Battling R.W. Yahoo News article commenters - I could use help -- Financial crisis origins

[progree]

I've long noticed that right-wingers vastly numerically dominate the comments on news.yahoo.com news articles (below nearly every article is a comment section), especially on economic stories. I've been extremely very frustrated that when I do battle them, I'm almost always all alone, or if there are other liberal commentators, I'm the only one providing hard facts, e.g. GDP, unemployment rates and so on.

I'm embroiled in another one (under the name J o h n) -- on the origins of the financial crisis -- he's blaming Clinton and Janet Reno for enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act standards -- in so many words for forcing banks to lend to poor blacks -- as being the cause of the financial crisis.

I was unable to post my last comment -- it seems to accept my comment and then when I refresh the page it is gone. Anyway its at:

http://news.yahoo.com/u-regulator-said-slow-see-mortgage-servicing-risk-234155092--sector.html

Fortunately its a total of 3 commenters.

To see a more typical example, on Friday's payroll jobs report, with hundreds of comments, see for example:

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daniel-gross/may-jobs-report-disappoints-across-board-125911006.html

Why are so few liberals commenting? There are plenty of independent and swing voters who read the comments, and find only right-wing talking points, and assume that the left can't defend their positions but can only block intersections. Isn't the main purpose of Democratic Underground to elect Democratic candidates? How can we elect diddly squat if we spend all our time in our own safe little forums (err Groups) with like-minded people?

And when are we going to set up an liberal issues Wiki with talking points to counter right-wing talking points? And don't tell me all I have to do is Google, I spend tons of time researching -- if we worked together, we could have the data- and fact- driven with sources and links rebuttals to RW talking points all in one place?

I really, really don't want a 6-3 or 7-2 conservative-centrist Supreme Court. We have a big election in less than 5 months.

[progree]

1. A great resource - Mark Zandi's "Financial Shock" book online free

http://www.scribd.com/doc/86653095/Zandi-Financial-Shock-A-360%C2%B0-Look-at-the-Subprime-Mortgage-Implosion-2009

Many comment sections don't allow the posting of URLs, so on those websites, I say Google:
scribd.com Zandi - Financial Shock

Another good resouce: Google:
wikipedia subprime crisis

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Anyway, I thought I'd sure this find since in my original post I'm asking for help without giving anything in return. Actually, I've been accumulating a list of economic resources like the government websites for unemployment rates, initial rates for unemployment insurance, GDP, anything I can use if to rebut righties with facts. Not that I'll change any righties' minds, its the independents / swing voter that I'm concerned about. And to provide liberals with information and talking points. But really, this would be much more effective as a group project.

[sabrina 1]

6. On the CRA, the exact opposite is true. The sub prime mortgage crisis was the result

of mortgage companies not having to adhere to regulations. So they did not make loans to people who were subject to the CRA as it is REGULATED. In fact, because it is regulated, fewer loans made under the CRA were bad.

Community Reinvestment Act had nothing to do with subprime crisis

Fresh off the false and politicized attack on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, today we’re hearing the know-nothings blame the subprime crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act — a 30-year-old law that was actually weakened by the Bush administration just as the worst lending wave began. This is even more ridiculous than blaming Freddie and Fannie.

The Community Reinvestment Act, passed in 1977, requires banks to lend in the low-income neighborhoods where they take deposits. Just the idea that a lending crisis created from 2004 to 2007 was caused by a 1977 law is silly. But it’s even more ridiculous when you consider that most subprime loans were made by firms that aren’t subject to the CRA. University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr testified back in February before the House Committee on Financial Services that 50% of subprime loans were made by mortgage service companies not subject comprehensive federal supervision and another 30% were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts which are not subject to routine supervision or examinations. As former Fed Governor Ned Gramlich said in an August, 2007, speech shortly before he passed away: “In the subprime market where we badly need supervision, a majority of loans are made with very little supervision. It is like a city with a murder law, but no cops on the beat.”

