The Trump Situation
Mar 23, 2024 12:20:54 #
"Civility and healing our neighbor went out the window" after the New York Times reported on 14 June 2008, presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama was fund-raising in Philadelphia... But he was talking about "the Chicago way."
Channeling the mob drama, "The Untouchables," Mr. Obama said in reference to the general election rumble with the Republicans: "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."
On the same date, Reuters published an item that stated, in part: Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, who regularly uses language to reinforce his modern-guy credentials, seems to have set that aside when he explained how he won’t be cowed by Republican attacks.
"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," Obama said at a fund-raiser in Philadelphia on Friday, employing a phrase that could have been lifted from a gangster movie.
George W. Bush didn't create the American subprime mortgage crisis resulting in a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010 and contributed to the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, a severe contraction of liquidity in global financial markets that originated in the collapse of the U.S. housing market.
It threatened to destroy the international financial system; caused the failure (or near-failure) of several major investment and commercial banks, mortgage lenders, insurance companies, and savings and loan associations; and precipitated the Great Recession (2007–09), the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression (1929–c. 1939). The crisis led to a severe economic recession, with millions of people losing their jobs and many businesses going bankrupt.
The expansion of mortgages to high-risk borrowers, coupled with rising house prices, initiated the period of turmoil in financial markets that lasted from 2007 to 2010. This was never the policy of George W. Bush who had warned these agencies, - who ignored him.
Start with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), title VIII of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1977, signed by President Jimmy Carter, a United States federal law designed to "encourage" commercial banks and savings associations to facilitate mortgages to residents in low-and moderate-income [minority] neighborhoods - regardless of their ability to repay.
In 1999, under Bill Clinton, the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act (1933) was partially repealed, allowing banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to enter each other’s markets and to merge, resulting in the formation of banks that were “too big to fail” (i.e., so big that their failure would threaten to undermine the entire financial system).
In addition, in 2004 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) weakened the net-capital requirement (the ratio of capital, or assets, to debt, or liabilities, that banks are required to maintain as a safeguard against insolvency), which encouraged banks to invest even more money into MBSs. Although the SEC’s decision resulted in enormous profits for banks, it also exposed their portfolios to significant risk, because the asset value of MBSs was implicitly premised on the continuation of the housing bubble.
To buttress the funding of mortgages, the Congress had greatly increased the maximum size of mortgages that FHA would insure. Because FHA loans allow for low down payments, the agency’s share of newly issued mortgages jumped from under 10 percent to over 40 percent.
The subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–10 stemmed from an earlier expansion of mortgage credit, including to borrowers who previously would have had difficulty getting mortgages, which both contributed to and was facilitated by rapidly rising home prices. Historically, potential homebuyers had always found it difficult to obtain mortgages if they had below average credit histories, provided small down payments or sought high-payment loans, and rightfully so... Mortgage lending is serious amounts of funding by profit motivated business, it is not a charity.
Unless protected by government insurance, lenders often denied such mortgage requests. While some high-risk families could obtain small-sized mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration/ FHA, (a.k.a., tax-payers), others, facing limited credit options, rented.
In that era, home ownership fluctuated around 65 percent, mortgage foreclosure rates were low, and home construction and house prices mainly reflected swings in mortgage interest rates and income.
In the early and mid-2000s, high-risk mortgages became available from lenders who funded mortgages by repackaging them into pools that were sold to investors. New financial products were used to apportion these risks, with private-label mortgage-backed securities (PMBS) providing most of the funding of subprime mortgages. The less vulnerable of these securities were viewed as having low risk either because they were insured with new financial instruments or because other securities would first absorb any losses on the underlying mortgages (DiMartino and Duca 2007). This enabled more first-time homebuyers to obtain mortgages (Duca, Muellbauer, and Murphy 2011), and home ownership rose.
The resulting demand bid up house prices, more so in areas where housing was in tight supply. This induced expectations of still more house price gains, further increasing housing demand and prices (Case, Shiller, and Thompson 2012). Investors purchasing PMBS profited at first because rising house prices protected them from losses. When high-risk mortgage borrowers could not make loan payments, they either sold their homes at a gain and paid off their mortgages, or borrowed more against higher market prices. Because such periods of rising home prices and expanded mortgage availability were relatively unprecedented, and new mortgage products’ longer-run sustainability was untested, the riskiness of PMBS was not well-understood. On a practical level, risk was “off the radar screen” because many gauges of mortgage loan quality available at the time were based on prime, rather than new, mortgage products.
