ll leave it to others to decipher why the ideological leanings of Merrill’s employees stand apart from the rest of the Street.
Employees at now-defunct American International Group also voted overwhelmingly Democratic with their dollars. According to FEC records, 118 AIG executives contributed $104,000 to the Democrats, about three times the $33,000 sent to the Republicans. AIG’s Democratic tilt, moreover, mirrors the Democratic presidential field’s strong performance in the insurance industry as a whole, as a review of contributions from employees of Met Life, New York Life, Prudential, The Hartford, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, Geico, Allstate, and State Farm reveals.
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