Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

Home ownership was the fig leaf for the rise in subprime lending. But that was really about cash-out refinancings, not buying homes.

Congressman Watt has a long history of advocating against predatory lending and the mortgage practices that caused millions of families to lose their homes.

I had begun to worry about the housing market back in 2003, when lenders first resurrected interest-only mortgages, loosening their credit standards to generate a greater volume of loans. Throughout 2004, I had watched as these mortgages were offered to more and more subprime borrowers - those with the weakest credit.

Subprime lending is growing faster in black areas than in white areas.

Millions of Americans were duped by the federal government and the Federal Reserve into buying homes they could not afford and failed to count the cost. When the financial crisis of 2008 hit, they could not keep up the monthly mortgage payments and defaulted.

Under Bill Clinton's HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo, Community Reinvestment Act regulators gave banks higher ratings for home loans made in 'credit-deprived' areas. Banks were effectively rewarded for throwing out sound underwriting standards and writing loans to those who were at high risk of defaulting.

The crash of 2008 was driven in no small part by unfair practices in the mortgage industry which led to many consumers being trapped in loans they didn't understand and couldn't afford.

The biggest culprits in the housing fiasco came from the private sector, and more specifically from a mortgage industry that was out of control.

Whether or not you have good consumer protection has a big effect on safety and soundness of the banking community, especially smaller banks.

We think nothing of protecting consumers from faulty toasters or unsafe cars. Is it unreasonable to suggest that investors are entitled to information they can trust before investing their hard-earned money? I don't think it's unreasonable at all.

I fear that the rising personal bankruptcies and repossessions are the first signs of bigger problems to come and personal debt - Gordon Brown's legacy to millions of Britain's families - will hang like a millstone around the neck of the British people for years to come.

If there had been a Financial Product Safety Commission in place 10 years ago, the current financial crisis would have been averted.

If you don't talk about families, then it's easy to disembody subprime mortgages and asset securitization and unemployment rates without remembering that every one of those numbers is a million families.

I represented Wall Street, as a senator from New York, and I went to Wall Street in December of 2007 - before the big crash that we had - I basically said, 'Cut it out! Quit foreclosing on homes! Quit engaging in these kinds of speculative behaviors.'

Houses were sold with the idea that the people who bought them would not be able to pay for them..

In the press, it has been said that I ran a foreclosure machine.

We need a president who will stand up for the CFPB and get it back into fighting shape. It is too important to be allowed to disintegrate.

I have and will continue to oppose any legislation that would undermine the important consumer protections provided under Dodd-Frank.

I felt great empathy for the thousands of Americans who lost their home because of a system that failed them.

Our servicemembers are focused every day on serving our country. It's our job to ensure that they have everything they need to do their jobs to the best of their ability. That must include effective consumer protections against predatory lending, already afforded under the Military Lending Act, for our men and women in uniform and their families.

What I feel is that we need an independent consumer watchdog. You have regular people who have problems with big financial companies. How do they get relief? And you need somebody who's gonna stand on their side and level the playing field for them.

My job at the CFPB, as President Obama told me when he interviewed me, was to stand on the side of people in the financial marketplace and see that they were treated fairly.

I look at subprime lending and I see the American dream in action.

Frankly, I do like the idea that we centralize consumer protection for financial products into one agency.

Poor families are living above their means, in apartments they cannot afford. The thing is, those apartments are already at the bottom of the market.