When house prices peaked, mortgage refinancing and selling homes became less viable means of settling mortgage debt and mortgage loss rates began rising for both lenders and investors. In April 2007, New Century Financial Corp., a leading subprime mortgage lender, filed for bankruptcy. Shortly thereafter, large numbers of PMBS and PMBS-backed securities were downgraded to high risk, and several subprime lenders closed. Because the bond funding of subprime mortgages collapsed, lenders stopped making subprime and other nonprime risky mortgages. This lowered the demand for housing, leading to sliding house prices that fueled expectations of still more declines, further reducing the demand for homes. Prices fell so much that it became hard for troubled borrowers to sell their homes to fully pay off their mortgages, even if they had provided a sizable down payment.
As a result, two government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, suffered huge losses, resulting in being seized by the federal government in the summer of 2008.
Earlier, in order to meet federally mandated goals to increase home ownership, often to families with no potential means to repay the mortgage. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had issued debt to fund purchases of subprime mortgage-backed securities, which later fell in value. In addition, the two government enterprises suffered losses on failing prime mortgages, which they had earlier bought, insured, and then bundled into prime mortgage-backed securities that were sold to investors.
In response to these new developments, lenders subsequently made qualifying more difficult for high-risk and relatively low-risk mortgage applicants, depressing housing demand further. As foreclosures increased, repossessions multiplied, boosting the number of homes being sold into a weakened housing market. This was compounded by attempts by delinquent borrowers to try to sell their homes to avoid foreclosure, sometimes in “short sales,” in which lenders accept limited losses if homes were sold for less than the mortgage owed.
In these ways, the collapse of subprime lending fueled a downward spiral in house prices that unwound much of the increases seen in the subprime boom.
The housing crisis provided a major impetus for the recession of 2007-09 by hurting the overall economy in four major ways. It lowered construction, reduced wealth and thereby consumer spending, decreased the ability of financial firms to lend, and reduced the ability of firms to raise funds from securities markets (Duca and Muellbauer 2013).
Channeling the mob drama, "The Untouchables," Mr. Obama said in reference to the general election rumble with the Republicans: "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."
On the same date, Reuters published an item that stated, in part: Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, who regularly uses language to reinforce his modern-guy credentials, seems to have set that aside when he explained how he won’t be cowed by Republican attacks.
"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," Obama said at a fund-raiser in Philadelphia on Friday, employing a phrase that could have been lifted from a gangster movie.
George W. Bush didn't create the American subprime mortgage crisis resulting in a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010 and contributed to the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, a severe contraction of liquidity in global financial markets that originated in the collapse of the U.S. housing market.
It threatened to destroy the international financial system; caused the failure (or near-failure) of several major investment and commercial banks, mortgage lenders, insurance companies, and savings and loan associations; and precipitated the Great Recession (2007–09), the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression (1929–c. 1939). The crisis led to a severe economic recession, with millions of people losing their jobs and many businesses going bankrupt.
The expansion of mortgages to high-risk borrowers, coupled with rising house prices, initiated the period of turmoil in financial markets that lasted from 2007 to 2010. This was never the policy of George W. Bush who had warned these agencies, - who ignored him.
Start with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), title VIII of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1977, signed by President Jimmy Carter, a United States federal law designed to "encourage" commercial banks and savings associations to facilitate mortgages to residents in low-and moderate-income [minority] neighborhoods - regardless of their ability to repay.
In 1999, under Bill Clinton, the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act (1933) was partially repealed, allowing banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to enter each other’s markets and to merge, resulting in the formation of banks that were “too big to fail” (i.e., so big that their failure would threaten to undermine the entire financial system).
In addition, in 2004 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) weakened the net-capital requirement (the ratio of capital, or assets, to debt, or liabilities, that banks are required to maintain as a safeguard against insolvency), which encouraged banks to invest even more money into MBSs. Although the SEC’s decision resulted in enormous profits for banks, it also exposed their portfolios to significant risk, because the asset value of MBSs was implicitly premised on the continuation of the housing bubble.
To buttress the funding of mortgages, the Congress had greatly increased the maximum size of mortgages that FHA would insure. Because FHA loans allow for low down payments, the agency’s share of newly issued mortgages jumped from under 10 percent to over 40 percent.
The subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–10 stemmed from an earlier expansion of mortgage credit, including to borrowers who previously would have had difficulty getting mortgages, which both contributed to and was facilitated by rapidly rising home prices. Historically, potential homebuyers had always found it difficult to obtain mortgages if they had below average credit histories, provided small down payments or sought high-payment loans, and rightfully so... Mortgage lending is serious amounts of funding by profit motivated business, it is not a charity.
