{"id":3215,"date":"2010-02-08T19:06:19","date_gmt":"2010-02-09T00:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/?p=3215"},"modified":"2010-07-18T13:45:32","modified_gmt":"2010-07-18T17:45:32","slug":"wsj-andrew-cuomo-has-more-to-answer-for-than-does-bank-of-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/08\/wsj-andrew-cuomo-has-more-to-answer-for-than-does-bank-of-america\/","title":{"rendered":"WSJ: Andrew Cuomo has more to answer for than does Bank of America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Politicians love to blame the financial crisis and by extension the recession on greedy bankers, but as the Wall Street Journal notes today<\/a> many of them, like New York Attorney General and former Clinton Administration Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo have much to answer for:<\/p>\n

With his fraud lawsuit last week against Bank of America, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has joined the long queue of politicians blaming bankers as the chief culprits in creating the financial panic and recession. We dealt with the merits of those BofA charges on Saturday, but that isn’t the end of this story. There’s also the not so small matter of Mr. Cuomo’s own role in promoting policies that fed the housing mania and set the stage for the meltdown.<\/p>\n

Before he pursued statewide office in New York, Andrew Cuomo was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during Bill Clinton’s second term. And lest you think his tenure is forgotten, the HUD Web site has an instructive item in its Archives section.<\/p>\n

Entitled, “Highlights of HUD Accomplishments 1997-1999,” the document chronicles the “accomplishments under the leadership of Secretary Andrew Cuomo, who took office in January 1997.”<\/p>\n

HUD’s Web visitors learn that in 1999 “Secretary Cuomo established new Affordable Housing Goals requiring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac\u2014two government sponsored enterprises involved in housing finance\u2014to buy $2.4 trillion in mortgages in the next 10 years. This will mean new affordable housing for about 28.1 million low- and moderate-income families. The historic action raised the required percentage of mortgage loans for low- and moderate-income families that the companies must buy from the current 42 percent of their total purchases to a new high of 50 percent\u2014a 19 percent increase\u2014in the year 2001.”<\/p>\n

It’s a sign of Washington’s continuing failure to examine its own failures that HUD still views such a policy as an “accomplishment.” It’s as if the Pentagon described Pearl Harbor as a victory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Village Voice has much more on Mr. Cuomo’s actions at HUD here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bottom line the Federal Government and Federal Reserve are every bit as culpable as bankers are in creating this mess… Andrew Cuomo is just one of several prominent political figures who have to answer for his role his roll in creating the financial crisis. Unfortunately, I doubt Washington’s policy makers will ever admit to their culpability, it’s much easier to demonize and scapegoat Wall Street’s greedy bankers.<\/p>\n

Peter Schweizer does a good job of laying out the anatomy of the crisis in Architects of Ruin: How big government liberals wrecked the global economy—and how they will do it again if no one stops them<\/a>\"\". If you haven’t read it, I’d suggest picking up a copy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Politicians love to blame the financial crisis and by extension the recession on greedy bankers, but as the Wall Street Journal notes today many of them, like New York Attorney General and former Clinton Administration Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo have much to answer for: With his fraud lawsuit last week against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,7],"tags":[547,126,113,114,974],"class_list":{"0":"post-3215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-economy","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-andrew-cuomo","9":"tag-bank-of-america","10":"tag-fannie-mae","11":"tag-freddie-mac","12":"tag-housing-and-urban-development","13":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfpI7-PR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1811,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/26\/let-the-exodus-begin\/","url_meta":{"origin":3215,"position":0},"title":"Let the Exodus Begin…","author":"Jeff","date":"March 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Jake DeSantis may have been the most public buts he's not the only one at AIG Finacial Products who's cleaning out his desk: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Several more employees are leaving the controversial financial products unit that brought American International Group Inc to its knees last year, according to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Economy"","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2760,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/22\/ouch-new-york-gov-paterson-blasts-pres-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":3215,"position":1},"title":"Ouch: New York Gov. Paterson Blasts Pres. Obama","author":"Jeff","date":"September 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The feud between New York Governor David Paterson and the White House took a turn for the worse today with Gov. Patterson essentially telling reporters at Columbia University that Obama's just cranky because he hasn't accomplished jack (emphasis mine): I understand the president\u2019s concern, but I understand the concern of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1795,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/25\/nyt-dear-aig-i-quit\/","url_meta":{"origin":3215,"position":2},"title":"NYT: Dear A.I.G., I Quit!","author":"Jeff","date":"March 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I hope Barack Obama, Timothy Geithner, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Chris Dood, Andrew Cuomo, Richard Blumenthal and all the pundits who have lead the AIG lynch mob are happy now: The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Culture","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":725,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/08\/100-economists-warn-that-barck-obamas-tax-proposals-could-throw-the-us-economy-into-recession\/","url_meta":{"origin":3215,"position":3},"title":"100 Economists Warn That Barack Obama’s Tax Proposals Could Throw the US Economy into Recession","author":"Jeff","date":"October 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been debating whether to post this all day... Yes, it's from the McCain campaign but ultimately I think it would be foolish to dismiss the opinion of a group of experienced economists out of hand. Economists Statement On Barack Obama's Risky Economic Proposals 100 ECONOMISTS WARN THAT WITH CURRENT\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Economy"","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1592,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/28\/a-national-crisis\/","url_meta":{"origin":3215,"position":4},"title":"A National Crisis???","author":"Jeff","date":"February 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Things have been a little hectic over the last few days so I didn't have time to get to a couple of articles I had bookmarked. One of the things that seems to be getting lost in all the hysteria about the Mortgage crisis is that bluk of the problem\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Economy"","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":67,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/30\/recession\/","url_meta":{"origin":3215,"position":5},"title":"Recession?","author":"Jeff","date":"April 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Can we put an end to the recession talk at least for now? The last time I checked a recession was defined as two or more consecutive quarters of negative growth. So far we haven't had a single quarter of negative growth so all this talk of a recession is,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Money & Investing"","block_context":{"text":"Money & Investing","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/money-and-investing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}