Politics

public officials work for us and are paid by us, and they have the nerve to try to kick verbal dirt in our face, screw that guy and the golden money horse he rode in on....Barney Frank, (spits)pthwooyee

I think my five year old grandson could debate Frank and come out on top. Every time the man opens his mouth he makes himself look even more foolish and irresponsible. The links above were excellent and well worth the time to read through them.

For me this one was a toughie. For a kid attending Harvard Law, I felt the student was unprepared to rebut the dishonorable Barney Frank. On the other hand, he shouldn't have had to. Frank is a public representative being asked a question and rather than bullying a kid he should have just answered it.

The Community Reinvestment Act enabled regulators to punish financial institutions which did not lend in low income minority applicants. In other words, the government and Barny Frank required the creation of the so called sub-prime lending market by decree.

The failure of the so called free markets is a fantasy. Rather it was a failure of horrendously bad regulation advanced and supported by people like good ole Barney.

Fannie and Freddie also served as the governments arm in encouraging these bad lending practices and Frank was among those who insisted that despite these high risk loans these government backed institutions were fine. The direct quote was, "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." Can anybody in there right mind think that in hindsight this was a fair assessment of the health of those institutions?

At the very least, he should have said his assessment of these institution missed the mark and realized what a significant role denying this problem played in the financial crisis (and Bush is the arrogant one who never could admit a mistake huh?).

Many of the funky derivatives of the credit market were created to deal with the systematic risk the government created in the first place. Obviously, these instruments failed in hedging against the risk that was created, but it was the regulators who imposed that risk in the first place and sent the "free" markets down a rabbit hole.

Here are a couple of articles you might find interesting and I only wish the Harvard Law student had at his fingertips:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/28/franks_fingerprints_are_all_over_the_financial_fiasco/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122091796187012529.html?mod=most_emailed_day