I thought it was Bush's fault??

[tRidiot]

I'm only wondering how low mortgage interest rates contributed to anything? I'm not a financial guy, just a person that lives debt free and has for many years.

With perfect credit, my first home was purchased at 18.5% interest rate. With the interest payments running way ahead of the principal payments, one could barely afford to own much more than a hovel when starting out in the civilian job market. By making a double payment, one on the principal and the other on the principle and interest, I got it down pretty quick.
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/mortgages/history-of-mortgage-interest-rates.aspx

With 15 year notes now running in the 2.75% range, how is that a bad thing? How does making housing affordable a bad thing?

It seems to me the bubble was caused by predatory lending practices that put people into homes they couldn't afford. Banks and the Government oversight agencies should have reined that in, but didn't.
If I remember right, they were the actual people causing the whole bubble?

Artificially keeping interest rates low helped fuel the sub-prime bubble, allowing people who shouldn't really qualify for home loans (in part by pressure from big gov't pushing the dream of home ownership for all) to get mortgages. My home mortgage payment has gone up almost 30% in the 6 years I've owned my home.. and that's with a fixed-rate... it's actually my homeowner's insurance that's driven the increase. But it illustrates the danger in pushing sub-prime mortgages and allowing people who are borderline or dangerous credit risks to become homeowners with no "cushion" in their monthly income to allow for changing interest or insurance rates.


<edit> And my damn mortgage has sold three times to different companies. aside from the 2 or 3 times it sold in the first couple of months after we closed.

 

[Ace_on_the_Turn]

I can't wait until that piece of garbage 0bama is out of office, then it will be all his fault.

Maybe you haven't been paying attention. Everything has been Obama's fault since before he actually even took the oath. Case in point, people blame Obama for the 2009 deficit ($1.4 trillion). The fact that the 2009 deficit started to accrue in Oct. of 2008 (three months before Obama took office, and the entire 2009 budget was written and approved 6 months before Obama took office) doesn't matter, it's still Obama's fault

 

[JD8]

It's amusing. So desperate for a gotcha moment you link to an opinion piece (you do know the difference between a factual article and an opinion piece, right?) written by a Republican member of the House that in no way refutes the claim that the recession was Bush's fault. The majority of the article deals with a law passed well after the start of the recession. And I would call attention to this, "The Federal Reserve played its part in the 2008 financial crisis by keeping interest rates too low for too long, inflating the housing bubble. Washington not only failed to prevent the crisis, it led us into it." Now, you have two choices, you can admit that when the writer says, "Washington not only failed to prevent the crisis, it led us into it" the "Washington" in question is the Bush administration. If you don't want to admit that, then pretty much everything that you, and I mean you as in GMThunder, have blamed on the current administration should be, in fact, blamed on "Washington".

Looks like your gotcha moment, just got you.

It wasn't a gotcha.... it was a hook, line, and sinker. Thought it was obvious hence my comments? Was kinda upset you took so long frankly.

Well of course we can blame Washington..... it's a team sport. However, Clinton laid forth the path that snowballed into the housing recession. All those Dems just HAD to get their constituents in homes.

Now we are on the others side of the spectrum and Dodd-Frank is creating problems for hardworking people to get into homes.

Now we need YOU Ace... and I mean as in YOU Ace..... to admit... that Democrats have no clue when it comes to legislating certain sectors. It's pretty easy to see that all Obama has done is kill the small businessman, in several ways. Someone would have to be a complete moron to argue against the consolitdation seen in the banking and health industry under his administration.

 

[MaddSkillz]

The Democrat apologists here on OSA will soon be here to speculate that the WSJ article was written by Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush, twisted arms at the WSJ to get it published.

Remember when you go to vote and you're all happy about voting your party just remember that I said "We have one party pretending to be two."

Remember that.

 

[lee1000]

Maybe you haven't been paying attention. Everything has been Obama's fault since before he actually even took the oath. Case in point, people blame Obama for the 2009 deficit ($1.4 trillion). The fact that the 2009 deficit started to accrue in Oct. of 2008 (three months before Obama took office, and the entire 2009 budget was written and approved 6 months before Obama took office) doesn't matter, it's still Obama's fault

The buck stops with 0bama. He's a lousy president, accept it, get over it and move on.

He's not a leader, never has been a never will be.

 

[Ace_on_the_Turn]

Well of course we can blame Washington..... it's a team sport. However, Clinton laid forth the path that snowballed into the housing recession. All those Dems just HAD to get their constituents in homes.

From his earliest days in office, Bush paired his belief that Americans do best when they own their own homes with his conviction that markets do best when left alone. Bush pushed hard to expand home ownership, especially among minority groups, an initiative that dovetailed with both his ambition to expand Republican appeal and the business interests of some of his biggest donors. But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards.

But, but it's all Obama's fault!

 

[Ace_on_the_Turn]

The buck stops with 0bama. He's a lousy president, accept it, get over it and move on.

He's not a leader, never has been a never will be.

Obama has been a pedestrian president. History will rank his administrations as middle of the road. He's far from the worst we have had. He's not even the worse in this century.

 

[JD8]

From his earliest days in office, Bush paired his belief that Americans do best when they own their own homes with his conviction that markets do best when left alone. Bush pushed hard to expand home ownership, especially among minority groups, an initiative that dovetailed with both his ambition to expand Republican appeal and the business interests of some of his biggest donors. But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards.

But, but it's all Obama's fault!

Problem is..... facts are on my side. One can have an solid opinion if you back it up with facts in critical thinking. I don't think anyone can argue that the Clinton administration was responsible for the pressure on Freddie and Fannie to extend subprime loans. In which their involvement in low income housing was previously mandated by a democratic congress under Bush Sr.

 

[Ace_on_the_Turn]

Problem is..... facts are on my side. One can have an solid opinion if you back it up with facts in critical thinking. I don't think anyone can argue that the Clinton administration was responsible for the pressure on Freddie and Fannie to extend subprime loans. In which their involvement in low income housing was previously mandated by a democratic congress under Bush Sr.

The fact is you're trying to rewrite history to say that Bush was not only not at fault for the Great Recession, the fault lies with the Clinton administration. Ingoing the fact that the meltdown/recession happened well into Bush's second term. Ignoring the fact that Bush did nothing to stop the meltdown/recession. Ignoring the fact that Bush's policies greatly contributed to the meltdown/recession. Are those the facts to which you refer?

 

[furlong222]

looks to me like the recession is clearly a GW creation....Obama made it great.....so after 16yrs of poor presidential performance (Clinton got lucky - he was the sitting president when the dot com boom hit) we find ourselves backed against the wall one more time and this wall is too high to get over and too long to get around....fasten your seat belts it will get fugly...