"No one pushed harder than Congressman Barney..." - Quote by Thomas Sowell
No one pushed harder than Congressman Barney Frank to force banks and other financial institutions to reduce their mortgage lending standards, in order to meet government-set goals for more home ownership. Those lower mortgage lending standards are at the heart of the increased riskiness of the mortgage market and of the collapse of Wall Street securities based on those risky mortgages.
More by Thomas Sowell
“Intellectuals may like to think of themselves as people who "speak truth to power" but too often they are people who speak lies to gain power.”
“What all these lofty and vague phrases boil down to is that the court can impose things that the voters don't want and the Constitution does not require, but which are in vogue in circles to which the court responds.”
“Any policy is a success by sufficiently low standards and a failure by sufficiently high standards.”
More on Government Policy
“The government has brought on the housing problem, partly by these very low interest rates, which encouraged many people to go way out on a limb. They've brought it on by highly restrictive building policies, which have caused housing prices to skyrocket artificially. And they've brought it on by the Community Reinvestment Act, which presumes that politicians are better able to tell investors where to put their money than the investors themselves are. When you put all that together, you get something like what you have.”
“In 1992, the federal Government actually issued more work authorizations to immigrants and temporary foreign workers than the net number of new jobs created by our economy. Something is fundamentally wrong when we have millions of American citizens and legal residents begging for jobs, and yet we are admitting thousands and thousands of immigrants a year with virtually no consideration to our employment needs or their employment skills.”
“Congressional mistakes have dramatically increased immigration through a series of what I believe were ill-advised actions going back to 1965 when the basic notions of our immigration laws were revised. In 1990, Congress opened the floodgates by passing a 35-percent increase in legal immigration.”
More on Finance
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”
“I will tell you one other thing about money: when you don't have it, it sure as hell affects the quality of people's health, and their relationships. And paper money isn't even real today, right? It's all really ones and zeros in computers today. But at the same time, if you don't have it, it certainly affects the quality of your life.”
“Government should stand behind its currency and credit and the bank deposits of the nation. No individual should suffer a loss of money through depreciation or inflated currency of Bank bankruptcy.”