This one is going to hurt

[The Big Dog]

Or at least it should... I'm waiting for the campaign to deny that it's Barack's voice.

Link

[jgaffney]

It will be hard to deny it when the speech is published on the Obama website:

Subprime lending started off as a good idea - helping Americans buy homes who couldn't previously afford to. Financial institutions created new financial instruments that could securitize these loans, slice them into finer and finer risk categories and spread them out among investors around the country and around the world.

In theory, this should have allowed mortgage lending to be less risky and more diversified. But as certain lenders and brokers began to see how much money could be made, they began to lower their standards. Some appraisers began inflating their estimates to get the deals done. Some borrowers started claiming income they didn't have just to qualify for the loans, and some were engaging in irresponsible speculation. But many borrowers were tricked into glossing over the fine print. And ratings agencies began rating bundles of different kinds of these loans as low-risk even though they were very high-risk.

Most everyone knew that some of these deals were just too good to be true, but all that money flowing in made it tempting to look the other way and ignore the unscrupulous practice of some bad actors

And yet, time and again we were warned this could happen. Ned Gramlich, the former Fed governor who sadly passed away two weeks ago, wrote an entire book predicting this very situation. Repeated calls for better disclosure and stronger oversight were met with millions in mortgage industry lobbying. Far too many continued to put their own short-term gain ahead of what they knew the long-term consequences would be when those rates exploded.

Sen. Obama conveniently leaves a couple of crucial points out of this speech:

First, Sen. Obama is the second-highest recipient of funds from Fannie and Freddie, according to OpenSecrets.org. I guess Sen. Obama figures that the faithful will take him at his word, and the rest of us are too dumb to find out the truth. Obama Lies.

Second, Sen. Obama leaves out the history of the Democrats blocking efforts by the Republicans to have more oversight on Fannie and Freddie. Everyone has seen the video of the 2004 House hearing on the report of the regulators, right? It's only fitting that Rep. Maxine Waters and the other two, black congressmen turn it into a racial witchhunt against Franklin Raines, rather than face up to the truth that their boy is cooking the books in order to pump up his bonus check. Obama Lies.

Come on, Barry, it's the 21st Century. Did you think we wouldn't be able to uncover this stuff?