September 30 1999

[cottonpicken]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F9582 60&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

Why is something so scary so funny?

[FarmRanger]

Good catch cotton. Quotes from the 1999 article:

“In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.”

“Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.”

“By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.” They were hoping to achieve this inevitable result in 1999??? Clinton lit the fuse on a time bomb.

And back to today - Democrat house leader Nancy Pelosi’s spin on the $700 billion bailout:
“It is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush Administration’s failed economic policies—policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system.”