Unless protected by government insurance, lenders often denied such mortgage requests. While some high-risk families could obtain small-sized mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration/ FHA, (a.k.a., tax-payers), others, facing limited credit options, rented.
In that era, home ownership fluctuated around 65 percent, mortgage foreclosure rates were low, and home construction and house prices mainly reflected swings in mortgage interest rates and income.
In the early and mid-2000s, high-risk mortgages became available from lenders who funded mortgages by repackaging them into pools that were sold to investors. New financial products were used to apportion these risks, with private-label mortgage-backed securities (PMBS) providing most of the funding of subprime mortgages. The less vulnerable of these securities were viewed as having low risk either because they were insured with new financial instruments or because other securities would first absorb any losses on the underlying mortgages (DiMartino and Duca 2007). This enabled more first-time homebuyers to obtain mortgages (Duca, Muellbauer, and Murphy 2011), and home ownership rose.
The resulting demand bid up house prices, more so in areas where housing was in tight supply. This induced expectations of still more house price gains, further increasing housing demand and prices (Case, Shiller, and Thompson 2012). Investors purchasing PMBS profited at first because rising house prices protected them from losses. When high-risk mortgage borrowers could not make loan payments, they either sold their homes at a gain and paid off their mortgages, or borrowed more against higher market prices. Because such periods of rising home prices and expanded mortgage availability were relatively unprecedented, and new mortgage products’ longer-run sustainability was untested, the riskiness of PMBS was not well-understood. On a practical level, risk was “off the radar screen” because many gauges of mortgage loan quality available at the time were based on prime, rather than new, mortgage products.
When house prices peaked, mortgage refinancing and selling homes became less viable means of settling mortgage debt and mortgage loss rates began rising for both lenders and investors. In April 2007, New Century Financial Corp., a leading subprime mortgage lender, filed for bankruptcy. Shortly thereafter, large numbers of PMBS and PMBS-backed securities were downgraded to high risk, and several subprime lenders closed. Because the bond funding of subprime mortgages collapsed, lenders stopped making subprime and other nonprime risky mortgages. This lowered the demand for housing, leading to sliding house prices that fueled expectations of still more declines, further reducing the demand for homes. Prices fell so much that it became hard for troubled borrowers to sell their homes to fully pay off their mortgages, even if they had provided a sizable down payment.
As a result, two government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, suffered huge losses, resulting in being seized by the federal government in the summer of 2008.
Earlier, in order to meet federally mandated goals to increase home ownership, often to families with no potential means to repay the mortgage. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had issued debt to fund purchases of subprime mortgage-backed securities, which later fell in value. In addition, the two government enterprises suffered losses on failing prime mortgages, which they had earlier bought, insured, and then bundled into prime mortgage-backed securities that were sold to investors.
In response to these new developments, lenders subsequently made qualifying more difficult for high-risk and relatively low-risk mortgage applicants, depressing housing demand further. As foreclosures increased, repossessions multiplied, boosting the number of homes being sold into a weakened housing market. This was compounded by attempts by delinquent borrowers to try to sell their homes to avoid foreclosure, sometimes in “short sales,” in which lenders accept limited losses if homes were sold for less than the mortgage owed.
In these ways, the collapse of subprime lending fueled a downward spiral in house prices that unwound much of the increases seen in the subprime boom.
The housing crisis provided a major impetus for the recession of 2007-09 by hurting the overall economy in four major ways. It lowered construction, reduced wealth and thereby consumer spending, decreased the ability of financial firms to lend, and reduced the ability of firms to raise funds from securities markets (Duca and Muellbauer 2013).
NotMAGA wrote:
A lot of folks have the opinion that America was a... (show quote)
Mar 23, 2024 12:49:30 #
manning5me
Loc: Richmond, Va.
Zemirah wrote:
"Civility and healing our neighbor went out t... (show quote)
===================
So, we have had financial ups and downs geared to good and bad chess moves by successive administrations. And the theme of MAGA runs through the various presidencies, not just Trump's, and both Republican and Democratic Presidents have used it to some extent. Very good! It is a national aspiration then: MAGA!
Mar 23, 2024 13:35:37 #
"Therefore let no one judge you in regard to food and drink or in regard to [the observance of] a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day." (Colossians 2:1)
The ancient Jewish celebration of Purim 2024 also begins Saturday night, March 23, continuing through this Sunday, March 24, 2024 (extending through Monday in Jerusalem).
