(08-07-2018, 03:37 AM)jj82284 Wrote:

(08-06-2018, 10:16 PM)mikesez Wrote: Trump hasn't produced annual GDP over 3% either.


There were attempts to help non white people get more mortgages during the Clinton administration, and I don't doubt that Obama's time as an organizer in Chicago touched on that.  I also don't doubt that those mortgages made an outsized impact to our subprime lending crisis. However, white people were even bigger beneficiaries of that subprime lending.  The main government policy that caused the crisis of 2008 was the government looking the other way while subprime lenders packaged up those subprime loans and fraudulently sold them as A-rated assets and derivatives.

Besides, I could be wrong but I don't think Obama ever called anyone racist for opposing any of his particular policies.  He did talk about feeling  Didlike a victim of racism in his younger someyears, but that wasn't connected to policy. Of course the talking heads or legislators who carried water for him invoked racism more often.

1.) You're right.  More often than not the flawed policies designed to "help minorities" often either fail or help more white Americans.  Just look at the last half century.  

2.) Fannie Mae and Freddie mac were the driving engine of the mortgage crisis selling both mbs and liability swaps.  "Looked the other way" is another statement of economic ignorance.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (and the federal reserve) set the basic standards of what was perceived to be a conforming traditional loan and purchased some 50% + of all the paper that was written.  Prices communicate information about risk and perceived risk.  Frank Raines testified before Congress that he was so confident in the paper they were writing that he could envision keeping less than 1% cash on hand to cover potential losses.  It's no wonder derivatives were so dramatically under priced and under covered.  Central pricing is inherently inefficient and immune to market realities.  Central pricing of risk for social goals is economic SUICIDE.  

3.) You're right. He was smart enough to let other people say it for jim.  Go back and watch congressional hearings when Bush wanted to more tightly regulate Fannie and Freddie.

"Central pricing of risk for social goals" describes both FDIC and unemployment insurance, both of which are solvent.  It also describes Social Security and Medicare, which are less solvent but still unlikely to collapse in flames the way Frannie and Freddie did.
It is risky but when coupled with the right regulations and social norms it can work.
Fannie and Freddie were allowed to get way too big compared to their original purpose, and no one in government stopped that in the short term because what they were doing was very lucrative for everyone.

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