States warned Feds about impending mortgage crisis

Iria

More than five years ago, in April 2003, the attorneys general of two small states traveled to Washington with a stern warning for the nation's top bank regulator. Sitting in the spacious Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, with its panoramic view of the capital, the AGs from North Carolina and Iowa said lenders were pushing increasingly risky mortgages. Their host, John D. Hawke Jr., expressed skepticism.

Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Tom Miller of Iowa headed a committee of state officials concerned about new forms of "predatory" lending. They urged Hawke to give states more latitude to limit exorbitant interest rates and fine-print fees. "People out there are struggling with oppressive loans," Cooper recalls saying.

Hawke, a veteran banking industry lawyer appointed to head the OCC by President Bill Clinton in 1998, wouldn't budge. He said he would reinforce federal policies that hindered states from reining in lenders. The AGs left the tense hour-long meeting realizing that Washington had become a foe in the nascent fight against reckless real estate finance. The OCC "took 50 sheriffs off the job during the time the mortgage lending industry was becoming the Wild West," Cooper says.

This was but one of many instances of state posses sounding early alarms about the irresponsible lending at the heart of the current financial crisis. Federal officials brushed aside their concerns. The OCC and its sister agency, the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), instead sided with lenders. The beneficiaries ranged from now-defunct subprime factories, such as First Franklin Financial, to a savings and loan owned by Lehman Brothers, the collapsed investment bank.
__________
Source: MSNBC

chillbilly

Your "source" omits important rebuttals about the states roles and other portions of the article are omitted as well.
This type of quote mining is intellectually dishonest.

Tipstaff

I hope your not pi$$ing on Iria for the post, chillbilly. It's not his responsibility to repost the entire article (that would be irresponsible of him, as a matter of fact). He quotes a piece of an article we might find interesting, then redirects you to the rest via the "source" link. This way he gets us the news asap, and doesn't have to wait for the author of the article/s permission to post it. Getting that permission takes time, and it could be a while before, if ever, he gets it. By then the article is old news.

chillbilly

It would be irresponsible to submit the entire article for review??
Sorry, but I see it as irresponsible to pick and choose specific portions of the article instead of just posting it in it's entirety.
And BTW, I'm not pissing on anyone. That's your term.
I'm simply pointing out that quote mining is not cool IMO. It invites less informed people to make conclusions based on incomplete text.

Tipstaff

The entire article IS submitted for review via a link, in bold, at the bottom of the post. It would be irresponsible to directly post the entire contents of an article if you don't have the permission of the original author to do so since it is copy written material. As I said that takes time. Also, it's not just about asking the author if you can do so. There are also legalities that take precedence over an authors body of published work. Just giving permission isn't enough anymore, especially if that article was posted on another sites dime. In this case MSNBC would not take kindly to this or any site reposting such material in it's entirty without their express permission. As such the way postings are presented here get you to the information now without treading on the work done by another person, nor the feet of the company that paid those authors to do so on their behalf. By directly linking to the source material (which every article posted on this site has unless it is this sites original work) postings of this type are designed to lead you to relevant news, in it's entirety, and not to steal it.

And picking the first paragraphs of an article wets your appetite. It's not meant to misinform you. Via the source link you can read the rest of the article in order to make whatever decision you want. If you want to comment on it on these forums you can, or you can go to the original site, and post in there. It's not about picking and choosing sections of an article in order to undermine or promote a view given by the author, the site they work for, this site, or the people that work for them. It's just to inform you that this is what the article is about, and if you want the rest here is the link for it.

chillbilly

Fine. OK.
I'm not sure I follow the reasoning because it certainly is NOT copyright infringement to cut and paste an article for review on another site or via e-mail any more than it is copyright infringement to cut and paste the link itself.
If it were, billions of people using the net would be subject to prosecution.(Note that posting the link gives the same access as posting the entire article, so what you're suggesting doesn't make sense.)

Wouldn't it be better to just post the link or post the entire article instead of choosing a biased summary of snippets arbitrarily chosen by the OP?

Just a thought to promote a more thorough dialogue, instead of responses targeted at solely the snippets posted by the OP.

Tipstaff

I understand what you mean, however you are mistaken. The fact is that it would be copyright infringement to reprint that article, in it's entirety, here on this site without the permission of the owners of that material (and it is copyright material which is clearly indicated on the last page of said article) UNLESS the author has expressly stated otherwise (say if an author publishes his work under the Creative Commons license, then it would fall under "Some Rights Reserved", and not "All Rights Reserved").

Honestly, I'd rather not debate this. The site OPs know what they can and can't do with articles written by other authors, and I'm sure that is based on what their lawyers who specialize in this area have told them what they can and can't do. I know because I've heard an earful about this from my friend who is herself a lawyer that specializes in intellectual property, particularly copyright and trademark (whatever you do, don't get her started on MP3 or she won't shutup). That doesn't mean you should just take my word for it. You can look it up for yourself, or straight up ask the site OP.

I should say that your view on this isn't what bothers me, but rather that you think that the OP arbitrarily chose biased pieces of the article as a means to summarize the entire thing. The OP chose the first 4 paragraphs of the article... the lead in of the article itself, which presents to you what the article is about, and then provides you with a link that allows you to read the rest. This is not quote mining. Are the chosen paragraphs intellectually arousing? Damn straight, but it is the beginning of the article, and not pieces chosen from different areas of the article. My view is that the OP chose to stop there because of the nice big ad that started right below it. He could have just as easily stopped at the first paragraph, but he didn't. So what. There's the link to the rest of the article. If that link wasn't there then I would be pissed. If the Op chose different paragraphs from throughout the article, and arbitrarily posted them in order to support a theory, to undermine or promote the original authors views, or to further his own agenda, whatever it might be, then I would agree with you that he was quote mining, or that he was being intellectually dishonest about his post. But he didn't. He chose the first 4 paragraphs, posted them in their original order, unedited, and then posted the link to the rest of the article. He doesn't undermine the original authors work, doesn't misquote or twist it, and he gives a source link to the article itself on the site in which it was originally presented. How is that being dishonest? How is that quote mining?