It's Biden ...

jimpeel

Well-Known Member
Anyone remember THIS THREAD?

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5670703&page=1

Should Biden Share Blame for Foreclosure Crisis?

Experts: Many Americans Lost Homes Due to a Bill Championed by Biden

By JUSTIN ROOD
August 28, 2008

Experts say hundreds of thousands of Americans may have lost their homes due to a bill championed by Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., Barack Obama's vice-presidential running mate.

At least two studies have concluded that the United States' foreclosure crisis was exacerbated by a 2005 law that overhauled the nation's bankruptcy law. That conclusion is echoed by other experts, although the banking and credit industry disputes it.

Congressional Republicans drove the effort to pass the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) of 2005. But Biden – who has enjoyed hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from credit industry executives – endorsed the measure early on and worked to gather Democratic support for it.

Biden's early and vocal support was "essential" to the bill's passage, said Travis Plunkett of the Washington D.C.-based advocacy group Consumer Federation, which opposed the measure. Biden "went out of his way to undermine criticism of the legislation," and his efforts helped convince other Democrats to support the bill.

"Biden was a fairly strong proponent of that bankruptcy bill," said Philip Corwin, a consultant for the American Bankers Association, which represents banks and lenders. However, Biden was "not in our pocket in any way," he added.

Biden's Senate office did not provide comment for this story.

Asked if the Obama/Biden campaign was concerned Biden's record was a liability when discussing economic security, David Wade, a spokesman for the Obama/Biden campaign, said, "Barack Obama and Joe Biden have real solutions for struggling families in danger of losing their homes because of the Bush economy and abusive lending practices."

BAPCPA "is directly responsible for the rising foreclosure rate since the end of 2005," concluded a 2007 study by Credit Suisse. The law "increased foreclosures and the number of homes for sale," echoed a July 2008 study by U.S. Treasury researcher David Bernstein. That study estimated the law had pushed foreclosures or forced sales on 200,000 homeowners since it went into effect, but noted that was a rough, "back-of-the-envelope" calculation.

"Trying to tie the forclosure crisis to the [2005 bankruptcy] bill is a stretch," said the ABA's Corwin. Corwin called the Credit Suisse report "junk" and said the Bernstein study wasn't "worth the paper it was written on."

The head author of the 2007 Credit Suisse report clarified his earlier findings in an email Wednesday. "The law likely contributed to increased foreclosures early on," said researcher Don Ravitsky, but combined with other key factors, including subprime lending practices, to create the current crisis. Bernstein did not respond to a request for an interview.

The bill was backed by banks and credit card companies including MBNA, which is headquartered in Delaware, Biden's home state. They wanted the bill because it would make it harder for Americans to use bankruptcy to avoid repaying credit card debt. MBNA executives had been Biden's single largest source of campaign donations, and MBNA has employed Biden's son Hunter as a company executive, lobbyist and consultant. The Obama campaign has said Hunter Biden did no work for MBNA on the bankruptcy bill. MBNA has since been bought by Bank of America.

Over the past two years, sub-prime mortgage borrowing and a weakening economy have pushed increasing numbers of Americans into dire financial straits. Under the old rules, many could have declared bankruptcy, shed much of their debt, restructured their mortgages and held onto their homes, according to experts and the two reports.

But the 2005 law Biden championed made it more expensive and more difficult to declare bankruptcy, experts conclude. That forced hundreds of thousands of distressed homeowners to sell their homes, or default on their mortgages, after which the bank would sell their former home, according to the studies. That flood of homes going up for sale in an already-weakening market further depressed home prices, according to the two reports, snowballing into the current crisis.

BAPCPA "increased home foreclosures, increased the dollar value of financial assets in default, and put additional downward price pressure on real estate markets," concluded the Bernstein report. Bernstein conducted the report as an individual, not as a representative the Treasury Department.
 

Cerise

Well-Known Member
don't forget that you're far less prone to moronic, cowboy grab-the-bull-by-the-cock bullshit type foreign policy, too.

Yes. It would have be much more reassuring these past 7 years to listen to the dulcet tones of Americans shrieking in horror as major U.S. cities are targeted by radical Islamic suicide bombers. :rolleyes:
 

Gonz

molṑn labé
Staff member
i used to buy fattoush and hommous from a guy that turned to to have funneled $20 mil to hizballah. i must be guilty of that, too.

Did you know he was a terrorist? Did you continue to interact upon learning he was a terrorist? Did you launch your career with his blessings & his help?

