Fox's ACORN special pushes discredited conservative theory that Community Reinvestment Act caused financial crisis
October 02, 2009 9:46 pm ET
From the October 2 special, Fox News Reporting: The Truth About ACORN:
Expand All
Expand 1st Level
Collapse All
The other right-wing media mogul you should worry about
Palin's book and Obama's bow: a media week to forget
Media Matters: The Palin chronicles
Turn off FauxNews and read the facts: Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis by Paul Muolo & Matthew Padilla.
The title summarizes the story, and the book delivers a brilliant case study that the average taxpayer can understand yet MBAs will appreciate. Its a thorough analysis with first hand interviews with people ranging from the CEO of Countrywide to piece-work cubicle grunts falsifying loan docs under a verbally abusive supervisor. Learn how to game the system, pay off politicians, avoid a moral hazard by shifting risk to one entity that is fleecing yet another entity while driving the nation into bankruptcy.
ACORN pushed Freddie and Fannie to give MORE loans to low income People, then the rules were loosened. No more 20 percent down it is now 0 percent and 125 percent financing steady payment history well is you send money via western union for a year that will work.
Barney Frank said Freddie and Fannie were in NO financial trouble, then a few months later BOOM they blew up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cImTPICrIF4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMcKYmwAEzU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yga7TlsA-1A&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ill-YnbGiaY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTbIb75JdwY
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/housing/2004-01-20-fha_x.htm
It begins, "In a bid to boost minority homeownership, President Bush will ask Congress for authority to eliminate the down-payment requirement for Federal Housing Administration loans."
Bush was actively attempting to increase the debt base among the disadvantaged by slackening the rules (a.k.a. oversight) so his Wall Street buddies could make oodles of money divesting themselves of the risk via derivatives.
Randy
Barney Frank and Waters personally said Freddie and Fannie were not in trouble financially, they are in charge and Barney said the government would never bail them out -BUT HE LIED. Follow the links and listen to what they said in 2002. or am I just making that up?
Get your heads out of the sand all the politicians are crooks.
I believe the day Clinton left office, gas was $1.43/gallon.
Funny how, when gas goes up, the wingnuts say "the [GOP] President has no control over gas prices" -- but think two members of the House do . . .
How else can you explain all the foreclosures in the low income ares? When these people got loans and lied on the documents who is to blame there?
Randy
PS The GOP owned the House in 2002, so what Barney Frank said or didn't say is MOOT. He had NO CONTROL OF ANYTHING.
Watch the links and educate your self
This is the group that decided financial markets were full of big boys that did not need to be regulated and so the deregulation that crushed us occured. This was done to open up the then estimated $90trillion financial derivatives industry.
And it was this ability to bet against the loans that helped push the banks to make the bad loans but no matter how I try to wrap my head around it did a bunch of bad morgages really almost bring down what is supposed to be the richest country in the world?
What really happened? I always feel like WE THE PEOPLE are under the treats of WE THE CORPORATIONS who will pull out, close shop or file bankruptcy if you ask for a 'fair share' or if you ask for "too much" you know simple things like home ownership, healthcare and good education.
For those that actually believe this garbage... I have the deed to the moon I'd like to sell ya!
That's funny -- because ACORN says differently.
I read somewhere that ACORN gets perhaps two percent -- total -- of its funding from the federal gov't . . . and the majority of that is for activities unrelated to any voter-registration drives.
But, then again, only a wingnut would consider 2 percent "quite wealthy" . . .
This article is not important at all. Slow day, right DAWUSS? Just because even you know FLOGGED VIEWS is lying about this and many other things (an understatement) that is in fact the way you like it. You don't care if people vote Republican because they believe lies. You just care that they vote Republican. The ends justify the means.
Your very short comment also implies pettiness on the part of MMFA. Is somebody supposed to feel bad to be concerned because that this lie is not as massive as other FORKED GNUS crimes against journalism?
The CRA as passed by the Carter admin was not the problem, however the revisions made during the Clinton years did contribute to the financial mess.
Does "contribute" really equal "cause", in your book? You need a new book, I think. Maybe "Going Rogue - My half-term as Governor of the State that Takes More Federal Money per Capita Than Any Other".
