Monday, October 6, 2008

Housing Bubble 101

This is the edited version. I put up the original one a few days ago but it was pulled by NBC and changed.

From the LA Times:

But a comparison of the two versions shows that actually a little more than that was cut. What also was excised was any mention of the involvement of Massachusetts' Rep. Frank in the Sandler subprime mess.

Frank is the influential chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and an ardent political protector of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which participated in the subprime problem.

In the original skit Sandler addresses Frank, saying, "And thank you Congressman Frank as well as many Republicans for helping block Congressional oversight of our corrupt activities."

To which Frank replies enthusiastically, "Not at all!"

All that's gone in the new version. . . .


8 comments:

zerodown said...

Original:

http://tinyurl.com/3etaxd

Download it if you would like.

Ace said...

http://mediamatters.org/items/200810010014?f=h_top

zerodown said...

Apparently even that is an edited version:

BARNEY FRANK: Not at all. There's an important social contract here. When deceitful housing lenders play by the rules, and bribe members of Congress with campaign contributions, they have a right to expect that we will protect them from losing money. Now let me say something else here. Many of you are probably wondering, where did that $700 billion missing from our economy go? To help answer that, let me introduce our good friend, billionaire hedge fund manager, George Soros...

http://tinyurl.com/4e2l2e

zerodown said...

See also:

http://tinyurl.com/4myb5q

Todd said...

I'm glad I saw the original!

contrarian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
nickie j said...

Ace - thanks for posting the link to the Media Matters web site. There needs to be some balance on this blog's focus on Barney Frank.

million said...

from Ace's link wrt Barney Frank:

"Moreover, Baier and Hume completely omitted any mention of Frank's efforts in passing legislation providing greater oversight of Fannie and Freddie. In 2005, Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, worked with committee chairman Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH) on the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005, which would have established the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to oversee the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After voting for the bill in committee, Frank voted against final passage of the bill on the House floor, stating that he was doing so because an amendment to the bill on the House floor imposed certain restrictions on the kinds of nonprofit organizations that could receive funding under the bill."

so Media Matters touts Barney's "efforts" even though he eventually voted against it? that's just silly.

and he voted *against* regulation because he did not want to restrict (i.e. regulate) what sort of nonprofits would receive taxpayer funding.

they're all complicit, Barney's no white knight. the self-proclaimed progressives (social engineers) on the left are the same as the self-proclaimed free-marketeers (corporatists) on the right.