From the NYT:
As HUD Chief, Cuomo Earns a Mixed Score
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER and MICHAEL POWELLAs Andrew M. Cuomo campaigns for governor, he points to his leadership of the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Clinton administration as proof he possesses the ability and vision needed to lead New York out of its fiscal and political swamps.
Mr. Cuomo was housing secretary at a critical moment for the nation, just as its subprime mortgage fever was beginning to spike. It was during his tenure that the banking industry began to embrace predatory loans, and these creations led to a housing bubble that badly damaged America’s banks and nearly toppled its financial system.
An examination of Mr. Cuomo’s tenure atop the agency shows he was quick to warn about Wall Street’s dangerous hunger for predatory subprime loans — generally more expensive mortgages sold to people with poor credit. He counseled caution when many influential players, including the Federal Reserve and Congress, resisted any suggestion that they slow the country’s stampede to home ownership.
He also called attention to a pernicious mortgage-broker incentive payment that drove up interest rates for borrowers — secretly, in many cases — and that helped put many home buyers into loans they later found they could not afford.
And, in an effort to reverse decades of discrimination against blacks and Latinos, Mr. Cuomo pushed the government-sponsored banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to buy more home loans taken out by poor and working-class borrowers.
Indeed.
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6 comments:
Who would write such naked lies.
The last paragraph describing how Cuomo put a gun to the head of Fannie and Freddie to force more bad loans directly contradicts the previous four claiming he tried many ways to prevent bad loans.
It's like: Cuomo warned that the IED were buried under the road. Cuomo warned that they could be triggered remotely via cell phones. Cuomo warned that if exploded, it could result in many deaths. Cuomo built, buried and dialed the number to detonate his IED as a transport passed over resulting in many deaths.
Should Cuomo be commended for trying many ways to save lives lost to his own IED?
If only this were from The Onion....
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jZPlKkw4Nhv67cFrhAOY-NTbA4vgD9HPIDOO0
ps: Who knew that "Airplane" was ultimately about social commentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymMBEwtRZOg
It does read like an Onion article. But what is going on here? It almost looks like he's just baiting critics to come after him on the issue. It's right there before our eyes, but he would love to have the debate be about whether NAMs and efforts to put NAMs in houses they couldn't afford were central to the housing crisis. He is betting that he's unassailable on that point.
Still, the Times article is a pretty good piece when you read it to the end. It gives you the gist of the contradiction if somewhat euphemistically.
Since good intent, especially where non-whites are concerned, counts for a lot, more than actual results really, it's not surprising he can still throw his hat in the ring for higher office. Besides, it's not his fault they stopped paying their mortgages.
Not enough people today seem to remember and take to heart 'The Peter Principle', which often does explain a lot. A corollary might be that in politics it takes longer than otherwise; how long is probably directly proportional to how much politically correct nonsense you utter or try to implement.
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