"MMfA has spent plenty of print debunking the mythological case against ACORN"------apparently that were not doing such a good job of it, they obviously have not convinced out democratic Congress. But some fools remain convinced, there is ample evidence of that here .
Liberals don't whine and moan as loudly as conservatives do - and the Dems in Congress are probably pretty certain that, once the truth is out, the whole ACORN non-issue will prove to be a tempest in a teapot.
This is also a good example of how MMFA distorts a story, they take one small part of a story and focus on it and omit everything else that was said. Even Kurtz did not blame the CRA entirely, he pointed to the latter years beyond the original passage. And he also pointed to the "capitalists" as he called them , and indicated that there was ample blame to go around. But of course the tunnel vision of MMFA will only point to the "blame the CRA" issue. How dishonest. And you fall for it. How sad.
"and the Dems in Congress are probably pretty certain that, once the truth is out, the whole ACORN non-issue will prove to be a tempest in a teapot."
So I guess you are admitting that your democratic heros are a pretty spineless bunch. They believe that acorn is a non -issue but they wil cut them off? What a loyal bunch they are, with a high degree of integrity.
(Besides, ACORN only relies on the Federal gov for about 2 percent of its funding.)
I haven't whined at all. this is a good example of how the conservatives try to project their own bad behaviors onto everyone else.
I didn't watch the whole report - I don't care to contribute to the ratings of a network that so clearly has an agenda that is contrary to the best interests of the country I love, while contributing only to the dunbing down of an already ignorant group of sheep.
That says it all, and discredits anything you have to say about it. And it probably applies to most of the posters here. Ignorance is bliss. But even if you did not watch the whole report you can clearly see from the portion that MMFA shows that both sides were presented. Of course you are quite happy to focus on a few words rather than the whole issue.
And when you finished watching the Fox report, did you actually do any research of your own, or did you just take everything they said as the truth?
See, this site ought to at least show you that you can't believe everything you hear on Fox. Instead, you come here and argue, using only what you have seen or heard on Fox as the basis for your arguments.
I don't watch Fox because I have personally witnessed their constant prevarication. I spent a lot of time watching them before I drew that conclusion. How much time have you spent watching the opposing opinions? how much time have you spent reading multiple sources to fact-check the things you are hearing?
Finally, how objective have you actually tried to be?
when you watched the ACORN videos, did you assume that they were actually in an ACORN office? I didn't - because I knew that there was absolutely no chain of evidence - the same reason I need to see the unedited versions of those videos before I jump to conclusions. Only a moron would believe everything he sees or hears on TV - whether it is Fox or MSNBC.
You believe it all because it fits your preconceived notions of how the world is. Iknow this because I know that Fox has been shown, again and again, to lie, to jump to conclusions, and to have a bias - and you quote them as though they are the Bible.
"when you watched the ACORN videos, did you assume that they were actually in an ACORN office?"
I didn't have to assume anything since acorn did not dispute that the videos were filmed in their offices, each and every one of them. Do you doubt their word? Don't you think they would point it out if the tapes were made elsewhere? Bogus argument.
"I know that Fox has been shown, again and again, to lie"
I asked for one example of a lie in this report, I still have not seen one example posted, I guess the report was accurate.
She wasn't making an argument. She was refuting the lies that are already out there. Your network spends hours every week spewing spurious claims about ACORN and she was reacting to the spurious spew with a few minutes of her show for a week. I would say that it should be obvious to all but the most ignorant that she didn't need to give "opposing views" while refuting hours of lies.
Anyway, my point is that you didn't watch Rachel, yet you think I should waste my time watching Fox. Shouldn't I be asking you to show me a single lie that Rachel Maddow has told (since that is what you expect me to do for Fox)?
You are here at MMfA every day and you don't recognize the continuous stream of lies that Fox is responsible for? Why do you come here at all if not to learn a thing or two?
I'll answer that. You come here to argue and lose.
That's what Fox depends on, people who are unable to see what they don't want to see, even when it's pointed out to them, in order to "guess" that Fox is accurate.
Secondly, it is amazing to me that you think that ACORN was given a fair shake when the excerpt above has the ACORN founder on screen for about 40 seconds of a clip that is almost three and a half minutes.
