Via Media Matters, where they are reading Sarah Palin’s new book so we don’t have to:
From Page 388 of Palin’s memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life:
We got into this economic mess because of misplaced government interference in the first place. The mortgage crisis that triggered the collapse of our financial markets was rooted in a well-meaning but wrongheaded desire to increase home ownership among people who could not yet afford to own a home.
Politicians on the right and left wanted to take credit for an increase in middle-class home ownership. But the rules of the marketplace are just as constraining as human nature. Government cannot force financial institutions to give loans to people who can’t afford to pay them back and then expect that somehow things will all magically work out. Sooner or later, reality catches up with us.
This has become a standard right-wing myth, that the Bush economic collapse was somehow brought about by Democrats and poor people. Never mind that Republicans controlled Congress and the White House. Forget the disastrous repeal of Glass-Steagall. Dismiss the entire Commodity Futures Modernization Act, securitization of mortgages, and credit-default swaps.
Conservatives have long claimed that efforts to expand home ownership among low-income and minority Americans caused the financial crisis. Their accusations are frequently focused on the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) — which is intended to encourage depository institutions to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.
Writing in Slate, business columnist Daniel Gross criticized the notion that affordable housing initiatives caused the financial crisis, writing that “the notion that the Community Reinvestment Act is somehow responsible for poor lending decisions is absurd” and that “lending money to poor people and minorities isn’t inherently risky. There’s plenty of evidence that in fact it’s not that risky at all.” Gross further explained, “On the other hand, lending money recklessly to obscenely rich white guys … can be really risky. In fact, it’s even more risky, since they have a lot more borrowing capacity.”
Let me get this straight. Investment banks and insurance companies run by centimillionaires blow up, and it’s the fault of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and poor minorities?
Palin’s book goes all mavericky on many other facts, as the Associated Press pointed out. Particularly in regard to taxpayer-financed bailouts, capital gains taxes, cap-and-trade, federal subsidies for Alaska, and the record of her own political career.
UPDATE: The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual study of food insecurity concluded that 14.6 percent of U.S. households (i.e. 49.1 million Americans) “had difficulty obtaining food for all their members due to a lack of resources” during 2008, up 3.5 percentage points from 2007 when 11.1 percent of households were classified as food insecure. The survey is based on December 2008 data, indicating the worst food insecurity in 14 years.
Maybe Sarah Palin can donate some of her $1.25 million book advance (for a book she didn’t even write) to her local food bank.
#1 by RC on November 16, 2009 - 1:51 pm
Word from September 30, 1999:
#2 by RC on November 16, 2009 - 1:55 pm
Oops, the link didn’t work. Try this one. I think it adds perspective.
#3 by Richard Warnick on November 16, 2009 - 2:22 pm
RC, I’ll see your anecdote and raise you with some facts. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were not to blame for the mortgage crisis. Fannie and Freddie were subject to tougher standards than the unregulated players in the private sector.
More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages were issued by private lending institutions. Only one-third of all CRA loans had interest rates high enough to be considered sub-prime, and these had low default rates.
#4 by cav on November 16, 2009 - 2:25 pm
So while Bob Bennet (or was it Jake Garn) had some fascilatators (sp) role in this, the blame will be placed at the feet of the gullible homebuyers who couldn’t comprehend the fast-talked fine-print, thereby blowing up the ballon, AND the planet! Who knows where it will all stop?
But now that the suckers ‘dwellings’ are worth so much less than they are contracted to repay, the poor people, besides having come to expect to feast on CAKE, have begun to realize they’re more powerful, and hense more troublesome than any of us HAVE-MORES could possibly imagined.
Should the poor decide to eat the rich, only a tiny morsel would be had. On the other hand, eating the poor would provide an endless feast for the rich – only with more bones to dispose of (I’m sure a waste-stream can be directed to the organic / neighborhood growers market – been done before).
Meanwhile Palin is taking crying lessons from Glenn Beck and blue dog – harvested from helicopter gunships – will soon be seen as a delicacy.
Everything will be OK.
#5 by Richard Warnick on November 16, 2009 - 2:35 pm
Senator Jake Garn helped destroy the savings and loan industry by deregulation (the Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982). That should have been a warning of things to come.
#6 by Becky Stauffer on November 16, 2009 - 5:07 pm
Judging from what I’ve heard and seen so far, probably the best thing about Palin’s book is that it shows how woefully unprepared she is to lead this country.
On a humorous note, as I was just watching the interview on Oprah, Palin referred to Katie Couric as “the perky one’. Good lord, who’s calling whom perky.
And I’m puzzled about all the photo ops she is doing in workout shorts. Is this a new trend in political hopefuls?
#7 by brewski on November 16, 2009 - 10:16 pm
Richard, you are a True Believer.
—Representative Barney Frank, September 25, 2003
#8 by brewski on November 16, 2009 - 10:21 pm
The total tab paid for by the Taxpayers for Fannie and Freddie comes to $111 billion (so far) since they were put into conservatorship in September 2008.
Still sticking with your story Richard?
#9 by brewski on November 16, 2009 - 10:29 pm
The S&L industry was already insolvent before 1982 before the Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act was even thought of.
When you have a Fed totally fuck up the money supply and cause S&L’s to have overnight funding costs of 18% when their portfolio of mortgages was filled with 6% and 7% loans, you are already out of business.
So what is the trend here:
Federal Reserve created in 1913.
Bubble of 1920’s created by excess liquidity results in the crash and the Depression.
Federal Reserve lets money supply run away in the 1970’s resulting in the S&L destruction of the 1980’s.
Credit bubble of the 1990’s redults in crash of 2000.
Credit bubble of 2003-2006 creates crash of 2007 and resultant recession.
Boy, too bad we didn’t have more government regulation of the government so the government could have stopped the government from running this place into the ground.
