I bought a house in 2004. Home prices were increasing 10K/ week. All the Real Estate agents were saying BUY NOW or you will never be able to afford a home. They all said "it doesn't matter if you can afford it now, because the value of the home will continue to rise. Luckily, because I have a reasonable education and experience in the world, I didn't get too badly swindled--I can still afford my house, even though it has lost about 30 % of it's price. Less educated were totally scammed.
Just loved the way Moore tore him apart. Without the need to yell, to intimidate, or to make appeals to emotion. Just by cornering him into his own ignorance. Good going, Michael.
My brother in law worked for a mortgage company leading up to the crash and got out of it in Jan 08. He told me he got tired of people coming in with horrible credit and he would help them do just enough to fix it to get a house, knowing that they were extremely high risk of default. He knew it wasn't right. That probably happend across the US along with the jump in monthly payments. That was the major problem. GREED! The jump in the payment would have been told to them verbally.
You're right, the rich did have something to do with it. When Barnie Frank was told Freddie and Fannie were heading for danger, he said, NO, they are in fine shape.
I agree for the most part. I recall a teacher of mine was told by whoever was giving him the loan for his house that his credit score was so great, he could sign up for a 500k house, but he knew he couldnt afford that so he didnt take it. He went with about half or less because he knew his budget. People do have SOME responsibility, but the banks do lie and play tricks a lot.
No, they were not told "You cannot afford this mortgage." They were told they could afford the mortgage if interest rates remained steady. Then interest rates shot up, and suddenly they could not afford the mortgage. Why did interest rates shoot up? Greed, pure and simple. Companies had no long term incentives. If you could make a short term buck, you got a bonus.
Lawyers always review mortgage contracts in my state. The lawyer doesn't tell you that you can or can't afford it, the lawyer tells you whether it is legal.
I like Moore and I like that he is calling out the real crooks in this whole fiasco. That said, I do agree that the people who bought homes they couldn't afford share their part of responsibility. Just because credit is offered to you, doesn't mean you should max it out. It's a trap folks! Banks and credit card companies WANT you to overspend.
Maximus: You are so right. I'm a former Republican, and most of them DO have contempt for us working class folks. That's why they don't want their kids to go to Iraq. Their attitude is "Let's send those peoples kids over there, they won't amount to much anyway". Poor? The reason why they're poor and middle class is because they have no drive and gov't money shouldn't be used to assist them". They won't say it in public, but that's how they really feel.
Loved the Young Turks the first time I saw them interviewing Jesse Ventura, love them now with Michael Moore. Wish all of America walked through life with eyes opened.
I saw this interview in full. Mike Moore made Hannity look like the tool he really is. Good job Mike. I don't always agree with you but.., You definately out classed Hannity and out facted him. Bravo and kudos.
Hannity was not blaming the poor he was blaming government for interveining in free markets. And George Bush expanded Freddie may and Fannie Mac. Why is that controversial?
Reporter, Matt Taibbi, found that Wall Street moved investments from bad home loans, after the crash, to oil companies, which is why the gas prices went too high.
Hannity may have bought a house once but clearly he doesn't understand the situation at all. The last time I bought a house, the Broker provided a person to inturperet the stack of almost a hundred pages of legal mumbo jumbo regarding the sale. The interpreter got upset with me when I wanted to read it all and said we did not have that kind of time. When my son-in-law looked at houses. The broker convinced him he could qualify for a loan which thankfully my daughter talked him out of.
From people who had lived in countries with socialized health care, also. They said that the waits were so bad for doctor visits that they never even got to go. One was from Canada, the other from England.
That is what really happened to millions of people. They went to a loan company when they saw a great introductory deal on a mortgage. The "adviser" would cover his ass by saying that the interest rates would change after the first year or two. However, when the applicant asks how much his rates would increase by, he would say that it would be a maximum of 1-2% and that they could easily cover it. In reality, these rates rose by as much as 10%, sometimes more. Who do you think is to blame?
the funniest part is, all these right wingers protesting wall street will defend hannity even though he's defending wall street. the doublethink is stunning.
"Buying a house when you can't afford it." You are clueless. They only reason somebody even COULD buy a house they could not afford is because mortgage companies were ALLOWED to lend them money in exchange for an IOU, and then turn around the next day and sell that IOU to an investment bank that then packaged it up in a shiny AAA security and sold it to suckers all over the world.
"In 2000, outgoing Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) attached a 262-page rider to an appropriations bill to deregulate derivatives trading and other complicated financial instruments like collateral debt obligations." "This was the effective nail in the coffin for the FDR-era Glass-Steagall Act, which put into place a number of banking regulations and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The purpose of the Glass-Steagall Act was to prevent a repeat of the crash of 1929. " --D.A. Smith
A) you don't need convictions for crime statistics. Rape has a low conviction rate, but we still have rape statistics. B) That fact doesn't hide the reality that mortgage fraud is one of the primary causes of the housing collapse, specifically because mortgages could be securitized and short sold, leaving the lender no incentive to ensure the buyer's credibility. C) All caps is no substitute for having something intelligent to say.