Finally, if you actually give the CRA an honest read - Instead of relying upon Fox and its buddies to tell you what it says - you will see that the banks had plenty of ways to deny loans to people who did not qualify. Qualifying standards weren't really changed that much - a percentage of loans were required within the communities the banks served. Who they made those loans to was still there own business - and the simple fact of the matter is that banks make their money on commercial loans, not home loans. The vast majority of a bank's assets are commercial in nature - even now.
The only thing you seem aware of is what Fox is telling you - and they don't tell you even close to half of the truth.
Turn off your television and start to actually research things before you come here and try to impress us with your ignorance.
Stop filtering information through your personal biases, and you may discover that you have been wrong pretty consistently around here - fail to do so, and you will just continue to waste your time coming here.
I suspect that if Rathie had believed that was what they did he would have objected. So what you are saying that it is possible that Fox edited the tapes to distort the report, but of course you have no evidence of that. And isn't that what your heros here at MMFA do everyday. They edited this story for example to claim that Fox was pushing a certain claim. Fox didn't push anything, Kurtz made a claim and Rathie was given the opportunity to refute it.
"Secondly, it is amazing to me that you think that ACORN was given a fair shake when the excerpt above has the ACORN founder on screen for about 40 seconds of a clip that is almost three and a half minutes"
Apparently you only watched the beginning, not surprising.
And, since you obviously didn't watch Rachel Maddow's series on ACORN, why would you expect I should have watched Fox's report?
I don't need to show any specific lies in the report I did not watch, since Fox has shown a consistent need to distort on all of their reporting. they lie in a very public way, too - like taking out advertisement to accuse other networks of not covering the 70,ooo people who marched on Washington. They even contradict themselves occasionally when they have failed to get together on their lies - reporting "thousands" of marchers on one report and millions on others.
A network that has struggled to tell the truth is not worthy of my time. Apparently it is worthy of yours.
You want a lie in that report? How about the lie that the CRA caused the financial crisis. It may be their opinion, but it is stated as fact - and it is disengenuous to use the founder of ACORN to refute economic theory when there are literally hundreds of economists available for the refutation. Don't be obtuse. This was an intentional shading of the story that Fox is famous for.
You and Fox deserve each other.
The number of conservative guests, the time they are allowed, and the unknown and outmatched "liberal" patsies they pick are all combined to convince the suckers they're seeing news.
But I think what's more important than all of that in this clip is another fundamental Fox tactic, presenting truth and fiction as equal and opposite positions on an issue, with no actual "journalism" or analysis taking place.
Faillib has kindly volunteered as a Fox subject.Notice the response to pointing out the dishonesty of this report, asking for a specific lie from the bobblehead Megyn Kelly.
If she did a 4 minute report that was made up of 3 1/2 minutes of a flat-earther, and half a minute of a guy saying the Earth is round, introduced with a description of the round-earther "defending" his views, she wouldn't need to lie at all.
And the typical Fox fan would be convinced that the earth was flat, and the report was accurate.
BTW, isn't a sequel to OutFoxed about due? I know they've become even worse over the past few years.
you imply that because congress cut funding that there must be something to the allegations but what you forget is that congress is weak and will do whatever is politicaly expedient. the proof of this is in healthcare reform. if congress had any spine at all we would already have the public option. you argue that because a few acorn employees offered some questionable advise to a fake hooker and pimp and that because some employees registered some fake voters that somehow the entire orginazation is corrupt. so then i guess you would agree that after what happened at Abu Ghraib and bagram airbase and gitmo that the entire military is corrupt. would you also agree that because of what KBR did to our soldiers in iraq should mean that we cut all funding and contracts to halliburton? the point is that nothing is a simple as the right would have us believe. there are many grey areas. please try to not always be so intellectualy lazy all the time.
Impeccable logic, as always, Faily.Congrats, you're the Fox "news" target demo.
Watch it again. It's all opinion and speculation, piled up to make you believe that the CRA was responsible for our current mess.
Because MMFA focuses on the main BS point that Fox is trying to push with this, and "ignores evidence" that is used to trick you, means that that "evidence" is all true ? You're really a pushover, aren't you?
It's mostly opinion, and opinions can't really be refuted, unless they're absolutely, objectively wrong, based on provable lies.
You use the words "evidence" and "false claims" here, saying that MMFA ignored things. But you never specify what this "evidence" is, or which claims you think can be proven true or false.
