Monday, December 12, 2011

Re: Gingrich: Close Ties To Nancy Pelosi

I also agree with a possible GSE based, type of format for space
exploration.....Especially compared to the Socialist-Elitist Democrats
who
have foregone ANY space exploration, and have left that to the
Chinese and
Russians.
---
the roi is too low ... besides, just how much does the USA have to
invest right now? Borrowing from peter for paul to invest is insanity

From a free market standpoint, there is a gamut of wealth to be found
in
space exploration, from minerals, to just the tourism aspect, and this
is
only short term visions...
---
short term visions? na ... fully blinded
we have all the resources we need

On Dec 11, 11:20 am, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I also agree with a possible GSE based, type of format for space
> exploration.....Especially compared to the Socialist-Elitist Democrats who
> have foregone ANY space exploration,  and have left that to the Chinese and
> Russians.
>
> From a free market standpoint, there is a gamut of wealth to be found in
> space exploration, from minerals, to just the tourism aspect, and this is
> only short term visions...
>
> On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 12:14 PM, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Good Morning Bruce,
>
> > I suggest you read the whole interview,  and understand Gingrich's
> > thinking and observation, which I totally agree with:
>
> >http://web.archive.org/web/20080909224217/http://www.freddiemac.com/c...
>
> > A GSE can serve a purpose, and the whole structure of Fannie and Freddie
> > were good ideas, but were totally abused, possibly with good intentions,
> > but nevertheless it was socialist Democrats that took Fannie and Freddie
> > and (probably for profit in the case of Frank,  Pelosi, Raines and Dodd)
> > nevertheless took a government backed program which was designed for first
> > time home owners and/or lower socio-economic individuals who had saved
> > their money and could qualify for home ownership.   The Socialist
> > Democrats, despite the Republicans warnings, (including Gingrich!)
> > literally lowered all standards,  thereby totally wreaking havoc on not
> > only the American economy, but the global economy.
>
> > Back to Newt Gingrich,   again,  I believe in the concept of GSE's.  A
> > number of the VA programs, the Crysler Bailout,  as well as other
> > significant programs have worked well.  It is when these programs become
> > socialist boondoggles and for whatever reason this is allowed to happen,
> > where we run into trouble.  The Federal Government cannot maintain and
> > support 300 million people!
>
> > On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 11:36 AM, Bruce Majors <majors.br...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >>  Reason #1 why Newt Gingrich is a little bit frightening
>
> >> by RUSS ROBERTS on DECEMBER 8, 2011
>
> >> in HOUSING <http://cafehayek.com/category/housing>, POLITICS<http://cafehayek.com/category/politics>
>
> >> By the title, I don't mean the most important reason. Not sure what that
> >> is. This is just the first reason I'm listing. Maybe I'll list more. And it
> >> turns out this reason is multi-faceted.
>
> >> Reason #1 comes from a blog post by Josh Barro<http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/285056/newt-gingrich-gse-model-j...> who
> >> digs up this interview with Gingrich<http://web.archive.org/web/20080909224217/http://www.freddiemac.com/c...>.
> >> It's not exactly an interview. It was conducted by Freddie Mac (whatever
> >> that means) and posted on Freddie Mac's website.
>
> >> There are many things that are frightening about Gingrich's remarks.
> >> First, they are for Freddie Mac who paid him something around $1.6 million
> >> for his "services." He described this work originally as being payment for
> >> his historical knowledge of housing. Cue laughter, folks. This interview
> >> gives you a glimpse of the real reason he was hired. He was hired, of
> >> course, to provide cover for Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac was a GSE, a
> >> government-sponsored enterprise. A GSE was quasi-private or quasi-public,
> >> take your pick. Freddie (and Fannie Mae) bought mortgages from originators
> >> and brokers. They provided "liquidity" for the housing market which is a
> >> fancy way of saying that they increased the amount of credit available. For
> >> a long while, they were relatively benign.
>
> >> Because they were thought to had an implicit guarantee of government
> >> support, they were able to issue bonds at relatively low rates of interest.
> >> They were very eager to use that money to buy more mortgages. The problem
> >> was that because of that implicit guarantee, they were constrained by
> >> regulation to only buy fairly safe mortgages with 20% downpayments.
> >> Starting in the mid-1990′s, Clinton (and then Bush) required them to relax
> >> their standards. They didn't end up buying a lot of sub-prime, just a lot
> >> of low down-payment mortgages that were very prone to end up underwater if
> >> housing prices ever fell. This injection of credit into the market pushed
> >> up the price of housing (starting around 1995) launched the housing bubble
> >> and along with other government programs, helped make speculative subprime
> >> lending.
>
> >> The alternative view is the animal spirits view that suddenly, around