WHY DOES EVERYBODY THINK BUSH DEREGULATED EVERYTHING?! You can try and blame George Bush for doing a lot of things, and rightfully so, but deregulation is ABSOLUTELY NOT one of those things.
If a doctor was asked to recommend a course of treatment to a patient, it would be the patient who makes the final decision. However, if the doctor gives an incomplete, faulty or misleading information, then all of the blame falls on the doctor in the event of a problem. I do not understand why idiots like Hannity can't transfer to mortgages. If a bank manager gives a person misleading info on his mortgage then the fault lies solely at the feet of the manager, no one else.
This is what disappoints me about news debates like this: No one wants to shut up. No matter what news network, there is always someone interrupting the other and going on a rant in response. It's impolite and unprofessional.
The unions gave people wages of $60 an hour for putting one part on a car, putting on ten parts per hour. People working for unions are usually overpaid and given way too much when people who work 5 times harder get 1/6th the pay. That is union philosophy.
Oh Michael Moore...We all have our opinions. The borrower HAS the responsibility. Denying that fact is complete ludicrous. If I defaulted on my payments on my credit card. On my lease. I would EXPECT to have them come after me. The poor haven't quite grasped the concept of building wealth because the first step is living within their means. Buying a house when you can't afford it. Is not within their means. Borrowing money they don't have to pay back...Not within their means Moore doesn't get it
Not true. For instance, in 2004, the SEC changed the way in which financial institutions can hold their debt, which functioned as deregulation. Just one example.
Response 2 to you. Responsibility comes in when they are buying a home that they can pay off at the initial rate of interest, before that rate skyrockets. Responsibility comes in when a poorer person is trying to buy a home in a suburb with a good school district so that their children can live a better life than they did. If that's not responsibility, if that's not the American Dream, than I don't know what is.
I love how the debate is framed in such a way that it's either the buyers' fault or the bankers' fault... Why don't we focus on the Federal Reserve? They distorted the market with cheap credit, duping both the buyers and the bankers!
Moore has been on Fox before actually. He had a big interview with Bill O'reilly. O'Reilly held his own a bit better, but Moore still beat him. I don't agree with everything Moore says, and he is WAY more liberal than me, but he certainly knows his facts.
But, there's also investing w/a long-term plan. My husband & I saved for 9 years to buy a house, but could never keep up w/the insane rate of CA home inflation (I graduated in Dec 97, the start of the rise.) In Aug 06 we were finally able to squeak into a home w/horrible loans, but after seeing the 'BUY' frenzy for an entire decade, we thought it was our only chance. We planned to fix it & refi in 1-2 yrs, w/equity from the value increase. Now we're stuck w/horrible loans & our companies closing
The housing problem in America goes back to the mid 1880s when land in the USA was finally all bought up. Or, all bottled up, because since then we have had a permanent underclass of poor folks who could not afford shelter. Once land is completely legally owned wages become depressed while rent increases. As time goes on the government intervenes with social programs that inevitably fall short because the main problem is ignored. The problem is the privatization of the Rental Value of Land.
Question: If deregulation caused the crisis, why is it that a lot of the people who predicted the crisis (such as Peter Schiff for example) are against regulation?
the people you're talking about don't buy houses worth 200 k. they buy condominiums, tenement apartments, sub-prime housing etc. second of all, the private lawyer bill does not go into the house contract, you have to pay for the lawyer youself, and most of the people buying the house are already stretched beyond their means. and why is that? because the banks give them bad loans without informing them about the facts (fi, jacking up rates), and that is their legal obligation.
False. Most of the loans going bad were not even written by banks, but by private mortgage lenders like countrywide, option one, new century, etc. None of these were in the remotest way subject to CRA.
the Government also has responsibility to allow people to live their lives in freedom - not manipulate markets and redistribute what is not theirs to give. The Government has no business forcing lenders to loan to unqualified borrowers. If their is a need, a free and OPEN market (not one manipulated or shackled by regulation) WILL fill that need.
The contracts committed the borrowers to future loans that there was no information on. It was impossible for the borrower to know how their terms would change when the loan got sold. That is the problem here. Credit card debt has been bought and sold with changing terms too, things that were not on the original contract. Once your loan gets sold, no amount of research and planning can save you from the terms that you don't agree to but are imposed on you. That is not the borrower's fault.
the unions are what made this country and the car industry great for years. Unions gave workers fair wages, health care, and better standards of living than any other workers in the world. It is not the unions fault that our government sold out this country to china and others by allowing out exports to be blocked and taxed, and allowing imports from china etc. to be barely taxed at all when compared to our exports. I am sick of people blaming unions for what our government did.