Do you understand this? It's what Fox "news" lives on, subjective opinions presented as fact. Their objective is to convince people like you that if somebody debunks only certain parts of their propaganda, then the rest "must all be true".
I am open -minded, though.
1. What "evidence" do you think MMFA ignored that needs to be addressed here ?
2. Which claims do you feel MMFA needs to dispute in order to not be in "tacit agreement" with them?
3. What "distortion" did MMFA present?
It is amazing that our supposedly rational, efficient and just free market system would be so vulnerable to the slightest tinkering by inner city activists. Can our financial and banking system be so vulnerable that mere incentives for poor potential homebuyers end up collapsing the entire system into a mess of imprudent and immoral decision making? Or has the financial system morphed into some kind of fragile structure that cannot tolerate any manipulation for the public good?
The real story here is that libertarian conservatives have had their way and liberalized the rules for the financial sector and created this mess. The idea that collective self interest automatically creates a collective good is a fantasy worthy of a Santa Claus cult among 8 year olds.
Of course A real and honest investigation into the cause of our current crises is a bad idea for Fox. After so many years of conservative government and compromise spineless blue dog moderates, life was not supposed to get worse. What was the quote? "They can't handle the truth". Even better, the truth is not in their best interest. Instead they round up the usual suspects.
Both brilliant. Thanks.
Looks like Faily has checked into this thread today, but cut & ran after dropping a little more of the same old stuff, and ignoring everything he couldn't BS his way around..
I thought the part where he accused others of "falling for" MMFA's "dishonesty" was cute.
Your statement is the first thing that needs addressing. Can you point to one statement made by Megyn Kelly in that report that was a lie? Come on just one.
I'll bet you can't. Your post isn't brilliant , it is delusional.
Try again, one lie, that should be easy for a brilliant person like you . And would anyone else like to point to one?
I'll wait.
When you're done with that, re-read eb's first paragraph.It answers your question.
I believe the term balderdash was used in the report (I'll give Fox credit for having the acorn founder on). The report blames the lowering of lending standards on efforts to help poor get homeloans. They claim that this was the root cause. That, sir, is a cheap shot if there every was one. The banks are using efforts to make them accountable to the communities they do business in as an excuse. Somehow acorn is to be blamed for their bad behavior. Is our financial system so fragil that it cannot tolerate any manipulation for the public good? I guess so. That should tell you something about ethics in an economy full of for profit institutions that are too big to fail.
Acorn is an advocacy group. They don't force the government or banks to do anything. For example, gun rights groups advocate permissive gun laws. Lawmakers still make the laws and fingers still pull the triggers. Are we to blame the gun advocates if someone gets a gun and shoot someone? Would you agree fox would never do this? What about the removal of the Glass/Steagall firewall? Should we apply the same scrutiny to the lobbyist and corporations that advocated for such reforms in the name of greater profit? It seems Fox would rather go after tiny little Acorn, slayer of our gargantuan yet fragile economy.
So my post is delusional because I find it odd that in a politcal and economic system full of titan sized organizations, little old Acorn slayed the beast with its slingshot? Is anyone surprised that Fox would go after the advocates for the poor to blame for our current crises?
In Foxworld, making it easier to give out loans in redlined communities gives the entire financial system cover to act recklessly. That is delusional and that is scapegoating. Ironically it is consistant with the conservative stereotype of liberals who blame everyone but themselves for their bad behavior and miserable conditions.
"BOO HOO HOO! ACORN made us swindle homebuyers into very profitable (for us) interest-only ballooning monthly payment mortgages which gave us profits in commissions (the bigger the house, the bigger the commissions) and massive profits SNORT! off of the payments in the early stages where we still virtually owned the entire value of the homes after several years of collecting. SNIIFF! Yeah ACORN made us do it. It was also horrible how they made us sell these risky loans to investors with AAA ratings. BOO HOO HOO! I'm sorry, I can't go on..."
Randy
It was the Wall Street investment banks, in collusion with the ratings agencies and the unscrupulous mortgage brokers. The mortgage brokers came up with the dumbest mortgages imaginable, sold the paper to the investment banks who in turn had the ratings agencies put a AAA rating on the securities and then sold them again. Then to add insult to injury the Bush administration with a Republican Congress told Fannie and Freddie to increase their holdings of sub prime and ALT-A paper, which their Wall Street buddies slapped (paid for) a AAA rating on.
