Get Your Class War On

Get Your Class War On - WSJ.com

Consider the current economic catastrophe, which has been building for a year. Just as it has taken down Countrywide, Bear Stearns, Indymac, Freddie, Fannie, Lehman, Merrill and Lord knows who else in the weeks to come, it has also pulverized the reigning conservative shibboleths of the past 28 years.

There is simply no way to blame this disaster, as Republicans used to do, on labor unions or over-regulation. No, this is the conservatives' beloved financial system doing what comes naturally. Freed from the intrusive meddling of government, just as generations of supply-siders and entrepreneurial exuberants demanded it be, the American financial establishment has proceeded to cheat and deceive and beggar itself -- and us -- to the edge of Armageddon.

This was a very disappointing article for me to read as it appeared in the Wall Street Journal. I felt compelled to write the columnist and share my thoughts. I've posted them here if you care to see them:

Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 11:35 PM
To: 'thomas@wsj.com'
Subject: Get Your Class War On

Mr. Frank,

As I was reading your article, I was thinking to myself “here’s a guy that almost gets it but doesn’t know he gets it” and then I ran into this statement:

“...this is the conservatives' beloved financial system doing what comes naturally. Freed from the intrusive meddling of government, just as generations of supply-siders and entrepreneurial exuberants demanded it be, the American financial establishment has proceeded to cheat and deceive and beggar itself -- and us -- to the edge of Armageddon.”

I am very disappointed that the Wall Street Journal would employ someone who so poorly understands what has been happening in the financial services industry. Greed, corruption and multi-million dollar CEO packages are a problem, but they are not THE problem. If the problem was in the millions, Wall Street would barely notice and business would continue as usual. But this is not the case.

The downfall of these organization was caused, not by being “free from the intrusive meddling of government”, but BECAUSE of the intrusive meddling of government. Billions and billions of dollars of loans that should not have been made to people who were not qualified to receive them. Loans that would have NEVER been made if the government wasn’t forcing the financial institutions to make unwise loans or face the public outcry of racism and not supporting the ‘working class’ of America.

For decades, centuries even, banks have done just fine when they are allowed to assess their own risks and take responsibility for the risks they choose to expose themselves to. It wasn’t until these government-forced, low-income, variable rate, subprime loans started defaulting that we ran into the problems we have today. No, the government didn’t invent the loans – but it created the environment that forced the banks to invent something that would allow people who wouldn’t normally qualify for a mortgage to get through the process.

Do the banks share some of the responsibility? Absolutely, and a good portion of it. But the problem arose when problems like these always do – when government sticks its nose into something it knows nothing about and makes decisions based on votes rather than sound financial judgment.

You got it partially right, Mr. Frank, this is due to a class war, you are just wrong about by whom that war is being fought.

Sincerely,

Author :)

Obama-Biden Reservations Confirmed - STANDING BY THE STORY

The American Spectator

The Obama campaign spent more than five hours on Monday attempting to figure out the best refutation of the explosive New York Post report that quoted Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari as saying that Barack Obama during his July visit to Baghdad demanded that Iraq not negotiate with the Bush Administration on the withdrawal of American troops. Instead, he asked that they delay such negotiations until after the presidential handover at the end of January.

The three problems, according to campaign sources: The report was true, there were at least three other people in the room with Obama and Zebari to confirm the conversation, and there was concern that there were enough aggressive reporters based in Baghdad with the sources to confirm the conversation that to deny the comments would create a bigger problem.

Instead, Obama's national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi told reporters that Obama told the Iraqis that they should not rush through what she termed a "Strategic Framework Agreement" governing the future of U.S. forces until after President Bush left office. In other words, the Iraqis should not negotiate an American troop withdrawal.
According to a Senate staffer working for Sen. Joseph Biden, Biden himself got involved in the shaping of the statement. "The whole reason he's on the ticket is the foreign policy insight," explained the staffer.

This is disgusting behavior from someone who wants to be my President...

The Left’s Trillion $ ‘Housing’ Shakedown

Another column from the winter of 2000. Notice the comments of the Senate Committee chairman. Isn't he the "clueless" McCain economic advisor who got run off the campaign for speaking the truth? Seems like a pretty smart guy to me.

The Left’s Trillion $ ‘Housing’ Shakedown Sweetness & Light

This is a highly prescient article from the Winter 2000 edition of the The Manhattan Institute’s City Journal:

A member of the Boston Mayor’s Foreclosure Intervention Team (FIT) posts a sign on a foreclosed and boarded-up property in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, May 13, 2008.

