Some Ideas Are So Bad...

Some Ideas Are So Bad...

That we need to repeat them. Hans Bader has a piece here pointing out that the Obama Administration's "reforms" continue the disaster that created the current economic crisis:

The mortgage crisis was caused largely by the reckless government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and by federal affordable-housing mandates. But Obama’s proposed financial rules overhaul does absolutely nothing about Fannie and Freddie, admits Obama’s Treasury Secretary, tax cheat Timothy Geithner, even though he admits that “Fannie and Freddie were a core part of what went wrong in our system.” Worse, Obama’s plan is “largely the product of extensive conversations” with two lawmakers responsible for the corrupt status quo, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, and it expands the reach of regulations that have been used by left-wing groups to extort pay-offs from banks.

(Fannie Mae engaged in massive fraud and political bullying to thwart reform. It and Freddie Mac lost so much money gambling on the housing market that they were taken over by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which took them over in the name of ending their risky practices, but instead actually increased their purchases of risky mortgage loans in an effort to artificially prop up the housing market. Obama made Freddie Mac lose $30 billion more after the takeover in order to write off mortgage loans to delinquent mortgage borrowers.)

Worse, Obama’s proposed regulatory blueprint actually increases the pressure on banks to make risky mortgage loans to low-income borrowers, by ratcheting up enforcement of regulations mandating such lending under the Community Reinvestment Act, which was a key contributor to the financial crisis. His financial regulation overhaul would create a new bureaucratic agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, to enforce the Act without regard for banks’ financial safety and soundness.

It's enough to make you wonder if Obama is trying to destroy this country. But perhaps I'm giving Obama too much credit for cunning.