Tim Hawkins The Government Can

The government can is a comedy song by Tim Hawkins sung to the tune of "The candyman can". A light look at the many ways the government rips us off. Please visit Tim Hawkins at www.timhawkins.net

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• taxes
• gop
• republican
• fed
• the fed
• bernanke
• greenspan
• schiff
• cenelente
• rogers
• irs
• obama
• socialism
• liberal
• conservative

[christo930]

@Dudeatheist So you don't think the CRA or the GSEs had anything to do with the lowering of the loan standards? You also have to remember that investors around the world were looking for higher returns on very safe instruments and they couldn't get them in the bond market because of the feds target rate was so low. So they wanted mortgages and the market supplied them by lowering the creditworthiness even more. I agree with you that there was a lot of bad behavior in the entire housing industry.

[Dudeatheist]

@christo930

CAN is not the same as IS. The banks are responsible for supplying loans to people who got lured in by the siren's call of home ownership, but could not afford an increase to their monthly payments. It was their predatory business practices and lack of foresight. If they simply didn't offer the loans to questionable people then there wouldn't have been a problem. Interest rates were low to spark the economy, to get people who could afford the loans to take them out.

[christo930]

@Dudeatheist As a matter of fact, in many parts of the US (it might be all 50 states) a bartender can be held liable for that.

So it is safe for me to assume that you think the banks are entirely responsible for the housing bubble?

[Dudeatheist]

@christo930

can a drunk driver hit a minivan on its way home from soccer practice if the bartender refused him service? Is the bartender to blame? Sorry I don't blame third parties.

[christo930]

@Dudeatheist I am not assigning blame to anyone. I am simply pointing out that none of it could have happened without the low interest rates. Everyone was making bad decisions, consumers, banks, investors, flippers etc. The only blame I put out there is that the fed should have recognized the bubble early on and raised rates sooner and faster. I ask you, could consumers have driven up housing prices without the low payments made possibly by the low interest rates?

[Dudeatheist]

@christo930

low interest rates didn't create anything, it was the decisions of the loaners that created the bubble. I don't know why you have such a need to blame a third party. But I really don't care anymore. You've decided that the fed is to blame for the actions of others, or maybe you just believe that since interest rates were so low that it was equal to the feds forcing the loaners to make bad loans. But neither is true, I hope one day you're ready to come to terms with reality.

[christo930]

@Dudeatheist I am not anti-government, at least not to the point that you think I am. You can't get around the fact that low interest rates is what created the bubble and that if the fed hadn't had short term interest rates so low, it couldn't have happened. In a free market, the low savings rate (it even went neg in 05) would have driven interest rates higher and investors would have put money into vehicles other than mortgages. The cost of borrowing should be based on supply and demand.

[Dudeatheist]

@christo930

the US government didn't force anybody to make any or accept any loan, sorry your analogy fails due to unwarranted bias against the government.

[christo930]

@Dudeatheist A more appropriate analogy would be if the US gov forced every citizen to be a gun owner.

[Dudeatheist]

@christo930

and every shooting wouldn't take place without the gun manufactures,