An Epitaph For The Banking Queen

To paraphrase Charles Krauthammer from his appearance on Fox News the other night, the best thing Barney Frank ever did for America, he did a few days ago when he announced his retirement from Congress.  Indeed, Barney Frank, during his 30 years in office, was perhaps the single most destructive force our country has seen in the past century.

Like all liberals, Frank always claimed the moral high ground for his actions. He justified his most destructive policies on the supposed need to counter racism in the financial industry and to offer help to the lower and lower middle class through the creation "affordable housing." In his wake, he has left America's economy - and indeed, most of the world's economy - a wreck and our nation in decline.

Frank used the canard of racism in the financial industry to eviscerate the credit standards of America's financial industry. He then used Fannie and Freddie to to create "affordable housing" by government fiat.  He set the stage for the spread of sub prime mortgage backed securities throughout the financial industries of the world.  True, countless others bear a portion of the responsibility for these problems.  And indeed, a strong case can be made that Chris Dodd and Bill Clinton share almost as much of the blame as Frank.  That said, my research into our economic decline (see link above), from the creation of the CRA under Jimmy Carter to the present day, has led me to the firm conclusion that Barney Frank is the "but for" cause of our current financial distress..

 

Barney Frank was also detestable for another personality quirk - his utter intellectual dishonesty.  Barney Frank never engaged in an honest disagreement.  His sole style of argument was to demonize his opponents.  Contest his stand on Fannie Mae and it wasn't because you were legitimately concerned with the long term impact, it was because, according to Frank, you hated minorities and did not want to see Americans have "affordable housing."  He was, to quote Bruce, the purveyor of the Gay Patriot blog:

"
. . . a mean-spirited, petty man, wrong about so much, unwilling to admit his mistakes, childish in victory . . . That he will no longer be the most prominent gay politician is a good thing for gay America, a very good thing indeed.
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And as his final act, Frank and his near equally guilty partner in our federally directed national suicide, fellow Democrat Chris Dodd, authored the Dodd Frank Act, ostensibly written to cure the problems that led to our financial crisis.  Talk about your howling cognitive dissonance - it is a law that ensconces the very social engineering and other problems that gifted us this near Depression and that now promise to keep screwing America for decades to come.

 Barney Frank is, was and has been a national disaster on a scale so grand that I really can't think of any other legislator in our nation's history who could plausibly be claimed his equal. I do not know why he is leaving, but I do know this - today has brought a giant step forward for our nation.