Burning Down The House

September 29, 2008 9:21 AM

What Caused Our Economic Crisis? (SLYT) The financial crisis set to music. An alternative viewpoint.
posted by dawson (44 comments total)

An alternative in the sense of alternate history.

This is effectively electoral fanfic.
posted by Benjy at 9:32 AM on September 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

And yes, I did have time to watch this. I've had it forwarded it to me three times so far...
posted by Benjy at 9:32 AM on September 29, 2008

I just figured since anything goes the past several weeks, we need some balance. We're open-minded, right?
posted by dawson at 9:33 AM on September 29, 2008

This is precisely the reason for the US economic problem. Great post. And it's not alternate history (no matter how much you want it to be).
posted by tadellin at 9:36 AM on September 29, 2008

This is only balanced if you give weight to fabrication and misinterpretation and handily leave out the money weighing down Rick Davis and Phil Gram.
posted by Benjy at 9:40 AM on September 29, 2008

I like my koolaid with extra classic rock and monster trucks.
posted by cytherea at 9:40 AM on September 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

I made it to about the 5.5 minute point before getting annoyed. Not because I'm fiercely pro-Democrat or Obama but because:

1. I didn't like the music

2. it just seems way too convenient and weird that this colossal mess could be attributed pretty much entirely to the actions of only the one party ... particularly given who's had the real power in America for the better part of the past decade.

But what do I know? The only Economics course I ever took was in Grade 10. MeFI Experts: please weigh in.
posted by philip-random at 9:46 AM on September 29, 2008

True in part, yeah, but this is the equivalent of saying gasoline caused a fire and ignoring the matches.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 9:54 AM on September 29, 2008

I have no clue about high finance, so I can't analyze this one way or the other; but I do know that blaming the Democrats for something the 2003 Republican controlled Congress did is utterly ridiculous.
posted by Pope Gustafson I at 9:54 AM on September 29, 2008

so what's bush been doing the last 8 years about it? of course, to anyone who realizes that wall street own both parties, this is hardly any kind of revelation
posted by pyramid termite at 9:59 AM on September 29, 2008

This is a Republican talking point, not an 'alternative viewpoint.'
posted by grounded at 9:59 AM on September 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Is there any particular reason this was a YouTube video and not a poorly xeroxed handout being passed out on the street corner by some guy with voices in his head? Because that would be a way better medium for this message.

Or, maybe the author could have taken the time to write a thought-out, well-researched blog post. I could take in this information a lot faster if I was allowed to read it at my own pace.
posted by leapfrog at 10:00 AM on September 29, 2008

So which is it? Does Obama have no political experience or did he single-handedly destroy the economy? And if it's the latter, we really ought to elect him President so he doesn't re-destroy the economy out of spite. Also, this is a fucking stupid powerpoint, er, video.
posted by Nahum Tate at 10:03 AM on September 29, 2008

Did you catch that it referred to Fannie and Freddie as 'government sponsored'? In quotes, like?

…d'you know who it was quoting?

GOOGLE RON PAUL
posted by shakespeherian at 10:05 AM on September 29, 2008

PS THEY WEREN'T GOVERNMENT SPONSORED THEY WERE FINANCIALLY SOLVENT INDEPENDENTLY
posted by shakespeherian at 10:07 AM on September 29, 2008

I just figured since anything goes the past several weeks, we need some balance. We're open-minded, right?

You do realize that the opposite of 'well-researched, reasonably-argued disapproval of GOP candidates' is not 'insipid, easily-debunked talking point drivel set to bad music on YouTube,' right? And that even if it were, FPPs are not a zero-sum game?

Also, while we're on it: the CRA. You continue to use this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
posted by Mayor West at 10:15 AM on September 29, 2008 [3 favorites]

"...half of sub-prime loans came from those mortgage companies beyond the reach of CRA. A further 25 to 30 percent came from bank subsidiaries and affiliates, which come under CRA to varying degrees but not as fully as banks themselves. (With affiliates, banks can choose whether to count the loans.) Perhaps one in four sub-prime loans were made by the institutions fully governed by CRA.

Most important, the lenders subject to CRA have engaged in less, not more, of the most dangerous lending."

Did Liberals Cause the Sub-Prime Crisis? Did they hell.
posted by topynate at 10:19 AM on September 29, 2008

I could take in this information a lot faster if I was allowed to read it at my own pace.

Pfft, clearly you just failed to notice the disclaimer at the beginning:

USE THE PAUSE BUTTON IF IT GOES TOO FAST FOR YOU!

Typical liberal whinging. You think you can compress 200 slides of crazy into a mere three songs' worth of YouTube if you leave each one up long enough to read it?