#10 by cav on November 16, 2009 - 11:31 pm
We’re all entitled to our illusions: I am in fact, the ‘Keeper of the Flame’ for the Nukular Regular Commission, Have been since ‘73.
Orrin, Bob and Jake are all Saints. It just goes way back to Krypton or Notom or somewhere / when.
And while I’m still here,… : There’s been so much written / said about the ‘Rapture’ lately, that now that it’s so imminent, I just want to let it be known how much I’m gonna miss all of those who’ll remain behind.
#11 by Richard Warnick on November 17, 2009 - 9:08 am
brewski–
You’re the True Believer here. You consistently refuse to acknowledge that deregulation brings about financial crises, despite the clear connection.
#12 by brewski on November 17, 2009 - 10:40 am
I have given you evidence. You give me your belief.
#13 by shane on November 17, 2009 - 11:25 am
I don’t know Becky. There are some great hits to be mined from the entire creation of this farce of a book…
here is a little quote from her ghost writers journal i found:
Isn’t that just sweet? An America where white upper middle class kids can walk down the streets without fear!
What planet is this stupid shit from anyway?
Or maybe she secretly has a mixed race daughter and gay son?!? Maybe they are the children of hers that can’t walk down the street without fear?
My god she is a democrat plant sent to destroy the GOP so that we can have a mixed race president and pass gay marriage protection! Finally it all makes sense! I knew nobody could be that stupid and still manage to breath, it was all an act!
#14 by Richard Warnick on November 17, 2009 - 11:40 am
Lynn Vincent, Sarah Palin’s ghostwriter, reportedly signed a non-disclosure agreement. So what is the source for the journal?
#15 by shane on November 17, 2009 - 12:17 pm
honestly Richard I assume it is made up, and i only quote it for the humor potential. Sorry i should have said that up front.
I have seen quotes about her “ghost writers journal” on snopes, salon, and numerous small blogs. I suspect that it is fiction, but having read a bit about her ghost writer i can’t think of anything that either of them could have to say that would be worth the electrons that would stream it to my screen. At least this bit is funny.
Sorry, i do have a difficult time taking stupidity seriously sometimes….
#16 by Richard Warnick on November 17, 2009 - 1:39 pm
shane–
When it comes to Sarah Palin there’s almost no room for satire. Tina Fey was great, but her funniest lines were verbatim quotes from the real Palin!
#17 by shane on November 19, 2009 - 8:28 am
This is true. She is a walking political Poe’s Law.
#18 by cav on November 19, 2009 - 11:03 am
17 comments open the tread-jacking door. No?
Nutshelling the state of the sichyation…
The President set an arbitrary $900 billion, 10-year price tag for the final bill. In order to comply with this, the Senate bill delays the ban on excluding people from coverage for pre-existing conditions until 2014. According to a study by the Harvard Medical School, nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, and it is estimated that medical costs contribute to 62% of all bankruptcies. This is a callous decision that has an enormous cost in human lives and untold suffering.
Yet, in the midst of quibbling about $90 billion a year for health care, the President just signed a one year, $680 billion defense spending bill, which does not include the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This represents a serious problem with the priorities of those in government.
But while people struggling with crippling health care costs and pre-existing conditions may have to wait until 2014 for relief, states can begin opting out immediately. That means for the next four years, health care will become a partisan football at the state level, easily gamed by the same insurance company lobbyist dollars that flooded on to Capitol Hill this year. And just as 42 members of the House did the bidding of PhRMA and inserted language into the Congressional Record in support of their endless monopolies on biologic “drugs of the future,” the Senate bill followed suit and included the Anna Eshoo-written language which prevents generic versions of vital lifesaving drugs from ever coming to market.
The wizardy is alchemichal!
#19 by Becky Stauffer on November 19, 2009 - 12:07 pm
You said it, Cav. Excellent summation. Though it makes one’s blood boil.
#20 by Richard Warnick on November 19, 2009 - 1:20 pm
cav–
Maybe One Utah is overdue for a health care reform post. But I don’t have the enthusiasm to write one.
Michael Moore gave a speech in Canada in which he said the health insurance “reform” bill is a giveaway to the insurance companies, but the story has disappeared from Raw Story and I can’t find it anywhere else.
#21 by Larry Bergan on November 19, 2009 - 11:09 pm
Richard:
The video is included in my comment to the post you obviously got the enthusiasm, but probably not the passion you wanted to write with.
#22 by shane on November 19, 2009 - 11:56 pm
cav, the problem is you misunderstand what “moral” means….
#23 by James farmer on November 20, 2009 - 9:32 am
Off topic, but check out the photo of Palin’s “Going Rogue” book that was posted at ksl.com in a news report Nov. 19. This is an absolute hoot, and April 1 is still months away.
http://www.ksl.com/emedia/slc/1585/158523/15852328.jpg?filter=ksl/img200
Check carefully for the slipup. I think some idiot at ksl may have just lost his/her job!!
#24 by Richard Warnick on November 20, 2009 - 10:07 am
Score one for guerrilla marketing! I guess you could paraphrase Mencken and say nobody ever went broke by underestimating the spelling ability of Americans.
#25 by James farmer on November 20, 2009 - 10:15 am
Richard:
Look further. The mispelling is only the half of it!
#26 by cav on November 20, 2009 - 11:13 am
Woke up this morning, she was on my mind.
#27 by Richard Warnick on November 23, 2009 - 1:30 pm
Apparently Faux News made the same mistake on November 19, showing the cover of The Nation’s book on Sarah Palin, Going Rouge. The subject under discussion was… fact checking!
#28 by James Farmer on November 23, 2009 - 3:47 pm
Hillarious. KSL probably gets its facts from Faux News anyway; wouldn’t surprise me.