The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities

The Community Reinvestment Act funnels billions to left-wing activists, while threatening to destabilize lower-middle-class neighborhoods.

Howard Husock

The Clinton administration has turned the Community Reinvestment Act, a once-obscure and lightly enforced banking regulation law, into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities—and, as Senate Banking Committee chairman Phil Gramm memorably put it, a vast extortion scheme against the nation’s banks. Under its provisions, U.S. banks have committed nearly $1 trillion for inner-city and low-income mortgages and real estate development projects, most of it funneled through a nationwide network of left-wing community groups, intent, in some cases, on teaching their low-income clients that the financial system is their enemy and, implicitly, that government, rather than their own striving, is the key to their well-being.

Bush, McCain Tried To Reform Freddie Mac

This is another STELLAR discovery by the folks at Sweetness & Light regarding what the Bush Administration proposed FIVE YEARS AGO!!!

Bush, McCain Tried To Reform Freddie Mac Sweetness & Light

September 11, 2003

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios...

And what does our wonderful Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi have to say about Congress' actions during this time:

Pelosi: Dems bear no responsibility for economic crisis

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, when asked Tuesday whether Democrats bear some of the responsibility regarding the current crisis on Wall Street, had a one-word answer: “No.”

Pelosi (D-Calif.) ripped President Bush’s “mismanagement” of the economy and a lack of regulation that led to the current situation.
“I think the American people have had it with this situation where the middle-income people in our country are not protected from the ramifications of the risk-taking and the greed of these financial institutions,” Pelosi told MSNBC.
When asked whether the Democrats “deserve some responsibility” regarding the economic crisis, Pelosi responded: “No.”

CNN’s Jack Cafferty: Obama: Race a factor?

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time CNN’s Jack Cafferty « - Blogs from CNN.com

Race is arguably the biggest issue in this election, and it's one that nobody's talking about.

The differences between Barack Obama and John McCain couldn't be more well-defined. Obama wants to change Washington. McCain is a part of Washington and a part of the Bush legacy. Yet the polls remain close. Doesn't make sense…unless it's race.

So it all come down to this?  The mainstream media and the Democrats can't convince America that Obama should be anointed President so their only excuse has to be racism.  And this guy actually gets paid to think.

Nevermind the fact that Obama is simply a liberal with the same, worn out ideas that Al Gore and John Kerry brought to the fight in the last two elections.

Nevermind the fact that the exact same states that were in play in the last two elections are the ones in play for this election.

We must play the race card anytime a minority doesn't win against a white person.

Why is it racism when 55% of white people want a conservative in the White House and 45% want a liberal but it's not racism when 90% of African Americans are voting for the African American?

Maybe people outside of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the DC beltway just don't like Obama's ideas - did they ever think of that?  Of course not.

Prominent Clinton backer and DNC member to endorse McCain

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Prominent Clinton backer and DNC member to endorse McCain « - Blogs from CNN.com

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and member of the Democratic National Committee’s Platform Committee, will endorse John McCain for president on Wednesday, her spokesman tells CNN.

...Forester did not hide her distaste for eventual Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.  “This is a hard decision for me personally because frankly I don't like him,” she said of Obama in an interview with CNN’s Joe Johns. “I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.”

This shows EXACTLY what's wrong with the media and Obama...

This is collection of one sound bite, one video and one news story. First listen to Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard, answer a question from a radio host regarding Sarah Palin's qualifications to be a CEO. Listen to all 1:43 of it.

Then watch the video of Fiorina being interviewed about that statement.

And finally, check out the headline and story that CNN and the Obama campaign (I know, I know, redundant...) come out with.

Absolutely disgusting that they would take her words out of context and deliberately twist them for their purposes.

Isn't it also interesting that the Obama campaign believes that Carly Fiorina is intelligent enough to determine that Sarah Palin and John McCain wouldn't be qualified to be a CEO of a large corporation but they conveniently ignore that she said Obama's and Biden's name in the same sentence?

Sound file from radio show

Video of Interview

McCain adviser Fiorina: Palin not ready to run a corporation

(CNN) -- Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO turned top John McCain aide, said she doesn't think Sarah Palin is qualified to run a major corporation.

..."If John McCain's top economic adviser doesn't think he can run a corporation, how on Earth can he run the largest economy in the world in the midst of a financial crisis?" said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor. "Apparently, even the people who run his campaign agree that the economy is an issue John McCain doesn't understand as well as he should."