wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Comments

• [1] robert from new york September 30, 2008 - 01:04PM

  dear mr. lopate

  hi,

  in these days of "country first" slogans delivered by president nominees how looked members of house of representatives, going for the vacation in the time, when their country was in crisis. i was and still am so disappointed, not to use the stronger word. how can we trust these people in a future? robert

  
  
• [2] Dan from NJ September 30, 2008 - 01:11PM

  Please ask about the role of the Community Reinvestment Act in this situation. The right wing extremists are pushing it as a major factor.

  Thanks.

  
  
• [3] erick from Rochester, NY September 30, 2008 - 01:12PM

  Can you please ask your guest to explain why it is that people and businesses who were credit worthy before the whole "sub prime mortgage meltdown" are somehow suddenly not credit worthy? Do sub-prime mortgage backed securities make up so much of the market that it led to this problem? Is this all just the result of excessive speculation?

  
  
• [4] Chicago Listener September 30, 2008 - 01:15PM

  if home loans are being sliced, packaged and re-sold, what does it mean to a homeowner when the company to which the homeowner is sending checks goes bust?

  what happens if other banks don't step in to pick up the pieces?

  obviously, one doesn;t just suddenly own the house free and clear.

  what happens to homeowners in these situations?

  
  
• [5] Joe from Virginia October 01, 2008 - 05:41PM

  Wow, classic liberal analysis...talk about a lot of tangential but irrelevant issues....

  1977 Community Reinvestment Act.

  1990s:Clinton/Democrats/liberals pushed banks, using CRA, to write mortgages to "sub-prime" borrowers; i.e. people who normally wouldnt qualify.

  See NYT: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

  Banks, looking for a way to keep "sub-prime/bad loans" off their books, turned to Wall Street

  Wall Street said "securitize" them & sell them to investors. [Collateralized Debt Obligations - "CDOs"]. Securitizing spreads risk around so no one company/person/entity holds the bag.

  The CDOs, were "leveraged up", which means they borrowed against, sometimes many times the value...

  Ratings agencies rated these CDOs as top notch, that's how institutions were able to leverage CDOs. {These agencies now rate the CDOs far lower...}

  The Fed/Greenspan kept the "House Party" going by keeping rates low for too long...

  Inflation became a concern, the Fed turned off the tap... The House Party died.

  And the hangover began...because.

  The cost one bank charges another is based on the borrowing bank balance sheet. If it's bad, i.e. they owe too much relative to their assets, it costs them more to borrow.

  If banks stop lending/borrowing to one another, they cant lend/borrow to businesses.

  And our modern economy comes to a stop...

  
  
• [6] texas poker from http://www.texaspokerhome.com/ January 14, 2009 - 02:42AM

  At the time of financial crises we need to come together united and try to solve the problems which are responsible for such a hazard. We need to overcome it. It is meant to bring calm to the population and markets and display government strength and stability.