Quote Originally Posted by Crotalus View Post
Clinton IS responsible for the Housing Bubble. I told you to research the Community Reinvestment Act, but as usual you didn't bother to check any facts.

The CRA was started by Carter, expanded by Clinton and is directly responsible for the housing bubble, and the Derivative mess. It FORCED the banks to make bad loans to people that could not afford them.
Quote Originally Posted by gugi View Post
Oh, that's a really good one , FORCED!!!
I can tell you're not a banker, nor have you ever played one on TV Keep up the good work, though, the banks need you!
Actually having been in the Mortgage business, he might have used the word "forced" strongly but he is kinda right here.. The mortgage guidelines were relaxed and banks that wanted Fed backing did have to write a percentage of loans that would never have been approved by the more stringent underwriting guidelines..

You might not remember the huge advertising campaigns for getting everyone into home ownership, and the Clinton administration taking the credit for this, but it did happen..

Underpriveledged Home ownwership was a point of pride during the Clinton years, that fact that the homes were over-appraised and the Loans were mostly Balloons and ARM's was what caused so many problems.

Now not to only blame Clinton you also had way to much Spec buying and selling going on too, because of the relaxed guidelines, basically anyone with a job could buy a home and in some markets could leverage the home at 125% with zero out of pocket costs... Or the best form of creative financing was to make a 80% conforming loan by writing a second mortgage for the downpayment using that 125% available

Oh yes there was some fun stuff going on back then