Did you hear the clip? Moore cited the FBI. What source, besides himself and "common sense", did Hannity cite? His entire argument is "why should I have to pay for your house". If that isn't an emotional argument, what is?
Wrong. Banks gave loans they knew were bad because deregulation's present in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act allowed commercial banks to act as investment banks. They were able to package loans into a CDO and sell it as a security on Wall Street. This made banks huge sums of money, but also encouraged banks to toss aside lending standards. Fannie and Freddie were among the last lending institutions to drop their standards and only did so to remain competitive in the marketplace.
I cant believe that the American people give so much credibility to Michael Moore a college drop out. When you give loans to people who have low income and questionable credit and do not require them to put money down. Guess what? Foreclosures go up! People like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank have been pushing for these loans for years, and now its come to a head.
The banks issued loans they knew were bad because of a few simple factors. With the funds rate at 1%, they could borrow it for next nothing and charge 6% to the borrower. The loan could then be packaged and sold, divesting themselves of the risk. And due to the housing bubble, if the borrower defaulted on the loan, the bank now owned a house that was worth far more then amount of the loan the originated. And no one was there to tell them they could not do this. Free market - Fail / Greed - Win
Yeah, I know that the majority of it was the bank's fault. However, the borrowers AREN'T blameless. They were tricked, certainly, but it's at least partially their fault for getting tricked. And they did not think they could get something for nothing. They believed that if interest rates stayed steady, they could continue to pay for the mortgage every month, and possibly pay it off. But interest rates skyrocketed. It was in the fine print that they can, but they didn't read that print.
I don't think most loyal fox viewers will make that 30 year connection reason, they always blame themselves without knowing that they're blaming themselves for it.
The federal funds rate is even lower today then it was in the mid 2000's when this mess started, but banks have gone back to applying logical lending standards to the loans they issue because they are no longer able to offset the risk by selling the loans off as they had in the past. This isn't even really a political issue, but it's a devastating blow to the people that called for rampant deregulation of the financial industry and now they have to do damage control.
I'm not saying people don't have some responsibility. But it's like this: if everyone tells you you're ugly, regardless of if they are wrong; you're going to think you're ugly. SO if everyone around you says this house loan is a good deal you're probably going to think it's a good deal. Hannity also contradicted himself. He does not read all contracts. He didn't read his medical and trust me...when you're dieing in the hospital it'll become important.
Yeah, I wonder if he thought to himself, "Hey, there's people in my audience who suffered as a result of this catastrophe, maybe I should choose my words wisely before blaming them." Probably not.
er. . I'm very pro capitalism. I was responding to another comment. My point was that FDR had anti-capitalist policies that hindered our recovery, where as Europe recovered more quickly, which wasn't because they were fighting a war. Finally, it's generally accepted that the great depression ended around the late 30's or early 40's.
In the relationship between the borrower and the lender, the lender has almost all of the power in terms of having the money to lend and the knowledge of finance. You cannot expect the average person to be able to understand most of the wording of a mortgage contract. My mortgage contract was much more than 50 pages. P.S. People who say the government "should NEVER" bailout are talking out their butts. Because we have a free market, there are consequences to wiping out shareholder wealth.
Dude... It wasnt the "POOR" that doctored the loan aps and made them pass. The build made this shit happen. I was appraising real estate in Vegas during the boom years so I saw what was going on especially with regards to value inflation...
you people seem to forget the federal govt. required banks to give loans with marginal credit in areas. then the lenders saw how much money there was to be made and bang! thats all it took. why cant we admit we bought houses that we should not have, how can we blame the banks they didnt force us to buy home we couldnt pay for!!!!
What gets me the most... that the 'narrative' is more important the 'the facts'. I have been on both sides of this issue. Ownership of a house is a cornerstone of a modern democracy. A bank deals in loans as a mainstay of business, not money management or accrued savings.IF you can't loan money, you will go out of business. Banks also negotiate loans with other banks. Equity lending is a game of 'hot potato'; and speculation gets 'skewed' in a finance prospectus where buying paper is thought
It was everyone's fault, including the poor. You assume because someone is poor that they are also stupid. Many of the people who took on these loans thought they were going to be able to sell in a few years for profit. Many thought their financial situation would improve in time. Were there people who didn't understand what they were getting into? Yes, but most did. When I bought in 98 they asked me if I wanted an ARM loan and I said "no way" and I didn't need a lawyer to know it would go up.
I love how Hannity is backpedalling the entire interview. He starts with a bedrock position that it's entirely Carter and poor people's fault. Then he concedes to the FBI and has to add banks also to blame....eventually he's like "OK even with ALL of that, don't you still see even SOME responsibility on the part of the poor for the collapse of the banking system?" He was on the ropes and still trying to back up.
Yeah but he is flat out wrong when he said the banks are forced to accept the loans. The problem is when the investment banks got merged with regular banks, suddenly u have regular banks doing dangerous investments like loaning money away they should never have done.
