It's Sunday. Let's talk about Envy.

The argument that somehow Obama and "millions of poor, mainly black Americans" caused the subprime meltdown is lame beyond words. Among other things. But i know that even if I wasted my time in a point by point rebuttal demonstrating what nonsense it is, some of you would prefer to believe nonsense than the truth because you WANT to believe it. So I won't bother.

AspenValley wrote: The argument that somehow Obama and "millions of poor, mainly black Americans" caused the subprime meltdown is lame beyond words. Among other things. But i know that even if I wasted my time in a point by point rebuttal demonstrating what nonsense it is, some of you would prefer to believe nonsense than the truth because you WANT to believe it. So I won't bother.

As you suggest, there are racist Conservatives - there are also racist Liberals. Blanket statements or assumptions about either group are stupid to make - more importantly, they're really counterproductive.

I never referred to either color or Obama in my statement on the federal government being the cause of the meltdown. The idea that borrowing by millions of blacks exclusively caused the housing crisis is dead wrong. I don't know the statistics of foreclosed loans by race; but I can say that in large swaths of the country the bulk of the foreclosed homes and the most expensive homes were owned by whites. Chris Dodd and Barnie Franks, both white men, were the two senators who pushed through the changes in the house lending program to remove obstacles on borrowers' qualifications for mortgages; I don't know what Obama's role was in all of this. Not surprisingly, the lowest wage-earners were largely minorities and these borrowed most heavily against the smallest incomes to buy a home. That doesn't mean that white borrowers earning a lot more didn't over-leverage themselves just as foolishly so they could buy a BIGGER home. The fact is, once the ability to repay was taken out of the equation by the federal government, Americans of all races borrowed too much from the feds for real estate they couldn't really afford to keep.

We're off-track here. The thread is about envy, and how much that played and continues to play a role in how we're shaping our political opinions. Americans who bought homes they couldn't afford were driven as much by envy as they were by the ability to borrow the money to buy. That envy continues to eat at us as we watch some of us sink in a bad economy through no fault of our own, while others, who deserve to suffer for their behavior over the past several years (bankers, politicians etc.) remain unaffected.

swampfish wrote:

AspenValley wrote: The argument that somehow Obama and "millions of poor, mainly black Americans" caused the subprime meltdown is lame beyond words. Among other things. But i know that even if I wasted my time in a point by point rebuttal demonstrating what nonsense it is, some of you would prefer to believe nonsense than the truth because you WANT to believe it. So I won't bother.

As you suggest, there are racist Conservatives - there are also racist Liberals. Blanket statements or assumptions about either group are stupid to make - more importantly, they're really counterproductive.

I never referred to either color or Obama in my statement on the federal government being the cause of the meltdown. The idea that borrowing by millions of blacks exclusively caused the housing crisis is dead wrong. I don't know the statistics of foreclosed loans by race; but I can say that in large swaths of the country the bulk of the foreclosed homes and the most expensive homes were owned by whites. Chris Dodd and Barnie Franks, both white men, were the two senators who pushed through the changes in the house lending program to remove obstacles on borrowers' qualifications for mortgages; I don't know what Obama's role was in all of this. Not surprisingly, the lowest wage-earners were largely minorities and these borrowed most heavily against the smallest incomes to buy a home. That doesn't mean that white borrowers earning a lot more didn't over-leverage themselves just as foolishly so they could buy a BIGGER home. The fact is, once the ability to repay was taken out of the equation by the federal government, Americans of all races borrowed too much from the feds for real estate they couldn't really afford to keep.

We're off-track here. The thread is about envy, and how much that played and continues to play a role in how we're shaping our political opinions. Americans who bought homes they couldn't afford were driven as much by envy as they were by the ability to borrow the money to buy. That envy continues to eat at us as we watch some of us sink in a bad economy through no fault of our own, while others, who deserve to suffer for their behavior over the past several years (bankers, politicians etc.) remain unaffected.

I didn't paint with a broad brush at all, I painted with a very specific one - the idea that Obama and "millions of poor, mainly black Americans" caused the crisis is not only lame but yes, racist. And I didn't say you said it, but I notice you did call a post saying it "spot on".