Every mortgage that the CRA helped along had to be through a FDIC bank, which mostly stayed away from the real crazy mortgages. Mortgage brokers, investment banks are NOT FDIC institutions.
Oh by the way, why do you get to go back over 10 years to blame someone, and if a real liberal tries to go back 10 months to blame someone, you right wing crackpot nut-jobs go crazy?
"So Cleveland is suing Ameriquest Mortgage Co., Bank of America, Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Countrywide Financial, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank Trust Co., Fremont General Corp., GMAC-RFC, Goldman Sachs, Greenwich Capital Markets, HSBC Holdings, IndyMac Bancorp, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Novastar Financial, Option One Mortgage Corp., Washington Mutual, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo. (In a separate lawsuit, the city of Baltimore is also suing Wells Fargo for subprime devastation.)"
source=http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_7971836
"Across the country, attorneys general have already begun indicting dozens of loan processors, mortgage brokers and bank officers. Last week alone, there were guilty pleas in Minnesota, Delaware, North Carolina and Connecticut and sentences in Florida and Vermont — all stemming from home loan scams."
source=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/business/12crime.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=business
As should clearly be seen, the listed institutions do not meet the definition of a community bank (must be able to accept deposits in the community it serves at minimum) as defined by the CRA, therefore the CRA had nothing to do with the mortgage collapse.
The Ethics and Public Policy Center was established in 1976 to clarify and reinforce the bond between the Judeo-Christian moral tradition and the public debate over domestic and foreign policy issues.
Just a little ways down the front page is an article by Rick Santorum titled 'Who Will Connect The Dots?' He laments the investigation into the CIA torture of detainees, and apparently believes God wants us to keep torturing people because it's the only way to keep America safe.
"A lot of people got mortgages they really couldn't afford." How many? 100 people? 100,000 people? Out of millions? Was it a majority of those who received loans? Oh, wait. Don't bother dealing in facts. The only thing mildly surprising is that this person is willing to give some of the blame to Wall Street and the banking institutions at all.
Fox and it's surrogates don't want to talk about the last 8 years and the complete mess left over.
The only thing "conservatives" do in media is create an alternate reality for its followers
Got THAT right, p2p.
If the Fox Comedy Channel isn't constantly telling their sheep to be afraid of something {Obama, immigrants, czars, Muslims, etc.}, they're constantly telling them to be angry about something {Obama, immigrants, czars, Muslims, ACORN, etc.}
The damn poor people and their powerful poor lobbyists. Truly amazing what repetition on hate radio and Fox News can do to these people's brains. The us against them mentality is all-encompassing and it does not even matter who the "them" is. Beck and Limbaugh and O'Reilly could switch things around tomorrow and decide Rupert Murdoch is the enemy and fakeliberal would be right back on here attacking Murdoch. It is amazing.
What is causing all this economic upheaval in this country? Have we deregulated the market too much and turned Wall Street into a free-for-all casino? No, it's those powerful poor people keeping us down again. Wow. There is clearly no convincing these people of anything rational.
Silly me -- here I was thinking that spending $12 BILLION on a war for nonexistent WMDs and trying to fund it with tax cuts for the rich had, I dunno, a LITTLE somepin' to do with it . . .
Randy
1. The poor.
2. Liberals.
3. Liberalism.
4. Feminism.
5. Carter.
6. Clinton.
7. Obama.
8. Pelosi.
9. Reid.
10. Anyone but themselves or corporate America.
Randy
Read this article, titled: Bush seeks to increase minority homeownership
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/housing/2004-01-20-fha_x.htm
It begins, "In a bid to boost minority homeownership, President Bush will ask Congress for authority to eliminate the down-payment requirement for Federal Housing Administration loans."
Bush was actively attempting to increase the debt base among the disadvantaged by slackening the rules (a.k.a. oversight) so his Wall Street buddies could make oodles of money divesting themselves of the risk via derivatives.
Randy
The "party of personal responsibility" strikes again!!
The same way they used 9/11 as an excuse for everything, they now blame everything on ACORN . . .
Randy