I bought a house and i was poor... a 10k shitbox in Jersey isn't going to cause any problems, you know they're not talking about that. Definitely both parties are at fault, poorer people see this amazing opportunity and its tough to turn it down.
it is so simple i dont know why michael moore is having trouble explaining it. the banks started giving out sub prime mortgages to far too many people but it didn't matter to them at the time because they were making money in the short term trading them around, but then interest rates shot up and these mortgage owners couldn't pay. in the end it's the banks' fault for lending too much money to people it knew couldn't properly afford it. they have a responsibility to vet loan applications.
Then maybe he should have graduated high school. Maybe he deserves to lose his house for being an idiot and not hiring a lawyer for the most important legal document of his life. He may not be responsible for the financial crisis, but he is responsible for his choices.
The people who bought these houses put too much trust into what the banks said and they should be held responsible for having their houses foreclosed on them. When people buy a house they will hire a broker, a Realtor, and a lawyer. The price it costs to higher those guys goes into the cost of the house so it is not so far fetched to say these people should have hired a lawyer. Plus there is a huge difference between not reading the contract on a $1k CC and not reading on $200k+ house
I both agree and disagree. It's true that the banks didn't force people to sign. However, it's also true that many people watched home prices skyrocket at insane levels for 10 years, and may have felt this was their only chance to get a home before prices escalated even further. Anyone who could get a home during that time could refinance it or sell @ profit after 1-2 years just based on the increase in equity from spiraling prices. People probably didn't plan to stay in those loans that long.
Why is it that you don't have a problem with the government using YOUR money to bail out big corporations, when it was their mistake and not yours, but you have a problem with paying taxes that goes toward the 'irresponsible' poor people that have caused no harm to the economy? And how the hell are poor people irresponsible? Poverty is passed on generation to generation. Getting an education is what makes people successful, and poor families cannot afford to place their children in a college.
If the banking and lending system caused the crisis, then you need to look no further than the Federal Reserve as that is where the money starts and begins. All money is loaned into existence.
The rich definately had something to do with it, but it was also the poors fault. They shouldn't have taken loans they couldn't have paid, the banks shouldn't have made loans they knew people couldn't pay.
Sure but Michael Moore blames them ALL! Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush. And I agree with that assesment. GOP and DEMS are just different extremes of the same party,. We have a two-faced single party system.
We can spend years assigning blame but the fact is the two factions of the corporate party, Republicans and Democrats, who both had a part in wrapping this economy around a telephone pole, aren't going to lift a finger to undo all of the damaged they've done for the last 30 years cuz they've all gotten rich off these bad policies. My vote in 2010 and 2012 goes to "None Of The Above".
It's not so simple. If banks fail not just bankers loose money, the pension funds and savings of you and your family also take a hit. They were gambling with your money. I'm all for law and order, but if somebody takes out the people that profited from this, I'll chip into their defense fund.
thimoneus... Fact: the average Republican steals, swindles, and devalues the poor more than the average Democrat. Where do you think they get all that money they're giving back? Look THAT up Mr Independent. : )
My brother has had 7 mortgages in his 44 year long life. Every mortgage was sold before his first payment was made. Hmmm...tell me banks weren't approving loans, then dumping them as fast as they could. Sounds like something fishy to me. By the way, he has never defaulted on a loan....and the only late payments he ever made were the first payments because he was not notified his loan had already been sold off and he sent the payments to his original lender.
I bought a house in 2004. Home prices were increasing 10K/ week. All the Real Estate agents were saying BUY NOW or you will never be able to afford a home. They all said "it doesn't matter if you can afford it now, because the value of the home will continue to rise. Luckily, because I have a reasonable education and experience in the world, I didn't get too badly swindled--I can still afford my house, even though it has lost about 30 % of it's price. Less educated were totally scammed.
Funny how when Moore presents points in contrast, he quickly changes the topic.
Just loved the way Moore tore him apart. Without the need to yell, to intimidate, or to make appeals to emotion. Just by cornering him into his own ignorance. Good going, Michael.
My brother in law worked for a mortgage company leading up to the crash and got out of it in Jan 08. He told me he got tired of people coming in with horrible credit and he would help them do just enough to fix it to get a house, knowing that they were extremely high risk of default. He knew it wasn't right. That probably happend across the US along with the jump in monthly payments. That was the major problem. GREED! The jump in the payment would have been told to them verbally.
You're right, the rich did have something to do with it. When Barnie Frank was told Freddie and Fannie were heading for danger, he said, NO, they are in fine shape.
I have not been impressed with how Michael Moore has defended his position.... until now!
He had Hannity absolutely cornered.
I agree for the most part. I recall a teacher of mine was told by whoever was giving him the loan for his house that his credit score was so great, he could sign up for a 500k house, but he knew he couldnt afford that so he didnt take it. He went with about half or less because he knew his budget. People do have SOME responsibility, but the banks do lie and play tricks a lot.