GOOGLE THE PAUSE BUTTON.
posted by Mayor West at 10:20 AM on September 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

blaming the Democrats for something the 2003 Republican controlled Congress did is what passes for "an alternative viewpoint" these days. Why? Because the Republican Party has no truthful arguments it can make to the voters that wouldn't drive them away. So they lie, lie , lie.

Of course, some of Clinton's policies helped bring this on. The first time I ever heard of him, he was promising to make the Democratic Party more "business friendly". He went a long way toward making the Demos accomplices to the GOP's raids on the Public Trust.
posted by wendell at 10:21 AM on September 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

The Community Reinvestment Act is a U.S. variation on microfinance, i.e. lenders find good borrowers using expertise from community organizations. Here are the facts :

(1) A full 50% of subprime loans came from institutions not totally untouched by the CRA, and another 25% from effectively unrestricted institutions.*

(2) Those untouched institutions granted subprime loans at twice the rate of institutions regulated by the CRA, and granted far more dangerous loans.

(3) the CRA loans themselves are actually generally still being paid because CRA lenders were using community organizations to find reliable borrowers.

Ned Gramlich, a former Federal governor, said recently "banks have made many low- and moderate-income mortgages to fulfill their CRA obligations, they have found default rates pleasantly low, and they generally charge low mortgages rates. Thirty years later, CRA has become very good business."

* A bank covered by the CRA could choose to count or not count each affiliate's loans when reporting on CRA.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:22 AM on September 29, 2008

If a thorough and neutral (if possible) debunking of this video exists, where can I find it?
posted by chillmost at 10:22 AM on September 29, 2008

Not sure if you're snarking or serious, shakes, but "government-sponsored enterprise" is the standard way that they have (had) been described, at least in the last 20 years or so [ex.] Budget category.
posted by dhartung at 10:23 AM on September 29, 2008

Among many other things, the amount of time this video spends on Franklin Raines' supposed connection to Barack Obama is a clear signal that this video is not really interested in being fact-based.

It is a long McCain ("He has eight houses - do you??") viral video with annoying choices in music.
posted by nightwood at 10:23 AM on September 29, 2008

Looks like the Wikipedia entry he was using has been seeing a lot of action for the past two weeks. Interesting bit in there about what part the CRA played in the current crisis - seems to be more in favor of it not playing a role, if you wanna follow the citations.

Or, on preview, listen to Jeff.
posted by cimbrog at 10:24 AM on September 29, 2008

Ban all music from Youtube. Leave soundtracks to the professionals.
posted by Zambrano at 10:25 AM on September 29, 2008

Major crisis occurring under your watch... check
Blame Democrats... check
Blame the Poor... check

Move along folks, nothing of value to see here.
posted by psmealey at 10:27 AM on September 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

How about asking the artists who wrote those songs to file a DMCA takedown requests?
posted by jeffburdges at 10:27 AM on September 29, 2008

The Community Reinvestment Act is a U.S. variation on microfinance, i.e. lenders find good borrowers using expertise from community organizations. Here are the facts :

[irrelevant "facts" deleted]

* A bank covered by the CRA could choose to count or not count each affiliate's loans when reporting on CRA.

You see, there you go, you're trying to use "facts" to argue here. You're obviously part of the reality-based community and have no sense of the changes these people can bring about. All you can do is analyze what they've done after they do it. If you have any money left, that is.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:31 AM on September 29, 2008

My, my, my. Look at what the Freepers have on their front page. Wow, it's viral!
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:35 AM on September 29, 2008

If that's all the Right can come up with, that's pretty weak. You might as well blame the Knights Templar for the creation of a seminal banking system in the 1100's.

CRA played a role in promoting loans to underserved and lower income citizens. But it was the banks that offered predatory loan terms. It was the banks that turned around and sold these loans to the secondary market. And it was the current administration that turned a blind eye to an entirely foreseeable and preventable problem, mindlessly adhering to the ideology of deregulation.

You know, if we deregulated the highways, cars will move faster. Until there's a giant crash. Then they'll blame the Democrats for promoting car sales to low income drivers.
posted by Xoebe at 10:40 AM on September 29, 2008

Hey guys. I um, need to tell you all something. It, uh, isn't easy, but I gotta. So here goes. It was me. I caused the economic crisis. I was angry, and a liberal, and I just... it just happened.

Sorry, everyone.
posted by Tehanu at 10:41 AM on September 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

The Dow was down about 700 today - it's jumped back up to 550 down with two hours to go.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:51 AM on September 29, 2008

The house just voted it down: 228 Nay, 205 Yay.

