[philswin]

Originally posted on 04/27/2011:

i'm no Obama fan, but didn't that have far more to do with the 2008 economic downturn than Obama's election? same thing likely would've happened if McCain had won the election. no easy fix for something like the subprime mortgage crisis.

The subprime Mortgage mess all started when Clinton appointed Andrew Cuomo the head of HUD at 32 years of age with no financial experience. He first act was to require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to commit 50% of their loans to "affordable housing" and lower income borrowers. He implemented stringent Govt reporting and fines that forced Freddie and Fannie to increase home ownership to "under-served" borrowers. The result was a huge increase in home ownership among people that could not afford homes. The economy flourished as Home values increased with more demand in the market. The economy rolled under the Clinton and first term Bush but was driven by (eventually) bad credit and Home equity loans. When the supply stopped and demand caught up, Home prices started decreasing, delinquencies started and the economy went south. Both parties are to blame for not stopping what Clinton, Cuomo, Barney Frank, and Franklin Raines (Fannie Maes trillion dollar commitment) created, the ecomony was a credit driven mirage that exploded. Bush And Obama have done very little to correct the economy, throwing more money at it clearly did not work. Increasing home ownership to the poor was embraced by Clinton, Bush and Community organizer Obama and championed by Barney Frank.