No, they were not told "You cannot afford this mortgage." They were told they could afford the mortgage if interest rates remained steady. Then interest rates shot up, and suddenly they could not afford the mortgage. Why did interest rates shoot up? Greed, pure and simple. Companies had no long term incentives. If you could make a short term buck, you got a bonus.
Lawyers always review mortgage contracts in my state. The lawyer doesn't tell you that you can or can't afford it, the lawyer tells you whether it is legal.
I like Moore and I like that he is calling out the real crooks in this whole fiasco. That said, I do agree that the people who bought homes they couldn't afford share their part of responsibility. Just because credit is offered to you, doesn't mean you should max it out. It's a trap folks! Banks and credit card companies WANT you to overspend.
Maximus: You are so right. I'm a former Republican, and most of them DO have contempt for us working class folks.
That's why they don't want their kids to go to Iraq. Their attitude is "Let's send those peoples kids over there, they won't amount to much anyway".
Poor? The reason why they're poor and middle class is because they have no drive and gov't money shouldn't be used to assist them".
They won't say it in public, but that's how they really feel.
Loved the Young Turks the first time I saw them interviewing Jesse Ventura, love them now with Michael Moore. Wish all of America walked through life with eyes opened.
I saw this interview in full. Mike Moore made Hannity look like the tool he really is. Good job Mike. I don't always agree with you but.., You definately out classed Hannity and out facted him. Bravo and kudos.
Hannity was not blaming the poor he was blaming government for interveining in free markets. And George Bush expanded Freddie may and Fannie Mac. Why is that controversial?
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
Plato
Reporter, Matt Taibbi, found that Wall Street moved investments from bad home loans, after the crash, to oil companies, which is why the gas prices went too high.
Hannity may have bought a house once but clearly he doesn't understand the situation at all. The last time I bought a house, the Broker provided a person to inturperet the stack of almost a hundred pages of legal mumbo jumbo regarding the sale. The interpreter got upset with me when I wanted to read it all and said we did not have that kind of time. When my son-in-law looked at houses. The broker convinced him he could qualify for a loan which thankfully my daughter talked him out of.
I like how Hannity says, " I used to be poor. I used to live in APARTMENTS!" Hilarious. He doesn't know what poor is..
I think Fox should stop having Michael Moore come on their shows because he's consistently owns them every time. I LOVE it!!!!!
Giving loans to unqualified is only one part of the problem. A government that serves, ultimately, the rich, is the problem.
From people who had lived in countries with socialized health care, also. They said that the waits were so bad for doctor visits that they never even got to go. One was from Canada, the other from England.
That is what really happened to millions of people.
They went to a loan company when they saw a great introductory deal on a mortgage. The "adviser" would cover his ass by saying that the interest rates would change after the first year or two.
However, when the applicant asks how much his rates would increase by, he would say that it would be a maximum of 1-2% and that they could easily cover it. In reality, these rates rose by as much as 10%, sometimes more.
Who do you think is to blame?
the funniest part is, all these right wingers protesting wall street will defend hannity even though he's defending wall street. the doublethink is stunning.
"Buying a house when you can't afford it."
You are clueless. They only reason somebody even COULD buy a house they could not afford is because mortgage companies were ALLOWED to lend them money in exchange for an IOU, and then turn around the next day and sell that IOU to an investment bank that then packaged it up in a shiny AAA security and sold it to suckers all over the world.
"In 2000, outgoing Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) attached a 262-page rider to an appropriations bill to deregulate derivatives trading and other complicated financial instruments like collateral debt obligations."
"This was the effective nail in the coffin for the FDR-era Glass-Steagall Act, which put into place a number of banking regulations and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The purpose of the Glass-Steagall Act was to prevent a repeat of the crash of 1929. " --D.A. Smith
A) you don't need convictions for crime statistics. Rape has a low conviction rate, but we still have rape statistics.
B) That fact doesn't hide the reality that mortgage fraud is one of the primary causes of the housing collapse, specifically because mortgages could be securitized and short sold, leaving the lender no incentive to ensure the buyer's credibility.
C) All caps is no substitute for having something intelligent to say.
I'm really surprised Hannity actually LISTENED, and that the guest never yelled...
WHY DOES EVERYBODY THINK BUSH DEREGULATED EVERYTHING?! You can try and blame George Bush for doing a lot of things, and rightfully so, but deregulation is ABSOLUTELY NOT one of those things.
If a doctor was asked to recommend a course of treatment to a patient, it would be the patient who makes the final decision. However, if the doctor gives an incomplete, faulty or misleading information, then all of the blame falls on the doctor in the event of a problem.
I do not understand why idiots like Hannity can't transfer to mortgages. If a bank manager gives a person misleading info on his mortgage then the fault lies solely at the feet of the manager, no one else.
I know Fox news viewers....trust me, what Micheal Moore said didn't cause them to think at all...
