It’s All Connected, Man
Peter Kirsanow channels Stanley Kurtz and explains how the Bill Ayers and Barack Obama are to blame for the economic crisis:
Obama and Ayers serve together on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge where they funnel tons of cash to finance ACORN —>
ACORN pressures banks (through, among other things,CRA-related complaints) to extend high risk mortgages to risky customers —>
ACORN also works with Democrats in Congress and others to pressure Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to further loosen credit standards, spreading the contagion of high-risk credit practices to the broader financial markets —>
Subprime mess—credit markets emergency.
I have an alternative chart:
McCain campaigns for Bush’s election in 2000 & 2004 — >
Bush, as President, is responsible for trying to avoid catastrophic economic collapse — >
Catastrophic economic collapse — >
McCain proposes responding by continuing and intensifying Bush-style economic policies, plus additional free money for irresponsible lenders.
But who knows, maybe Bill Ayers has been a more powerful influence over the economy over the past eight years than George W. Bush.
38 Responses to “It’s All Connected, Man”
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October 10th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Well that’s just silly. Everyone knows that my neighbor’s cat is responsible for the financial crisis. But it’s not responsible for that last hail storm. You can blame Clinton for that.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Who blessed the unregulated derivatives market? Jeremiah Wright or Phil Gramm? I forget.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
OMG! They haz deployed the ex-Black Panther turned Trotskyite right winger David Horowitz’ “Discover the Networks” tool to show how secretly Barack Obama is about to kick their a**es.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I’m waiting for somebody to explain how (1) economic collapse helps the Democrats win, and (2) therefore the Republicans triggered the economic collapse so they could blame it on scheming Democrats (see 1). We’re almost to that level of nuttiness.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
One benefit of the financial crisis and the election is that we’re seeing the Republicans take self-parody and unintentional comedy to new, uncharted heights. I honestly thought the Ayers to economic crisis flow chart was a joke, only it’s clearly not.
I’ve always been nervous about the power of the right wing media echo chamber to pull the country rightward. Now it has become so detached from reality it’s turned the entire hard-core right wing into a complete fucking joke. They make the 9/11 truthers look like a bunch of steely pragmatists.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I thought this was a lame parody, because no one could be crazy enough to even try to make those connections.
Then I clicked on the link.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I am waiting for the Republicans to argue that it’s all the fault of FDR and the New Deal. If we had just re-elected Hoover, then the Depression could have continued forever and none of this owuld have happened.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
The American right is in deep trouble. Deep deep trouble. It’s a deeply intellectually bankrupt group, and they’re very very dangerous.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I am waiting for the Republicans to argue that it’s all the fault of FDR and the New Deal. If we had just re-elected Hoover, then the Depression could have continued forever and none of this would have happened.
If you really want to get into the Democrats’ treasonous history of putting self-promotion over the country’s economic health, you have to go all the way back to Aaron Burr.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Everybody across the political spectrum was in on pushing easy mortgage credit for minority and low income home buyers. Here’s George W. Bush on June 18, 2002.
“The goal is, everybody who wants to own a home has got a shot at doing so. The problem is we have what we call a homeownership gap in America. Three-quarters of Anglos own their homes, and yet less than 50 percent of African Americans and Hispanics own homes. … So I’ve set this goal for the country. We want 5.5 million more homeowners by 2010—million more minority homeowners by 2010. (Applause.) … ” …
“Well, probably the single barrier to first-time homeownership is high down payments. ”
“People take a look at the down payment, they say that’s too high, I’m not buying. They may have the desire to buy, but they don’t have the wherewithal to handle the down payment. We can deal with that. And so I’ve asked Congress to fully fund an American Dream down payment fund which will help a low-income family to qualify to buy, to buy. (Applause.)”
But, ACORN, which is basically a shakeout racket in the Jesse Jackson tradition, deserves its share of the blame too.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Maybe it goes without saying, but IMO the point of these allegations (and the other stuff blaming the CRA, smart growth, etc.) is not to persuade anyone who thinks logically about the issue. Rather it’s to allow people like my 87YO parents, who are basically one-issue (abortion) and emotional (they still resent FDR) voters to avoid confronting the fact that they are willing to accept all the bad consequences of electing Republicans, including the war deaths, the income inequality, and the fiscal and financial stupidity in exchange for their one issue and their resentment. If the wingnut pundits didn’t come up with these “reasons” why it’s all the Democrats’ fault, then folks like my parents might have to face the consequences of their choices. As it is, they can continue to deny them.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Steve Sailer (yes, I know, “bad man!”) has posted a link here a few times detailing a similar Rove/Bush role in the first chart. Clearly those “two” sides took actions that caused problems. It’s a shame – but not at all unexpected – that MattY isn’t able to discuss such issues in a grown-up fashion. If he disagrees with the extent to which ACORN/Rove are responsible, then he should be able to come up with some sort of counterargument.