Not surprisingly given the higher degree of supervision, loans made under the CRA program were made in a more responsible way than other subprime loans. CRA loans carried lower rates than other subprime loans and were less likely to end up securitized into the mortgage-backed securities that have caused so many losses, according to a recent study by the law firm Traiger & Hinckley (PDF file here).

First, ask him why from 1977 to 2004 even banks, initially reluctant to lend to minorities, but could no longer refuse once the CRA was passed, praised the success of the programs. Ask him how come so many, many mortgages were paid off that were loaned under the CRA.

Here's another quote from Robert Gordon, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and there are lots of links within that article from Business Week also:

It’s telling that, amid all the recent recriminations, even lenders have not fingered CRA. That’s because CRA didn’t bring about the reckless lending at the heart of the crisis. Just as sub-prime lending was exploding, CRA was losing force and relevance. And the worst offenders, the independent mortgage companies, were never subject to CRA — or any federal regulator. Law didn’t make them lend. The profit motive did. And that is not political correctness. It is correctness.

This is pure bigotry. This is why they went after ACORN also. ACORN came into existence during the Civil Rights era in order to help minorities buy homes eg, if they could afford them. They wanted to make sure the law was used as intended. Because of the regulations it was far less likely that irresponsible mortgages would have been approved under that law.

They just do not want to admit what actually caused the crisis. Which was DEREGULATION and the free-for-all they engaged in when there was no one to stop them.

The Right Wing has always hated the CRA because it made it possible for minorities to buy homes wherever they could afford them. The law was passed to stop 'redlining', the practice of not selling to minorities.

Clinton gave them what they wanted when he signed the Gramm/Blilely Act, ending Glass Steagal, but one thing he did refuse to do, which they wanted, was to end the CRA also. They are never satisfied. If anything contributed to the Crisis it was the Gramm/Blilely Act.

But don't expect him to acknowledge any facts, they never do. And he has reams and reams of rightwing publications that blame the CRA, but he cannot argue against the fact that it was deregulation that caused the crisis and loans made under the CRA were regulated.

[progree]

7. Thanks Thanks Thanks - lots more bulletpoints in there to throw at them! -NT

[sabrina 1]

10. Make sure to blame the Gramm/Blilely Act and the rescinding of the Glass Steagal Act

And Derivatives, ten years before the Meltdown, several people warned about what a time- bomb derivatives were after the end of Glass Steagal, but they were ignored.

Don't know if you ever saw this but it is really worth watching, if this doesn't make people angry, nothing will: The Warning

[meanit]

2. Yahoo comments is a sewer

Mostly right wing trolls and idiots. Gave up trying to reason with any of the clowns over there a while ago.
Good luck.

[progree]

4. Reasoning with the RW is not the purpose. Providing facts for independents / swing / left readers is

[bongbong]

3. Don't bother

It's a cesspoll over at yahoo. Literally filled with paid rightwing shills. Arguing online with a wingnut is, as many people have said, like paying chess with a pigeon. You win, he knocks all the pieces over, shits on the board, and flies away declaring "VICTORY!"

[progree]

5. Reasoning with the RW is not the purpose. Providing facts for independents / swing / left readers is

[OllieLotte]

8. There is plenty of blame to go around on this one.

To blame exclusively the banks, the borrowers or the government doesn't make sense. It give them each a pass doesn't make sense either in my opinion.

[sabrina 1]

9. Don't forget the SEC, whose job it was to oversee all of this, and failed miserably.

Bush's SEC. They were told by the FBI in 2005 that there was a lot of corruption going on in the mortgage lending business. The FBI requested more man power to handle the crisis. Bush did the opposite, removed some of the few who were on that job, claiming they were needed to 'fight terror'.

