Barney Frank: Everybody Rent!

RUSH: On Morning Joe today, they interviewed Barney Frank about the mortgage crisis.

FRANK: We made the mistake of assuming — and I tried to protest against this — but everybody else could be a homeowner. Home ownership is a good thing but for many people in this country decent rental housing is the appropriate forum. And people have said to me, ‘Well, gee, don’t you wish, uh, everybody could own a home?’ I wish I could eat more and not gain weight but I don’t act on that — or at least I do more than I should.

SCARBOROUGH: (cackles) Suuuure.

FRANK: I’m — We — we think no better going forward, and in fact with regard to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac I have been preaching on them and one of the things we did was create an affordable housing rental program.

RUSH: Whoa! Now somebody’s running for the tall grass as fast as their chubby little legs will carry them here. He’s the guy that pushed everybody out of renting and into homes that they couldn’t afford on purpose, and called it ‘affordable housing.’ We had a guy call yesterday saying that Tom Brokaw said on CNBC that we need to start determining the size of people’s houses. We have the bite. He was talking with the anchorette Sue Herrera. ‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘during the Second World War there was a certain determination they could get through anything, anything. They had this faith that was unshakable. I’m not sure that the Boomer generation has that, or perhaps just hasn’t been tested. This would be the test, certainly, but I wonder if they have that same determination.’

BROKAW: This is not an overnight sensation we’re going through. There are lasting effects here. There’s a kind of systemic quality in many ways and people are going to have to reorder their priorities. It doesn’t mean we’re going to have to wear sackcloth, you know, and go around and just eat gruel every day. But there has to be a reordering —

HERRERA: Mmm-hmm.

BROKAW: — of our financial system and our attitude about debt, about credit card debt and how big a home do you need —

MAN: Yeah!

BROKAW: — and how much leverage are you going to [be] prepared to play with.

RUSH: That’s Tom Brokaw advocating the Marxist socialist position, that we need to really downsize the size of homes. And of course, now, you gotta understand that to people like Brokaw, you’re not smart enough to make the decision how much debt you can take on, and you’re not smart enough to realize how big or small your house ought to be. So they are gonna have to do it for you.