> >> 1995, people began to believe that housing was a particularly good
> >> investment. But for this discussion, the cause of the bubble is irrelevant.
> >> The important point is that Freddie and Fannie began to make increasingly
> >> risky loans, encouraged by their regulators. (See Figures 6,7, and 8,
> >> here <http://mercatus.org/publication/gambling-other-peoples-money>.) A
> >> number of economists on the left and right began to worry that the taxpayer
> >> might end up on the hook for those loans if they ever blew up. They did
> >> blow up. The bill is $150 billion and counting. But because political
> >> pressure began to build against Freddie and Fannie, they pushed back. They
> >> hired people on the left (Stiglitz and the Orszags<http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/stiglitzrisk.pdf>)
> >> to do research showing how safe the GSE's were. And they hired people on
> >> the right like Newt Gingrich who could claim conservative credentials and a
> >> really good Rolodex to reduce the pressure to reign in Freddie and Fannie.
>
> >> So the first frightening thing about Newt is that he worked for Freddie
> >> Mac at all. The second frightening thing is that he lied about it,
> >> pretending it was some sort of research position. But the really
> >> frightening thing is what he actually said in the name of making people
> >> feel good about these so-called government-sponsored entreprises which led
> >> to private gains and socialized losses. The worst kind of cronyism.
>
> >> Read the whole "interview."<http://web.archive.org/web/20080909224217/http://www.freddiemac.com/c...> It's
> >> short and you gives you a flavor of how Gingrich invoked conservative
> >> rhetoric to support Freddie Mac politically. But the highlight for me is
> >> this part:
>
> >> *Q: A key element of the entrepreneurial model is using the private
> >> sector where possible to save taxpayer dollars and improve efficiency. And
> >> you believe the GSE model provides one way to use the private sector.*
>
> >> *Gingrich:* Some activities of government – trash collection is a good
> >> example – can be efficiently contracted out to the private sector. Other
> >> functions – the military, police and fire protection – obviously must
> >> remain within government. And then there are areas in which a public
> >> purpose would be best achieved by using market-based models. I think GSEs
> >> provide one of those models. I like the GSE model because it provides a
> >> more efficient, market-based alternative to taxpayer-funded government
> >> programs. It marries private enterprise to a public purpose. We obviously
> >> don't want to use GSEs for everything, but there are times when private
> >> enterprise alone is not sufficient to achieve a public purpose. I think
> >> private enterprise alone is not going to be able to help the Gulf region
> >> recover from the hurricanes, and government will not get the job done in a
> >> very effective or efficient manner. We should be looking seriously at
> >> creating a GSE to help redevelop this region. We should be looking at
> >> whether and how the GSE model could help us address the problem of
> >> financing health care. I think a GSE for space exploration ought to be
> >> seriously considered – I'm convinced that if NASA were a GSE, we probably
> >> would be on Mars today.
>
> >> Gingrich says that the GSE model "marries private enterprise to a public
> >> purpose." What we have learned is that that doesn't work very well. But
> >> that's not the most frightening part of the quote. And the most frightening
> >> part isn't that this "interview" took place in April of 2007, when Freddie
> >> and Fannie were totally out of control, lending out money to buyers putting
> >> less than 5% down in record numbers, money that would not return as
> >> expected.
>
> >> <http://cafehayek.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/figure8s.jpg>
>
> >> No, the really frightening part of this interview is the last part, when
> >> Newt goes off the deep end and says something grandiose, meaningless, and
> >> frightening:
>
> >> I think a GSE for space exploration ought to be seriously considered –
> >> I'm convinced that if NASA were a GSE, we probably would be on Mars today.
>
> >> What could that possibly mean, a GSE for space exploration? I think what
> >> he means is that it would be nice to have some incentives at NASA. How
> >> would that work? What is the GSE equivalent of Freddie Mac for NASA? It
> >> would be an agency that would buy up loans to fund space travel? No, that
> >> doesn't make any sense. But the truth is, I have no idea how to make sense
> >> of it. And then the part where he's "convinced, that if NASA were a GSE, we
> >> probably would be on Mars today." Convinced? How do you convince yourself
> >> of something like that? And what does he mean by "be on Mars today." We've
> >> already sent probes to Mars. We just sent another one the other day. I
> >> assume he means a person. Maybe he means the interviewer and himself.
> >> Probably not. But who knows? And why would "being on Mars" be a good thing?
> >> Wouldn't it be incredibly expensive whether it was done by NASA or a NASA
> >> GSE? Is that a good goal? Why?
> >> 123 Comments<http://cafehayek.com/2011/12/reason-1-why-newt-gingrich-is-a-little-b...>[image:
>
> ...
>
> read more »

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

No comments:

Post a Comment