Refuting a Rethug talking point: While watching CSPAN, several Rethug callers

[Mist]

kept talking about how the gov't "forced banks to make loans to people who couldn't afford the houses they bought."
One caller even used specific figures: "someone who makes $40,000 has no business trying to buy a $500,000 home, and the
gov't shouldn't help them do it."

I figure that no one who makes $40K a year was trying to do any such thing. I actually have wondered if people who bought modest properties weren't better off than someone who made much more buying an expensive property, then being hit with ARM and losing their job in the same year.

Are there figures which show what price range most default mortgages fall in? It would be good to refute this Rethug
talking point about the gov't being "forced" to make loans to modest earners.

[SpiralHawk]

1. Are they complaining about the Bush-Republicon mis-rule of the last 8 years?

This sounds like an altogether BS argument that the callers are raising. But if it has any grit to it at all, then the criticism must stick to the Republicons, who ran our government and economy into the ground over the last 8 years.

[Nickster]

2. It's the same tired talking point about the Community Reinvestment Act. The Act that if it was so

horrible, lil boots had 8 years to fix.

http://www.businessweek.com/investing/insights/blog/archives/2008/09/community_reinv.html

[Postman]

3. Remember Bush's "ownership society" program?

The callers must be complaining about their hero Bush. Because he was the one who launched the initiative to get people into homes that they couldn't afford otherwise.

Bush and Alan Greenspan pushed these NINJA loans (No Income, No Job Applicants)

on edit: then, after these nitwits who call in find out it was there own stupid party's idea they'll then turn around and wait for the next talking point to come down to defend their stupid actions like...."we would have thought you liberals would have liked that type of program, getting people off the streets and into homes".....

Their latest asinine statement is always trying to cover up the last asinine statement that didn't work, all the while blaming someone else for their fuck ups.

[notadmblnd]

4. The banks are still encouraging people to borrow money they can't afford to pay back.

My mortgage company called me last week and asked if I would be interested in refinancing. I told them yes since I'm about to lose approx 1/2 of my income in April and will have trouble making the payments.

To make a long story short, apparently they won't re finance me because I'm upside down in my mortgage, however, they will give me a 20,000 personal loan to pay off my less than 5,000 of debt. I asked them how this was going to help me since I won't be able to make my mortgage come April. I told the girl I'd call her back, but I'm thinking isn't this the kind of behavior by the banks that got us into this mess to begin with?

[theoldman]

5. I heard an interview on the radio where a guy making 40K per

year actually bought a $400,000 house. He admitted that it was a stupid thing to do and was encouraged by the bank. Of course if you heard the guy talk he sounded stupid during the interview. I guess it was a case of dumb and dumber.

[Still Sensible]

6. It's just a republican talking point, turning around

the truth to fit a warped world view. The drumbeat they have pounded out since the New Deal--paint the poor as irresponsible, as welfare queens as ne'er do wells, as lazy and irresponsible. What the government actually did was continue to make progress prohibiting financial institutions from continuing to discriminate. What the banks and mortgage lenders did was take advantage of deregulation to aggressively market to the point of convincing some borrowers that through ARMs and 0% credit card offers that they could manage more debt that they had any sane chance of handling in the long term... all in the pursuit of "growth" to make the banks' stock price rise. Generally speaking, that small part of the economic collapse was not due to irresponsible borrowers, it was because of predatory lenders.

[chrisa]

7. Ever since Bush became President...

I haven't seen them build one small house around here. It's unbelievable. They're all two stories, and gigantic. I was wondering to myself, "how could people afford these?" I guess they can't.

It's completely those who sell the houses, and the banks' faults. They got so greedy, urging people to buy properties they knew they couldn't afford, and now only building property that only 25% of America can afford. I don't see why anybody, especially with decreased family sizes now, needs a three story, gigantic house.

[izquierdista]

8. There is an upside

When the greedy lose their house to the bank, and the bank goes belly up and is taken over by the regulators, the regulators will have enough square footage to solve the homeless problem. :eyes: