Liberal Forum

greatnpowerfuloz » 20 Feb 2016 8:43 pm » wrote: I'd find that too much torture. Revenge would start looking like an option.
Random thought: How could she marry such an ugly man?

TheAmerican » 21 Feb 2016 7:21 pm » wrote:Link?

The End Of The Ownership Society
February 14, 2009

The recent push to expand homeownership actually began with President Clinton’s ‘National Homeownership Strategy’ in 1995, after which the homeownership rate shot up 5 percentage points in the next decade (having remained stagnant for the three proceeding decades).

Yet while new initiatives to promote home ownership began under President Clinton, the Bush administration pushed hard for using “the mighty muscle of the federal government…to encourage owning your own home.” These measures included tax credits, down payment assistance, vouchers, financial education, regulatory reforms, and pressure on the private sector.

The Social Security privatization movement also became popular in the 1990s, when a number of bipartisan commissions, outside think tanks, and members of Congress began proposing that Social Security have a private accounts component. In running for President, George W. Bush advocated such accounts, and in the first State of the Union address of his second term, he argued that: President Bush put considerable political capital into both of these ideas. In 2002 he launched “America’s Homeownership Challenge to homebuilders, realtors, nonprofits, and government-sponsored enterprises that purchase the mortgages made by lenders” in order to “dismantle barriers to homeownership.”
In particular, the administration established the goal of fostering at least 5.5 million new minority homeowners, lifting the minority homeownership rate above 50%.

In 2005, after winning reelection, President Bush declared that he had “earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now intend[ed] to spend it…[and] reforming Social Security [would] be a priority of [his] administration.” This was followed by the launch of a massive effort to reform Social Security in which he and his surrogates toured the nation advocating for personal accounts.

Ultimately, both of these initiatives failed, although for different reasons.

Social Security privatization represented a political failure, demonstrating the limits of the ownership society’s popularity. Despite early favorable polls, a massive publicity campaign, Republican majorities in both houses, considerable outside support, and strong ideological commitment to reform, President Bush was unable to convince the Congress or the people to support the creation of Social Security private accounts. The large benefit reductions or tax increases necessary to restore solvency to Social Security and finance the accounts themselves made reform inherently unpopular. Meanwhile, think tanks and interest groups on the left launched an aggressive counter campaign to stop partial-privatization, which they argued would infuse unnecessary riskiness into workers’ retirement security, and ultimately “dismantle Social Security.” All this, combined with poor political decisions and bad luck, led supporters of personal accounts to fall flat on their faces. Although some type of Social Security reform remains inevitable, Bush’s failed effort has likely destroyed the chance of replacing part of the Social Security system with private accounts.

While Social Security failed politically, home ownership initiatives failed economically, demonstrating the real limits of ownership expansion. Increasing the homeownership rate required either making homes more affordable or raising real incomes for would-be homeowners. Yet with home values rising rapidly (as was desired) and real income stagnant, this meant reducing the price of or barriers to borrowing. Lending standards were therefore relaxed, as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and private investment firms began investing in high-risk Mortgage Backed Securities.

This new capital caused a large expansion of questionable loans, such as so-called sub-prime mortgages, many of which offered seemingly cheap loans to high risk borrowers who couldn’t afford them over the long run.

Ultimately, these mortgages collapsed under their own weight, bringing down global financial markets along with them. Incidents of foreclosure have skyrocketed, home values have plummeted, mortgage availability has disappeared for many Americans, and the prospect of an ever-expanding homeowning class seems to have become a thing of the past.

With the administration’s two largest ownership initiatives in shambles, conservative ownership advocates appear to have lost. The disastrous political fallout from Bush’s attempt at Social Security reform effectively erased private accounts from the debate, and the economic turmoil created from the housing crisis has made expanding homeownership both unpopular and economically untenable in the near future.

Whether or not the idea of the ownership society had value, it has been tainted. And the government’s participation in what is arguably the conceptual reverse of the ownership society – the $700 billion public purchase of private capital under the Troubled Asset Relief Program – will probably serve as the nail in the coffin.

- See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/6 ... xNDVw.dpuf

Misty » 21 Feb 2016 10:18 pm » wrote:I just found a fake Trump Tweet generator.

http://faketrumptweet.com/

Of course I don't really need it. I can make my own fake Trump Tweets.

Misty » 21 Feb 2016 8:31 pm » wrote:Posted here for TheAmerican who is clinging to the lie that the Democrats alone are responsible for the housing market crash, and has never heard of Bush's Home Ownership Society.

Misty » 21 Feb 2016 10:18 pm » wrote:

golfboy » 22 Feb 2016 8:28 am » wrote:
Not surprised you believe fracking does anything to drinking water.
Another anti-science liberal who doesn't understand how fracking is done.

Misty » 20 Feb 2016 8:37 pm » wrote: She admired him so much, but didn't even know his name.
I might start following her on Twitter just for fun.

golfboy » 22 Feb 2016 8:28 am » wrote:
Not surprised you believe fracking does anything to drinking water.
Another anti-science liberal who doesn't understand how fracking is done.

greatnpowerfuloz » 20 Feb 2016 8:43 pm » wrote:
I'd find that too much torture. Revenge would start looking like an option.

Random thought: How could she marry such an ugly man?

bingster » 22 Feb 2016 11:22 am » wrote: you mean the part about when they force water into the ground that infects the water table science part?

onlyaladd » 22 Feb 2016 10:48 am » wrote: Fracking Has Contaminated Drinking Water, EPA Now Concludes

onlyaladd » 22 Feb 2016 10:48 am » wrote: Fracking Has Contaminated Drinking Water, EPA Now Concludes

golfboy » 22 Feb 2016 1:16 pm » wrote: Again, if you don't know the science behind fracking, you really should shut up.
You're just embarrassing yourself.

Even the EPA has said there is no danger to ground water from fracking.
Educate yourself. Stop being a liberal.

The latest EPA report on fracking has led to an acute case of selective reading in the media, and the problem exists on both sides of the debate. In the end, the conclusion might be that more research is required.

Hydraulic fracturing, known commonly as fracking, has been at the center of a heated debate for many years. Proponents say that fracking and other new drilling techniques have ushered in a new oil and gas boom, which is quickly lessening U.S. dependence on foreign oil and improving the economy.

Opponents claim the practice contaminates drinking water and has other harmful environmental effects (like earthquakes), often using ignitable tap water as evidence.

The report from the environmental protection agency (EPA) was meant to declare a winner. Unfortunately, both sides found what they liked and ran with it.

Republican Senator Joseph Imhofe led the charge in a press statement.

“The EPA’s report on hydraulic fracturing confirms what we have known for over 60 years when the process began in Duncan, Oklahoma – hydraulic fracturing is safe.”

“This is the latest in a series of failed attempts by the administration to link hydraulic fracturing to systematic drinking water contamination.”

“This draft study provides solid scientific analysis that fracking has contaminated drinking water around the country… But despite the holes, it is clear EPA has found impacts — they just cannot be sure how widespread those impacts are.”