It's not what Ayres did (well, it is but that's not the point) it's the fact that Obama continually interacts with these people on a personal & professional level.
 

2minkey

bootlicker
Did you know he was a terrorist? Did you continue to interact upon learning he was a terrorist? Did you launch your career with his blessings & his help?

It's not what Ayres did (well, it is but that's not the point) it's the fact that Obama continually interacts with these people on a personal & professional level.

yeah we kissed a lot too.

one morning i woke kinda groggy, my t-shirt was pushed up into my armpits, and my butt was all greasy.

nah but seriously i figured there was some money being sent back to the home country to support legitimate political parties, with elected officials in state gubmints.

wake up and smell the horsemeat, chimpypants.
 

spike

New Member
It's not what Ayres did (well, it is but that's not the point) it's the fact that Obama continually interacts with these people on a personal & professional level.

Yes, you have to be republican for Gonz to approve of you continually interacting with bad people on a personal and professional level.

Then he'll make excuses all day long for you no matter what they do.
 

2minkey

bootlicker
yep i'm practicing to be a parrot just like you.

*brrraawwwkkkkk.... polly wanna it's the constitution braawwwwkkk cracker*
*brawwwwkkkk... fucking illegals.... (poops) brawwwkkkk...*
 

Cerise

Well-Known Member
yep i'm practicing to be a parrot just like you.

*brrraawwwkkkkk.... polly wanna it's the constitution braawwwwkkk cracker*
*brawwwwkkkk... fucking illegals.... (poops) brawwwkkkk...*

You should wash that parrot's beak out with soap. It sounds like he's calling brawwwwkkkk a cracker.
 

jimpeel

Well-Known Member
The Obama - Ayers connection must be hitting a nerve if they are willing to try to shut down a radio station trying to guest the author of the report on that connection.

Note that this story is from the L.A. Times. Those rotten conservative bastards!!

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/08/obama-wgn.html

As nation watches Denver, Obama campaign muscles Chicago station over ex-radical Ayres

In a surprising attempt to stifle broadcast criticism of its candidate, the presidential campaign of freshman Illinois senator Barack Obama is organizing supporters to confront Chicago's WGN radio station for having a critic of the Illinois Democrat on its main evening discussion program.

"WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears," Obama's campaign wrote in an e-mail sent to supporters. "He's currently scheduled to spend a solid two-hour block from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. (Wednesday night) pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers."

Kurtz, a conservative writer, recently wrote an article for the National Review that examined Obama's ties to Ayers, a former 1960s radical who helped found a protest group that advocated violence.

The magazine was blocked in its initial attempts to obtain records from the University of Illinois at Chicago regarding the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform project that Obama chaired and Ayers co-founded.

As The Ticket reported here, the school later reserved its position and opened the records Tuesday. Media organizations are poring over scores of boxes of documents to study the Obama-Ayres relationship, which the senator has described as merely casual.

Obama's campaign is urging supporters to call the radio station to complain. "Tell WGN that....

...by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse," the note said.

WGN, like the Chicago Tribune and The Times, is owned by Tribune Co. As a clear-channel station at 720 on the AM dial, WGN's signal reaches dozens of states. Such efforts to prevent programs often backfire by calling even more public attention to the controversy.

"It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves," the note continued. "At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz's lies."

Zack Christenson, executive producer of the longrunning interview program "Extension 720 with Milt Rosenburg," said the response from Obama supporters was strong. Rosenberg like Ayres is a college professor.

"I would say this is the biggest response we've ever got from a campaign or a candidate," said Christenson. "This is really unprecedented with the show, the way that people are flooding the calls and our email boxes."

Christenson also stressed that the Obama campaign was invited to send a representative to appear on the show to balance the discussion of the newly-opened documents. But the campaign headquarters just down Michigan Avenue from the station refused the request. This is not the first time Obama's organization has sought to steer supporters to influence a broadcast outlet airing criticism.

Our colleagues John McCormick and Steve Schmadeke have more details on this brewing controversy at the Swamp.

--Andrew Malcolm
 

2minkey

bootlicker
anyone who has never had a healthy encounter with radicalism is not worth shit in any conversation about comparative politics. though, for some, ideological inbreeding is satisfying enough. and those folks are valuable. we need someone to sweep the floors.
 

Kruz

New Member
yep i'm practicing to be a parrot just like you.

*brrraawwwkkkkk.... polly wanna it's the constitution braawwwwkkk cracker*
*brawwwwkkkk... fucking illegals.... (poops) brawwwkkkk...*

Thats what I hear all day long
 
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