The banks were selling mortages as fast as they could write them. There was no risk just GREED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is what disappoints me about news debates like this: No one wants to shut up. No matter what news network, there is always someone interrupting the other and going on a rant in response. It's impolite and unprofessional.
The unions gave people wages of $60 an hour for putting one part on a car, putting on ten parts per hour. People working for unions are usually overpaid and given way too much when people who work 5 times harder get 1/6th the pay. That is union philosophy.
Don't even try. He wasn't even CLOSE to kicking his ass with facts.
Poor people don't have the financial clout to cause a systematic crash of our economy. This should be common damn sense.
Oh Michael Moore...We all have our opinions. The borrower HAS the responsibility. Denying that fact is complete ludicrous. If I defaulted on my payments on my credit card. On my lease. I would EXPECT to have them come after me. The poor haven't quite grasped the concept of building wealth because the first step is living within their means. Buying a house when you can't afford it. Is not within their means. Borrowing money they don't have to pay back...Not within their means Moore doesn't get it
Hannity was outclassed. But his loyal viewers probably won't see it that way.
I love how Sean thinks that because he "lived in an apartment" that he knows what it is like to be poor.
same question hannity asked"WHO DO YOU THINK SHOULD PAY FOR THE HOUSE THEY CANT AFFORD?OR NEVER COULD AFFORD TO BEGIN WITH
Hannity was blaming government policy more than he was blaming poor people.
Not true. For instance, in 2004, the SEC changed the way in which financial institutions can hold their debt, which functioned as deregulation. Just one example.
Response 2 to you. Responsibility comes in when they are buying a home that they can pay off at the initial rate of interest, before that rate skyrockets. Responsibility comes in when a poorer person is trying to buy a home in a suburb with a good school district so that their children can live a better life than they did. If that's not responsibility, if that's not the American Dream, than I don't know what is.
I love how the debate is framed in such a way that it's either the buyers' fault or the bankers' fault... Why don't we focus on the Federal Reserve? They distorted the market with cheap credit, duping both the buyers and the bankers!
Moore has been on Fox before actually. He had a big interview with Bill O'reilly. O'Reilly held his own a bit better, but Moore still beat him. I don't agree with everything Moore says, and he is WAY more liberal than me, but he certainly knows his facts.
But, there's also investing w/a long-term plan. My husband & I saved for 9 years to buy a house, but could never keep up w/the insane rate of CA home inflation (I graduated in Dec 97, the start of the rise.) In Aug 06 we were finally able to squeak into a home w/horrible loans, but after seeing the 'BUY' frenzy for an entire decade, we thought it was our only chance. We planned to fix it & refi in 1-2 yrs, w/equity from the value increase. Now we're stuck w/horrible loans & our companies closing
The housing problem in America goes back to the mid 1880s when land in the USA was finally all bought up. Or, all bottled up, because since then we have had a permanent underclass of poor folks who could not afford shelter.
Once land is completely legally owned wages become depressed while rent increases. As time goes on the government intervenes with social programs that inevitably fall short because the main problem is ignored.
The problem is the privatization of the Rental Value of Land.
Question: If deregulation caused the crisis, why is it that a lot of the people who predicted the crisis (such as Peter Schiff for example) are against regulation?
the people you're talking about don't buy houses worth 200 k. they buy condominiums, tenement apartments, sub-prime housing etc. second of all, the private lawyer bill does not go into the house contract, you have to pay for the lawyer youself, and most of the people buying the house are already stretched beyond their means. and why is that? because the banks give them bad loans without informing them about the facts (fi, jacking up rates), and that is their legal obligation.
Hannity is correct! The gov. giving the poor free homes isn't right! They should be helped given jobs! The rich give the poor jobs.
What I hate most about Fox News is that they will sometimes just flat out make things up in order to support their positions.
False. Most of the loans going bad were not even written by banks, but by private mortgage lenders like countrywide, option one, new century, etc. None of these were in the remotest way subject to CRA.
the Government also has responsibility to allow people to live their lives in freedom - not manipulate markets and
redistribute what is not theirs to give.
The Government has no business forcing lenders to loan to unqualified borrowers. If their is a need, a free and OPEN market (not one manipulated or shackled by regulation) WILL fill that need.
You shouldn't buy a house if you don't know what you're getting in to, it's as simple as that. If you cant pay for it, too bad! Thats YOUR problem.
I love Jessie Ventura, he should run for president with Michael Moore as his running mate
The contracts committed the borrowers to future loans that there was no information on. It was impossible for the borrower to know how their terms would change when the loan got sold. That is the problem here. Credit card debt has been bought and sold with changing terms too, things that were not on the original contract. Once your loan gets sold, no amount of research and planning can save you from the terms that you don't agree to but are imposed on you. That is not the borrower's fault.
the unions are what made this country and the car industry great for years. Unions gave workers fair wages, health care, and better standards of living than any other workers in the world. It is not the unions fault that our government sold out this country to china and others by allowing out exports to be blocked and taxed, and allowing imports from china etc. to be barely taxed at all when compared to our exports. I am sick of people blaming unions for what our government did.