Yup. And I should have clarified my stance on the racist suggestiveness of Mary Scott's otherwise accurate post.

Those "dumb-assed federal decisions" were called "de-regulation." When the banks started figuring out they could make more by suckering in people to take on loans that they couldn't afford, and convinced everybody that they could afford a house, (and it didn't matter to the banks because they were betting against it with "credit default swaps"; they thought they'd make money either way...Until AIG found it didn't have enough cash to cover them), then the pump was primed for the downward spiral. The guys at the top, of course, made out like bandits; made sure they exempted their income from taxes--except at the capital-gains rates...(hence, the "envy" part...)

Yeah, the "feds" really did it...when they deregulated the banks. And yeah... It was 1999... Same year Clinton was forced to sign the Welfare-Reform Act by Gingrich and his cronies....

http://www.counterpunch.org/2008/09/19/ ... agall-act/

History is a bitch, ain't it?

LadyJazzer wrote: Those "dumb-assed federal decisions" were called "de-regulation." When the banks started figuring out they could make more by suckering in people to take on loans that they couldn't afford, and convinced everybody that they could afford a house, (and it didn't matter to the banks because they were betting against it with "credit default swaps"; they thought they'd make money either way...Until AIG found it didn't have enough cash to cover them), then the pump was primed for the downward spiral. The guys at the top, of course, made out like bandits; made sure they exempted their income from taxes--except at the capital-gains rates...(hence, the "envy" part...)

Yeah, the "feds" really did it...when they deregulated the banks. And yeah... It was 1999... Same year Clinton was forced to sign the Welfare-Reform Act by Gingrich and his cronies....

http://www.counterpunch.org/2008/09/19/ ... agall-act/

History is a bitch, ain't it?

Yeah, history is a bitch, especially when you don't get it right.

Clinton signed the "welfare reform act" (not it's real name) in 1996, not 1999. And what's that got to do with deregulation?

I think you are talking about the Glass-Steagall Act which Clinton also signed. But he was hardly forced to do it by Republicans. 38 of 45 Senate Democrats supported it and the Dems in the House supported it 138-69.

Anyway, back to envy...

No, Clinton was forced to sing the Glass-Steagall Act repeal... (WHich I posted a link to...) Ya THINK I might have been talking about that?

Yeah, and I specifically brought the subject back to "envy"...

You might actually try comprehending the post before you revert to "LJ-Derangement-Syndrome"....

...and the date it was signed really doesn't have anything to do with the fact that it was the genesis of the fraud and corruption in the banking industry to push phony paper and make billions off of it....other than it's a fact that it was Gingrich and the GOP-losers that rammed it through.

So, yeah, let's vote in guys who want to go right back to what caused the meltdown in the first place.

LadyJazzer wrote: No, Clinton was forced to sing the Glass-Steagall Act repeal... (WHich I posted a link to...) Ya THINK I might have been talking about that?

Yeah, and I specifically brought the subject back to "envy"...

You might actually try comprehending the post before you revert to "LJ-Derangement-Syndrome"....

...and the date it was signed really doesn't have anything to do with the fact that it was the genesis of the fraud and corruption in the banking industry to push phony paper and make billions off of it....other than it's a fact that it was Gingrich and the GOP-losers that rammed it through.

So, yeah, let's vote in guys who want to go right back to what caused the meltdown in the first place.

By the way, Gingrich wasn't even around anymore at the time of the Glass-Steagall repeal as he had left the speakership 10 months earlier. And even your own link (which I did read) made no mention of Clinton being forced to sign it by Gingrich or any other Republicans. The Dems were widely in support of it as well and your link went at them for it.

And I was ticked at them for it... The same way I was ticked at them for caving on the welfare-reform. I know this is a tough concept for you guys, since you always march in lock-step with whatever the RNC and talk-radio tells you to do; but I don't agree with everything that the Dems have done. But my displeasure is usually because they caved in and went more to the center...

Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.
Theodore Roosevelt

It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.
Aeschylus

Exploiting people's emotions of fear, envy and anxiety is not hope, it's not change, it's partisanship. We don't need partisanship. We don't need demagoguery, we need solutions.
Paul Ryan