This was a deliberate, greed fest and yes, a lot of people joined, but there ARE the guys at the top who are the most responsible. Sort of like the Mafia, the guys at the bottom of the totem poll are to blame for their part, but they could not feed at the trough if it was not made available to them by the guys at the top.

Anyhow, the Senate Bi-Partisan Committee chaired by Levin spent two years investigating the causes of the Meltdown and issued their report about a year ago. It is quite detailed. They stated that there definitely evidence of 'criminal activity' and referred it to the DOJ. So far, we have heard no more about it.

[OllieLotte]

11. If we are naming men at the top.

Then Chris Dodd and Barney Frank should certainly get an honorable mention.

[sabrina 1]

12. Really? No Republicans to blame then?

Bush not to blame either for stopping the FBI investigation of the corruption in the mortgage industry?

Wall Street not to blame?

Henry Paulson?

Bernanke?

Goldman Sachs?

Just two Democrats?

[Egalitarian Thug]

13. I think so few liberals comment because we never go near Yahoo!

They just suck. Their software is so slow and bloated that it is practically unusable, and the company is being run into the ground by right-wing idiots.

I have a few friends left working @ Yahoo! and they're telling me the fastest way to get fired these days is to be too good at your job and/or express an other-than-right-wing opinion on anything.

[jtuck004]

14. It's like talking to someone who lives in the world where the South didn't lose.

But if your purpose is to pass info amid the noise of people who refuse to believe this was settled as a matter of fact in 2008...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/10/12/53802/private-sector-loans-not-fannie.html

You should have some pictures too:

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/11/examining-the-big-lie-how-the-facts-of-the-economic-crisis-stack-up/

CRA loans were less likely to default than sub-prime loans made from private borrowing and leverage. They improved the overall portfolio.

Will leaving millions of people vying for too few jobs improve this picture? We will see.

btw, when people bring up CRA it is often a not-so-subtle code word for "scary black people" - those CRA areas are in Compton, inner D.C.., not the foreclosed-into-devastation-suburbs of Vegas and other cities where the majority of the bad loans were...(look at the map in the Ritholtz link).

Racists, in other words, the kind that are sure O is gonna take away the guns. And they smile and wave at the black gal at work. Then they go get in their patrol car, or to their job at the mortgage office, and screw over black people when they can. I've met both. Worthless, and will be worthless no matter who is pres.

Anyway, how valuable it is to post stuff like this in a place they are likely just sniping in between watching free porn I am not sure.

[progree]

16. Thanks all for your help

Thanks again Sabrina. I found especially interesting the FBI investigation of mortgage industry corruption being squashed. (Better to use resources to go after the epidemic of voter fraud that is destroying our democracy {sarcasm} )

Many thanks to the whoevers who came out and commented on the http://news.yahoo.com/u-regulator-said-slow-see-mortgage-servicing-risk-234155092--sector.html thread as a result of this posting and the one in the DemUnd's Debunking Propaganda group -- it certainly shut that BelovedOfGod clown down. (Though maybe I finally got him when I asked him for just one example of Bush or anyone in his administration warning about loose lending standards or such).

Another right-wing meme is that the Bush economy was just fine until the "DemocRATs" took control of Congress in January 2007, but I haven't had any trouble with that --- by 2007, housing prices were already heading down from their June/July 2006 peak, and there were trillions of dollars of credit default swaps and collaterized mortgage obligations in bank portfolios ready to explode if housing prices underwent a sustain decline. Mortgage defaults rose steadily throughout 2006, from an annualized rate of 775,000 in Q4 2005 to 1,000,000 in Q4 2006, a 29% increase. And the Dems weren't the ones that created the exploding rate Option ARM mortgages or that gave AAA ratings to mortgage bonds that were full of toxic mortgages. Don't get me started on Bush's "ownership society", yada (I could add plenty more but that's another thread).

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Thanks jtuck004. Great stuff. I haven't had time to absorb it (I did read it), but I see a lot of good hard information there.