Markets are down about 500 now, more soon, I think.
posted by maudlin at 10:52 AM on September 29, 2008

This argument is easily contradicted by the fact that most people going into foreclosure have only had their loans a few years. Many of them are defaulting quickly because they simply didn't understand what they were signing up for and couldn't afford it from the outset, and many others have fallen prey to the ARM trap of rising interest rates.

Everyone knows the reason this happened is because the banks were allowed to package mortgages into securities and sell them on to investors around the world who were so eager to throw their money at American assets that they paid almost any price and didn't investigate to see that the assets actually had worth and would pay off in the end.

Its been mentioned on here dozens of times in the blue, but the great NPR program that talked about the Pool of Money sums it up all nicely. Mortgage lenders had unheard of sums of money at their disposal that was so easy to lay claim to that the more mortgages they sold, the more money they raked in. That led to lying on loan applications, inflating of incomes and appraised values and all sorts of other cheating that lead to this whole mess.

The managers at these large money warehouses knew exactly what was going on at the ground level and they encouraged it because it ensured ridiculous profits for them. That's exactly the reason these people should not be allowed to run the bailout and the same reason they should actually be looking at prison terms and not taxpayer funded welfare for corporations.
posted by PigAlien at 10:53 AM on September 29, 2008

How about the education point? (We can improve the economy by investing in education) I don't think anybody truly who understands the fine print would sign up for a variable-rate mortgage.
posted by debbie_ann at 11:00 AM on September 29, 2008

Nobody "forced" banks to do anything. Like Countrywide was all shaky and crying but did it because they were too scared of fines to stand up to the wife-beating Federal government. Uh-huh. Never ascribe to malice what can be ascribed to stupidity or greed; the banks made big bets and bad loans in pursuit of profits.
posted by GuyZero at 11:14 AM on September 29, 2008

it just seems way too convenient and weird that this colossal mess could be attributed pretty much entirely to the actions of only the one party

I think just on Metafilter alone you will find several thousand posts attributing it to one party...
...with nary a complaint from the masses.
posted by Rafaelloello at 11:19 AM on September 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Hey guys. I um, need to tell you all something. It, uh, isn't easy, but I gotta. So here goes. It was me. I caused the economic crisis. I was angry, and a liberal, and I just... it just happened.

Sorry, everyone.

That's Ok, Barack. Rookie mistake.
posted by Rafaelloello at 11:28 AM on September 29, 2008

Someone at my work claimed that the meltdown happened because the government dictated that banks give loans to African Americans and Latinos.

And he's a Republican. COINCIDENCE?
posted by mildred-pitt at 11:57 AM on September 29, 2008

Someone at my work claimed that the meltdown happened because the government dictated that banks give loans to African Americans and Latinos.

Hmmmm... in that neighborhood of (now empty) McMansions up the road, the only African Americans and Latinos I ever saw there were doing the landscaping.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 12:07 PM on September 29, 2008

How about the education point? (We can improve the economy by investing in education) I don't think anybody truly who understands the fine print would sign up for a variable-rate mortgage.

We've just spent a couple of decades dumbing down the public so they'd vote for our idiotic policies and now you want to undo all that? Just great.
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:12 PM on September 29, 2008

Its worth noting that the post-depression Glass Steagall Act was repealed by Gramm Leach Bliley, signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1999. After that, banks were allowed to use those Structured Investment Vehicles that put all kinds of debt into off-balance sheet holdings. That certainly didn't create the credit crisis, but...

"The catalyst for this current crisis may be the housing market, but the larger culprit is the killing of Glass-Steagall, which paved the way for this recklessness."
posted by ben242 at 2:00 PM on September 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

From Wikipedia sub-prime lending

More extreme allegations included lenders deliberately targeting borrowers who could not understand what they were signing or lending to people who could never meet the terms of their loans. Many of these loans included exorbitant fees and hidden terms and conditions, and they frequently led to default, seizure of collateral, and foreclosure. There have been charges of mortgage discrimination on the basis of race.[1] While often defended on the basis of lending to borrowers with compromised credit histories, the Wall Street Journal reported in 2006 that 61% of all borrowers receiving subprime loans had credit scores high enough to qualify for prime conventional loans.

Thank heavens it's Jimmy Carter's fault and nothing to do with a bunch of unscrupulous fucks trying to screw more money out of people.
posted by mandal at 2:08 PM on September 29, 2008

Looks like this has been taken down from YT but I was imagining something like the Rite of Spring from Fantasia. That would be kind of cool. Do it, someone!
posted by XMLicious at 2:17 PM on September 29, 2008