Did you hear the clip? Moore cited the FBI. What source, besides himself and "common sense", did Hannity cite? His entire argument is "why should I have to pay for your house". If that isn't an emotional argument, what is?
Wrong. Banks gave loans they knew were bad because deregulation's present in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act allowed commercial banks to act as investment banks. They were able to package loans into a CDO and sell it as a security on Wall Street. This made banks huge sums of money, but also encouraged banks to toss aside lending standards. Fannie and Freddie were among the last lending institutions to drop their standards and only did so to remain competitive in the marketplace.
I cant believe that the American people give so much credibility to Michael Moore a college drop out. When you give loans to people who have low income and questionable credit and do not require them to put money down. Guess what? Foreclosures go up! People like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank have been pushing for these loans for years, and now its come to a head.
The banks issued loans they knew were bad because of a few simple factors. With the funds rate at 1%, they could borrow it for next nothing and charge 6% to the borrower. The loan could then be packaged and sold, divesting themselves of the risk. And due to the housing bubble, if the borrower defaulted on the loan, the bank now owned a house that was worth far more then amount of the loan the originated. And no one was there to tell them they could not do this. Free market - Fail / Greed - Win
Yeah, I know that the majority of it was the bank's fault. However, the borrowers AREN'T blameless. They were tricked, certainly, but it's at least partially their fault for getting tricked. And they did not think they could get something for nothing. They believed that if interest rates stayed steady, they could continue to pay for the mortgage every month, and possibly pay it off. But interest rates skyrocketed. It was in the fine print that they can, but they didn't read that print.
I don't think most loyal fox viewers will make that 30 year connection reason, they always blame themselves without knowing that they're blaming themselves for it.
The federal funds rate is even lower today then it was in the mid 2000's when this mess started, but banks have gone back to applying logical lending standards to the loans they issue because they are no longer able to offset the risk by selling the loans off as they had in the past. This isn't even really a political issue, but it's a devastating blow to the people that called for rampant deregulation of the financial industry and now they have to do damage control.
I'm not saying people don't have some responsibility. But it's like this: if everyone tells you you're ugly, regardless of if they are wrong; you're going to think you're ugly. SO if everyone around you says this house loan is a good deal you're probably going to think it's a good deal.
Hannity also contradicted himself. He does not read all contracts. He didn't read his medical and trust me...when you're dieing in the hospital it'll become important.
Elimintating the gold standard was a big step in this direction.
There's lots of blame to go around, but I'd say the rating agencies that allowed 401ks to be put into risky stocks deserve the worst punishment.
Yeah, I wonder if he thought to himself, "Hey, there's people in my audience who suffered as a result of this catastrophe, maybe I should choose my words wisely before blaming them."
Probably not.
er. . I'm very pro capitalism. I was responding to another comment. My point was that FDR had anti-capitalist policies that hindered our recovery, where as Europe recovered more quickly, which wasn't because they were fighting a war. Finally, it's generally accepted that the great depression ended around the late 30's or early 40's.
its not a group of people that's at fault, its the system
In the relationship between the borrower and the lender, the lender has almost all of the power in terms of having the money to lend and the knowledge of finance. You cannot expect the average person to be able to understand most of the wording of a mortgage contract. My mortgage contract was much more than 50 pages. P.S. People who say the government "should NEVER" bailout are talking out their butts. Because we have a free market, there are consequences to wiping out shareholder wealth.
Dude... It wasnt the "POOR" that doctored the loan aps and made them pass. The build made this shit happen. I was appraising real estate in Vegas during the boom years so I saw what was going on especially with regards to value inflation...
you people seem to forget the federal govt. required banks to give loans with marginal credit in areas. then the lenders saw how much money there was to be made and bang! thats all it took.
why cant we admit we bought houses that we should not have, how can we blame the banks they didnt force us to buy home we couldnt pay for!!!!
What gets me the most... that the 'narrative' is more important the 'the facts'. I have been on both sides of this issue. Ownership of a house is a cornerstone of a modern democracy. A bank deals in loans as a mainstay of business, not money management or accrued savings.IF you can't loan money, you will go out of business. Banks also negotiate loans with other banks. Equity lending is a game of 'hot potato'; and speculation gets 'skewed' in a finance prospectus where buying paper is thought
I will never use the banks. I'm going to a credit union. Blame the customers after you rip them off.
It was everyone's fault, including the poor. You assume because someone is poor that they are also stupid. Many of the people who took on these loans thought they were going to be able to sell in a few years for profit. Many thought their financial situation would improve in time. Were there people who didn't understand what they were getting into? Yes, but most did. When I bought in 98 they asked me if I wanted an ARM loan and I said "no way" and I didn't need a lawyer to know it would go up.
