Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I would like my colleagues to take a trip down memory lane. Go back a decade or two to 2006, 2007, 2008, and look at the decade before that. My State of Ohio, for 14 years in a row-- from the late 1990s through the year 2010--experienced almost a decade and a half of foreclosure increases leading up to the crisis. That meant that in Ohio, literally every year for 14 years, there were more foreclosures than the year before in my State. Predatory and irresponsible lenders made dangerous, subprime loans. They often ignored whether borrowers had the ability to repay that loan. The incentives were these: We will keep writing these; we will keep underwriting; we will keep collecting fees. We don't care if the borrower can pay. We can see that is a setup for disaster. Because of the lack of standards for underwriting, we learned a painful lesson that not all mortgage lending is created equal. Look at some headlines from that period. On September 18, 2008, the front page of the Wall Street Journal featured three headlines. This was September 18, 2008, so just slightly less than 10 years ago: ``Mounting Fears Shape World Markets As Banking Giants Rush to Raise Capital.'' ``Bad Bets and Cash Crunch Push Ailing AIG to Brink.'' ``Worst Crisis Since `30s, With No End.'' On the same day the Washington Post reported: ``Markets in Disarray as Lending Locks Up.'' How did we get to that crisis? Banks forgot the essential rule of lending.…”