[font color=blue]jtuck004 } It's like talking to someone who lives in the world where the South didn't lose. ... But if your purpose is to pass info amid the noise of people who refuse to believe this was settled as a matter of fact in 2008... {[/font]

Right. I know I'm not going to change the mind of the person I'm arguing with.

In the http://news.yahoo.com/u-regulator-said-slow-see-mortgage-servicing-risk-234155092--sector.html thread, where I (J o h n) was battling BelovedOfGod, I know I'm not going to change his mind. Particularly in his case where he makes it ALL the Democrats' fault and absolutely none of it is the Republicans' fault, au contraire, for example, "Barney Frank and Chris Dodd fought every attempt by Bush to reign in these mortgages."

It’s the regular people who also read the comments, especially swing/independent people, that I'm writing for. Dumbass right-wing comments are what give me the opportunity to put the information out.

[font color=blue]jtuck004 } Anyway, how valuable it is to post stuff like this in a place they are likely just sniping in between watching free porn I am not sure. {[/font]

I don't think that characterizes most people who read the comments section. Though on the other hand, I snipe, and yes I watch free porn now and then. Anyway, is there a more efficient and less expensive way to put out the info? I have a lot of canned blurbs that take me about a minute to find, adapt, and post. Just to take one example, when some ConnedTard blames Obama for the admittedly poor economy, I respond with something like this:

It took 8 years for Bush to ruin the booming economy that Clinton handed him (and turn a budget surplus into a near doubling of the national debt (1.86-fold increase, thanks Bush), and you CONNEDservatives are complaining that Obama hasn't completely reversed 8 years of Republican economic ruination in 3 1/2 years? Do you really want to hand the keys back to the people who drove the economy off the cliff? When Bush left office, he handed Obama an economy that had already shed 4.3 million jobs in Bush's last 10 months, and the GDP was contracting at a 8.9% annual rate (Q4 2008). At the end of the Bush presidency, the unemployment rate was 3.5 percentage points higher than when he began his presidency.

Ruinous Republican policies also drove the U.S. stock market (S&P 500) down 37% during those 8 Bush years -- from 1343 to 850. As an investor, I'd rather go with Obama -- its up to 1278 as of Friday 6/1 close, up 50% since he took office. (Google: Historical Prices - Yahoo Finance S&P 500 ). Clearly the business and investor community has a lot more confidence in Obama than it did in Bush.

Not used in above for brevity, but could have been:

* At least Obama stabilized the economy, even grew it some, so that it is now higher than it was at the peak in 2007 before the crash.
* The economy Bush handed to Obama was losing 760,000 jobs a month (the average of the last 3 months of the Bush presidency)
* Under Bush, the Civilian Labor Force Participation rate fell 1.5 percentage points (had it stayed the same, the unemployment rate would have been much worse)
* Under Obama there has been 25 straight months of private sector job growth.
* 2.5 million payroll jobs have been created under Obama since June 2009 (that's when the recession ended according to the NBER, and only 5 months since Obama took office) (thru May 2012 with April and May preliminary) . Bush only created 1.1 million payroll jobs in his entire 8 year presidency
* 3.1 million private sector jobs were created under Obama since June 2009 (contrast that to Bush destroying 0.7 million private sector jobs during his presidency)

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Again, its not meant for the CONNEDservative goobers but for independents and lefties.

Re: what some have said about Yahoo News, I should say the comments are not as imbalanced, and especially the thumbs up and thumbs down votes, as I indicated in my original post. On economic stories, the right dominates maybe 8 to 1 (because the Obama campaign and Dems generally, even progressive talk radio do an extremely poor job on this -- have you ever heard any of these talk about, for example the roaring Obama bull market in stocks (up over 50% in Obama's 3 1/2 years)? Anyway, judging from thumbs up and thumbs down the balance of readers of the comment pages is a more reasonable 2 to 1. On non-economic stories, the imbalance is much less, even close to even on some stories.