As for the wider issue, perhaps MattY could care to tell us why he supports a media that consistently lies, misleads, and ignores facts in order to support their favored candidate. Isn’t that more than a bit reminiscent of how things are done in more totalitarian countries? Why does he implicitly support that?
To the barricades, MattY, and tell us why the MSM refuses to discuss that Barack Obama was a member of a Party that described themselves as ’socialist democratic’.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
So, Obama and Ayers were able to do what bin Laden couldn’t; trigger the financial meltdown of our economy. It must be a conspiracy. Call Ollie Stone. No wait, call Ollie North!
Seriously, this would be laughable if it didn’t inspire the hatred of the right’s wingnuts. We’re getting into very dangerous territory. So much for putting country first, Senator McCain.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
This nonsense about ACORN sharing the blame may be even sillier than the Bill Ayers sh*t. I haven’t made up my mind.
But then, this problem all came from poor and black folk who Jimmy Carter and Franklin Raines let sneak in and steal $700 billion in credit default swap mortgage-backed securities.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Idiot.Whacko.Moron – the reason no one pays any attention to the “bad man” is that he has demonstrated himself to be, again and again, a vile racist (not, redundant, he’s not just racist but is a particularly virulent and spectacularly vile racist). Character counts – once you have demonstrated that you have no credibility it is very hard to be taken seriously even if you are right (and there’s no reason to believe he is, now or ever). He’s a lot like you. A nitwit who is shunned by polite company for repeatedly smearing feces all over the board.
October 10th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
And all you sh*t-heads whining about Barack Obama was maybe one time in a socialist party or stood near them or looked at ‘em funny, it’s your f***ing right wing Republican president who is seizing the means of financial production, you f***ing brainless pieces of sh*t.
October 10th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
El Cid: thank you for your reasoned discussion. However, I’ve been against Bush for over four years. TomTancredo is my president.
On an unrelated note, anyone remember “Yave Begnet”? I thought that was his real name, but now he’s revealed who he really is. As it turns out – surprise! – he’s an imm. lawyer working for an NGO: immigration.change.org (Oddly enough, my request for a commenting account doesn’t appear to have gone through).
Also, this just in: Barack Obama lied about his involvement with ACORN.
I think it’s time for the Democratic Party and its hacks like MattY to think of reputation management. All the facts about BHO are going to come out, and the Dems are going to look really, really bad when they do.
October 10th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
The greatest American leaps toward socialism have occurred in the wake of financial crises created by the right-wing love affair with the “free market”.
So, by the logic of the modern GOP, that means we should accuse right-wingers of being covert socialists.
October 10th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
ATTN right wing douchebags: Fine, keep up your lunatic screaming about ACORN, but nobody except right wing douchebags who never, ever would vote for black man Obama in the first place.
There is nothing to deny about ACORN. No one cares what you lunatics believe about it.
And to the Tancredo nut, no, you are not worthy of the slightest reasoned debate. You just aren’t. You’re like those crazy nutballs who waste mathematicians’ time insisting that, oh yes, they’ve really figured out how to square the circle (or whatever other obsession) — no, it doesn’t mean the oppressive mean old Big Math establishment is against your heroic freedom of thought when they tell you to f*** off.
October 10th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
The point isn’t Ayers or ACORN. The point is to keep coming up with bogeymen. It was what the tried to do with Clinton. Make ‘em come up with something to deny.
October 10th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I think it’s time for MattY to admit that he works for the MexicanGovernment. I will be asking hard questions on this once I leave my mother’s basement to suck TomTancredo’s white cock.
October 10th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
This just in – The Lone Wacko is still a wacko and an idiot racist.
Also
Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
No hotter potato for the GOP than (kinda) creative blame shifting.
If the housing bubble were just a housing bubble, I’d say maybe the push to give unqualified borrowers loans was partially to blame.
But does anyone really believe that ACORN wrenched the arms of bankers and speculators to package and repackage debt with inflated ratings and gamble on it with easy money from excessive leverage and too low interest rates?
Wasn’t Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae gypped by liar-loans made by banks and finance companies?
Is Acorn a more powerful economic influence than the Federal Reserve? Or the effects of regulations on Wall Street?
The financial elite are screaming “crisis” and “meltdown” and “depression”! All because of little Acorn.
Guffah!