I love how Hannity is backpedalling the entire interview.
He starts with a bedrock position that it's entirely Carter and poor people's fault. Then he concedes to the FBI and has to add banks also to blame....eventually he's like "OK even with ALL of that, don't you still see even SOME responsibility on the part of the poor for the collapse of the banking system?"
He was on the ropes and still trying to back up.
Yeah but he is flat out wrong when he said the banks are forced to accept the loans.
The problem is when the investment banks got merged with regular banks, suddenly u have regular banks doing dangerous investments like loaning money away they should never have done.
I bought a house and i was poor... a 10k shitbox in Jersey isn't going to cause any problems, you know they're not talking about that. Definitely both parties are at fault, poorer people see this amazing opportunity and its tough to turn it down.
honestly, i think if you (or we) knew all of what was in there in detail and what the bank was legally capable of we'd never buy a home.
it is so simple i dont know why michael moore is having trouble explaining it.
the banks started giving out sub prime mortgages to far too many people but it didn't matter to them at the time because they were making money in the short term trading them around, but then interest rates shot up and these mortgage owners couldn't pay.
in the end it's the banks' fault for lending too much money to people it knew couldn't properly afford it. they have a responsibility to vet loan applications.
Mortgage rates shot up for people with subprime mortgages, not all mortgages in general.
Then maybe he should have graduated high school. Maybe he deserves to lose his house for being an idiot and not hiring a lawyer for the most important legal document of his life. He may not be responsible for the financial crisis, but he is responsible for his choices.
Why doesn't Hannity just plug his ears and start screaming? If anything, it would be a more honest expression of what he usually does.
I think Cenk's giving Hannity's audience far too much credit. Trained seals don't think, they clap and bark on command.
The people who bought these houses put too much trust into what the banks said and they should be held responsible for having their houses foreclosed on them. When people buy a house they will hire a broker, a Realtor, and a lawyer. The price it costs to higher those guys goes into the cost of the house so it is not so far fetched to say these people should have hired a lawyer. Plus there is a huge difference between not reading the contract on a $1k CC and not reading on $200k+ house
I both agree and disagree. It's true that the banks didn't force people to sign. However, it's also true that many people watched home prices skyrocket at insane levels for 10 years, and may have felt this was their only chance to get a home before prices escalated even further. Anyone who could get a home during that time could refinance it or sell @ profit after 1-2 years just based on the increase in equity from spiraling prices. People probably didn't plan to stay in those loans that long.
Why is it that you don't have a problem with the government using YOUR money to bail out big corporations, when it was their mistake and not yours, but you have a problem with paying taxes that goes toward the 'irresponsible' poor people that have caused no harm to the economy? And how the hell are poor people irresponsible? Poverty is passed on generation to generation. Getting an education is what makes people successful, and poor families cannot afford to place their children in a college.
If the banking and lending system caused the crisis, then you need to look no further than the Federal Reserve as that is where the money starts and begins. All money is loaned into existence.
The rich definately had something to do with it, but it was also the poors fault. They shouldn't have taken loans they couldn't have paid, the banks shouldn't have made loans they knew people couldn't pay.
Sure but Michael Moore blames them ALL! Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush. And I agree with that assesment.
GOP and DEMS are just different extremes of the same party,. We have a two-faced single party system.
It carried out in the 90's. It started in the late 70's. Thanks Mr. Carter. haha
wow great comeback, i mean really good! are you on a debating team?? *rolls my eyes and shakes my head*
We can spend years assigning blame but the fact is the two factions of the corporate party, Republicans and Democrats, who both had a part in wrapping this economy around a telephone pole, aren't going to lift a finger to undo all of the damaged they've done for the last 30 years cuz they've all gotten rich off these bad policies.
My vote in 2010 and 2012 goes to "None Of The Above".
GRRR!!! Darn poor people!!! How dare they cause a global economic crash? Put them in jail!
Oh, that was clever... "The STUPID COMMUNIST." That's just plain genius!
It's not so simple. If banks fail not just bankers loose money, the pension funds and savings of you and your family also take a hit. They were gambling with your money.
I'm all for law and order, but if somebody takes out the people that profited from this, I'll chip into their defense fund.
thimoneus...
Fact: the average Republican steals, swindles, and devalues the poor more than the average Democrat. Where do you think they get all that money they're giving back?
Look THAT up Mr Independent. : )
My brother has had 7 mortgages in his 44 year long life. Every mortgage was sold before his first payment was made. Hmmm...tell me banks weren't approving loans, then dumping them as fast as they could. Sounds like something fishy to me. By the way, he has never defaulted on a loan....and the only late payments he ever made were the first payments because he was not notified his loan had already been sold off and he sent the payments to his original lender.
Michael Moore kicked Hannity's ASS!
And this justifies the banks exploding their interest rates so that it would be impossible to pay?