The festival of Purim commemorates the Divinely orchestrated salvation of the Jewish people from Haman’s plot “to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day, two thousand, four hundred years ago BCE, by Persia's Jewish Queen Esther, in the ancient Persian Empire,” It is celebrated with Megillah readings, gifts of food, charity, feasting, and merriment.(Esther 9:17-19, 9:27)
Oxford University Press, a department of the University of Oxford acknowledges that the term, Bible Thumper, is now considered to be a derogatory term within our contemporary society.
The term is often used by today's activist nonreligious to imply that someone who quotes Scripture in their daily speech usage is [politically incorrectly] pushing their religious beliefs upon others. However, the Bible itself endorses the promoting or endorsing of God's word, calling followers of Christ to share the gospel.
In sharing one’s faith, gentleness and respect (1st Peter 3:15) are to be utilized by Christians as they are also exhorted to always "speak the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15)
The earliest known use of the noun Bible-thumper is in the 1810s, during a time when officiating pastors often held their Bible aloft while delivering a sermon, and would occasionally tap it with their free hand for emphasis. This was especially common throughout the southern and midwest United States, in what has been traditionally known as the Bible Belt.
In His Priestly Prayer to God the Father in John 17, Jesus confirms that He has brought the message of salvation to the world: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Jesus’ mission of bringing the truth has been accomplished (John 17:4), and He turns the focus of His prayer to God working through the disciples and other believers. He confirms that believers will be rejected by the world for believing “Your word is truth,” but believers are also assured joy, God’s protection from the evil one, and sanctification by God’s Word (John 17:13–19).
The Old and New Testaments reaffirm that the words recorded in the Bible are God’s words and that they are totally true. Since God cannot lie, His Word is truth: “As for God, his way is perfect: The Lord’s word is flawless” (Psalm 18:30). Since God is eternal and unchanging, His Word is always the same: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35; Isaiah 40:8). Jesus uses the Word as He rebukes the devil who was tempting Him: “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’”
(Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3).
The ancient Jewish celebration of Purim 2024 also begins Saturday night, March 23, continuing through this Sunday, March 24, 2024 (extending through Monday in Jerusalem).
The festival of Purim commemorates the Divinely orchestrated salvation of the Jewish people from Haman’s plot “to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day, two thousand, four hundred years ago BCE, by Persia's Jewish Queen Esther, in the ancient Persian Empire,” It is celebrated with Megillah readings, gifts of food, charity, feasting, and merriment.(Esther 9:17-19, 9:27)
Oxford University Press, a department of the University of Oxford acknowledges that the term, Bible Thumper, is now considered to be a derogatory term within our contemporary society.
The term is often used by today's activist nonreligious to imply that someone who quotes Scripture in their daily speech usage is [politically incorrectly] pushing their religious beliefs upon others. However, the Bible itself endorses the promoting or endorsing of God's word, calling followers of Christ to share the gospel.
In sharing one’s faith, gentleness and respect (1st Peter 3:15) are to be utilized by Christians as they are also exhorted to always "speak the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15)
The earliest known use of the noun Bible-thumper is in the 1810s, during a time when officiating pastors often held their Bible aloft while delivering a sermon, and would occasionally tap it with their free hand for emphasis. This was especially common throughout the southern and midwest United States, in what has been traditionally known as the Bible Belt.
In His Priestly Prayer to God the Father in John 17, Jesus confirms that He has brought the message of salvation to the world: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Jesus’ mission of bringing the truth has been accomplished (John 17:4), and He turns the focus of His prayer to God working through the disciples and other believers. He confirms that believers will be rejected by the world for believing “Your word is truth,” but believers are also assured joy, God’s protection from the evil one, and sanctification by God’s Word (John 17:13–19).
The Old and New Testaments reaffirm that the words recorded in the Bible are God’s words and that they are totally true. Since God cannot lie, His Word is truth: “As for God, his way is perfect: The Lord’s word is flawless” (Psalm 18:30). Since God is eternal and unchanging, His Word is always the same: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35; Isaiah 40:8). Jesus uses the Word as He rebukes the devil who was tempting Him: “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’”
(Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3).
AuntiE wrote:
Personally, I know of no one who thumps on their Bible. It would seem disrespectful. 
Those who accuse conservatives of such behavior have spent more time watching television news make the accusation than they have making acquaintance with a Bible owning conservative.
Have a very blessed Palm Sunday!
Those who accuse conservatives of such behavior have spent more time watching television news make the accusation than they have making acquaintance with a Bible owning conservative. Have a very blessed Palm Sunday!
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