October 10th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I’ve just crunched the numbers from the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act database, and the total dollar value of home purchase mortgages (prime and subprime aggregated together) originated by Hispanics increased eightfold from 1999 to 2006. Dollars were up fivefold for blacks, but only threefold for Asians, who mostly stayed away from the subprime follies. Dollars going to whites about doubled over those seven years. In 2006, minorities accounted for slightly more new mortgage dollars (35%) than their share of the population and about the same for refinancings.
More than anything else, this was a Hispanic Housing Bubble.
Obviously, the world was overleveraged from Wall Street to Main Street to the slums, but when the dust clears, I predict that we will find that the unexpected mortgage defaults in America, with California in the lead, that set off the Great Crash were majority minority in dollar value.
If you don’t believe me, go crunch the numbers yourself here:
http://www.ffiec.gov/hmdaadwebreport/NatAggWelcome.aspx
October 10th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Since I’m sure you are all rushing to that federal database to check out the validity of my findings, I’ll point out that the table you want is “4-2 Conventional Purchases by Race” for 2006 and for 1999.
After all, nobody would imagine that Yglesias readers would prefer to merely spout hate-filled rhetoric when they could be discovering quantitative facts!
October 10th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Time, I think, to quote Hilzoy on the subject of Andy McCarthy’s similar argument that Obama has actually been, for decades, a Secret Pinko ( http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/10/round-the-bend.html ):
“[McCarthy]: ‘Obama’s radicalism, beginning with his Alinski/ACORN/community organizer period, is a bottom-up socialism. This, I’d suggest, is why he fits comfortably with Ayers, who (especially now) is more Maoist than Stalinist. What Obama is about is infiltrating (and training others to infiltrate) bourgeois institutions in order to change them from within — in essence, using the system to supplant the system. A key requirement of this stealthy approach (very consistent with talking vaporously about ‘change’ but never getting more specific than absolutely necessary) is electability. With an enormous assist from the media, which does not press him for specifics, Obama has walked this line brilliantly. Absent convincing retractions of his prior radical positions, though, we should construe shrewd moves like his ostensibly reasonable Second Amendment position as efforts to make him electable.
” ‘This is why Ayers is so important: it is a peek behind the curtain of Obama’s rhetoric.’
“So, if I understand this correctly: Barack Obama is in fact a radical; if not himself a Maoist, then at least someone who ‘fits comfortably’ with people who are ‘more Maoist than Stalinist.’ But he is disguising this fact in order to infiltrate bourgeois institutions and implement his radical vision from within. A quiescent media does not press him for specifics, thereby allowing his centrist disguise to go unquestioned. Only his relationship with Bill Ayers allows us ‘a peek behind the curtain.’
“This is delusional. It would be interesting to ask, for instance, why so few of Obama’s law students have come forward to talk about his attempt to transform them into Maoist cadres, or why the lawyers in his firm have not mentioned his commitment to cultural revolution, or how he has managed to conceal his desire to nationalize the means of production from, well, everyone. Was he secretly plotting to get asked, unexpectedly, to speak at the Democratic Convention, take a chance on running for President, and succeed, back when he was on the Harvard Law Review? That, plus absolutely iron self-control, might explain why no one caught a glimpse of Obama’s secret radicalism: he has been concealing it for decades, the better to bore away at our bourgeois institutions.”
As for Obama’s (extremely loose) connection with Ayers: time, I think, to compare it with McCain’s connection with G. Gordon Liddy (complete with gushing comments from McCain about Liddy on his radio show last November): http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped0504chapmanmay04,0,6238795.column . (Wikipedia’s biography of Liddy serves as a useful prelude.)
October 10th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Yeah, right Steve @24. There is a global banking crisis because of the housing loans made to Hispanics in the U.S.
And there’s a pea under your mattress that could be devastating.
October 10th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Check the numbers.
The financial markets foolishly built a mountain of leverage balanced on top of the pebble of probability that subprime and other dubious mortgages would ever get paid back. The Clinton and Bush Administrations wanted to raise minority homeownership rates by lowering down payment requirements and the like. So hundreds of billions of additional dollars flowed to minorities in the bubble years than just a few years earlier. An awful lot of that couldn’t possibly have been paid back unless California housing prices went up forever.
October 10th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
The leveraged instruments were traded on bets that housing values would continue rising forever — it was not related to whether or not people could pay the mortgage as normal mortgages are paid.
You could have had the mortgages sold without Phil Gramm deregulating the credit default swap market in December 2000.
You even could have had foreclosures.
But you wouldn’t have had the spiraling chaos that we’re undergoing had it not been for the purely financial instruments maliciously built out of a deregulated market.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Yeah. What El Cid said.
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