The American Right shows support for foreclosures...

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... with this whole ACORN fiasco. It was ACORN doing the most to prevent these foreclosures and to help the victims. I guess the American right likes the establishment of ghost towns and having people's houses drop in value because they are surrounded by abandoned buildings...

This organisation is heroic in this... I thought that this housing crisis and foreclosures was a bad thing... The American Right seems to think otherwise.

That James O'Keefe character has been exposed as a fraud, he and his Fox backers... running this fake murder confession and crying that murderers work for ACORN, and then it turns out that the dead people are still alive... Why isn't he going to prison for secretly videotaping people against the laws... didn't ACORN employees call the police on him in Philadelphia... why don't they give him the third degree as a suspected importer of child prostitutes?

They speak of how horrible it is that O'Keefe told people he was to import child prostitutes... Blackwater, that continues to get infinately more federal money not only has been caught using real child prostitutes, but they are accused of killing federal informers also.

Why are these lunatics, O'Keefe, Erik Prince, why are they above the law?

Sorry... I just have to make one point here. Housing prices didn't drop because of foreclosures. They dropped, because there was a gigantic housing price bubble caused by low interest rates and easy credit.

+1

The whole crisis was created by a bunch of liberal w*kers demanding that banks make loans to people who clearly could not afford the amount they were borrowing. When the pool of those who could meet one level of scrutiny was exhausted, they demanded that banks still make loans to people who clearly were not creditworthy.

Instead of the supply/demand of the free market pushing developers to make smaller, more affordable homes for low-income families, they kept making McMansions because banks would lend the money.

Government intervention not only created a financial disaster, it denied the poor what they needed....affordable housing.

There is no easy way out of this mess. Too many people who never should have received a mortgage in the first place got one which fueled the housing price bubble. The only way out, unfortunately, is to let the foreclosures happen until the market bottoms out. Government intervention will only prolong the agony for all of us.

There is no Blackwater; they changed their name to something unmemorable...

Right or Left, Right or Wrong; anyone who starts advising someone on how to break or evade the law, whether on tape or not, isn't doing their cause any favors...

That James O'Keefe character has no credibility as a journalist... if Michael Moore ran an expose, and someone proposed a bill in the U.S. Congress based on the findings of such an expose, they'd say "Sorry, Michael Moore is a left wing nut job with no credibility... he is partisan" - yet they pass a bill based on O'Keefe so-called journalism that resembles "Rock Bottom" from that Simpsons episode "Homer: Bad Man"...

It's a fact that if homes are abandoned on a block it adversely affects the value of the still-occupied homes...

I find it strange this idea that the banks were forced by "liberals" who were out of any kind of power to lend to people... this is totally absurd but the idea is that certain kinds of people should not own homes under any circumstances unless of course they are plywood shacks, and that as some of these people were encouraged to buy homes, that this caused the problem - it's the fault of freeloading minority welfare queens trying to rip off honest white hardworking America...

They looked into this and banks liked lending to lower-income people in part because they were less inclined to walk away and declare bankruptcy...

Actually it's pretty memorable:

Xe

Pronounced "Zee". Kinda Chinese.

Yes, what happened. Banks got greedy. People who had unsustainable jobs, low credit ratings in otherwords "subprime" lenders got money at intiatally low interest rates and then compounded interest over a period of time.

This created a bubble, as more people who otherwords did not have houses and lived on the streets/apartments brought houses but then they found out they were being foreclosed on.

In general, I empathize with the victims but I want to remind them of why it happened.

First of peer pressure and social status motivated them to do this, against their better judgement. Keeping up with Joneses. Indeed, these people have had maxed out multiple credit cards, lived of high debt. WHy? Just to impress their friends.

Nonsense. Banks do not make loans they don't want to make. The vast majority of the securitized loans were made to middle and upper income people.

lol @ this thread

ACORN was advising people on how to circumvent tax laws and doing it with government money. The pimp and hooker was just icing on the cake. They're a disgrace. I know that part of what they do is hire the absolute bottom of barrel but it can't be all blamed on that. Trying to help poor people is admirable but "by any means necessary" is not. It doesn't matter who filmed it. It could of been Michael Moore or Sascha Baron Cohen for all I care. Last time I checked the democrats have huge majorities in the House and Senate so it's not this ominous right wing conspiracy against ACORN.

Honestly, I don't like having to say this, but you're an absolute loon just judging on the posts I've seen from you so it's pointless to debate. Hopefully you're just trying to be different and don't actually believe this stuff.

So they were providing publicly a service that most large corporations pay a few million to get done.

How about we go after the multi-billion in lost taxes and not worry about the 18k/yr worker trying to circumvent his losing what little money he has coming in?

+1. There's no defense for ACORN.

I'll also add that the housing crisis was not caused by a bunch of "liberal w*kers" and most of the bubble was formed by real estate investors/speculators and by homeowners moving up - not by first timers. Low interest rates sparked increase demand for buyers. Homeowners and investors took advantage of the opportunity to raise prices and cash in. The marked increase in sales started a bit of a frenzy that the banks certainly didn't want to miss out on. The started to lending to riskier customers, including non-documented loans, and charged more in junk fees and interest. They also started offering "unconventional loans," such as interest only and 40 year terms to squeeze every last penny out of their naive and foolish customers. If a couple could afford a 300K home, then why not a 400K home with a variable interest rate. After all, your income is almost guaranteed to rise over time .

It's also important to recognize that most low income neighborhoods are primarily occupied by renters, not owners. Many families are being kicked out because their lanlord foreclosed, not because they themselves did.

I don't disagree. They should go after the corporations who break the law too.

ACORN is a sad and corrupt organization though. What hypocrisy it is for them to claim to want to help poor communities when they themselves are helping to destroy them.

Not so. The law Congress passed mandated that a percent of loans needed to be made to low-income people. This is fact. However, low-income people can't afford expensive homes. If the banks didn't lower lending standards to make those loans, they would be sanctioned for not complying with the law.

What the market needed was more low-income housing, not row after row of McMansions only wealthy people can afford.

Then, you have to realize that banks don't make money on mortgages or saving accounts....they make money by SELLING mortgages and loan notes. Before the ink on the signature line is dry, the bank is trying to sell your mortgage on the market for a quick buck. They NEED lots of mortgages and refinancing loans to make a profit. It was a downward spiral that had to crash and burn sooner or later.

More so, Congress passed other laws that loosened standards, and both banks and Wall Street took advantage of all of these to make money. It's a complex mess, but it started with a mandate to make loans to people so they could be homeowners regardless of their ability to repay. It was essentially a quota system, and quota systems are bad ideas because they measure success by shear numbers, not the quality behind those numbers.

You can be "ethnically diverse" as an employer by hiring minorities, but is it worth it if the minorities are the least qualified for the job?

You can be "economically diverse" if you lend to anyone regardless of income, but is it worth it if the borrower is a high risk for default because they don't make enough to repay the loan?

Wall Street came up with their bundling & tranching of mortgages idea (with help from the idiot rating agencies), and started buying loans up at a collosal rate to fuel that scheme. Brokers were making good money selling their loans to WS, as they were now in high demand. So if you can sell your loan to Goldman Sacks and get paid good money for it, why bother checking to see if the borrowers can actually afford it? You're going to get paid whether it's a crap loan or not, and if it defaults it's somebody else's problem. (Unless of course a bunch of them start defaulting at once and then... well, best not to think about that.)

The moral hazard of making stupid loans was gone, and so they made stupid loans. They made money, Wall Street made money, so 'everybody' was happy until the bottom fell out.

Regardless of ability to pay? Are you sure? What is the basis for your quota theory? Source please.