Schneibster wrote:Seraph wrote:You can't have causality without a necessary connection between cause and effect.
That's the mechanism.
Seraph wrote:How do we know there is a necessary connection between sunrise and daylight? Yes, we have observed the correlation billions of times, but at what point - and how - can we prove a necessary connection that would turn a correlation into causality? I put it to you that the observation of a correlation will never prove a necessary connection as such. We are basically sophisticated
inductivist turkeys.
The Sun makes light. This is not a correlation, it's an observation.
The difference between night and day is that one is light and one is dark. This is not a correlation, it's a definition.
The Sun's light makes daylight. That's a mechanism.
Now we have both a correlation and a mechanism and we can state that they are cause and effect: when the Sun comes up, it's morning.
Incorrect syllogism.
Hypothesis: An incandescent orb called "the sun" causes light to be visible.
Observation: During period 1 light is visible.
Observation: During period 2, light is not visible.
Observation: During period 1, an incandescent orb is visible.
Observation: During period 2, no incandescent orb is visble.
Correlation: During period 1 an incandescent orb shedding light is visible.
Correlation: During period 2, an incandescent orb shedding light is not visible.
Conclusion: An incandescent orb causes light to be visible during certain periods.
That's correlation and causation.
Hypothesis: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did not cause the current recession, it was caused by "Iraq, the Medicare prescription drug program, and the Bush tax cuts."
Observation: In mid to late 2005, housing prices in the US began to decline.
Observation: In 2007, European housing prices began to decline.
Observation: European housing markets are not directly controlled by Fannie or Freddie.
Observation: European housing markets are indirectly affected by the strength of the US and international economies.
Observation: The international economy is strongly affected by declines in the US economy.
Observation: The US economy is strongly affected by the US housing market.
Observation: The policies and practices of Fannie and Freddie strongly affect the US housing market.
Observation: Fannie and Freddie are controlled by the US Government.
Observation: Government social mobility policies under the federal "Community Reinvestment Act" mandated that mortgage lenders significantly ease the criteria used to reject potential unqualifed home mortgage applicants.
Observation: Insuring mortgages using public funds through Fannie and Freddie creates demand for housing.
Observation: Housing construction markets respond to easily-available and government-guaranteed home loans by building houses for sale to consumers who previously could not qualify for home mortgages.
Observation: Excess available housing and easily-available government-guaranteed home loans cause the mortgage origination market to respond by heavily marketing low-cost, easily-obtained mortgages to consumers who failed to qualify for ordinary, non-government-insured home loans as a part of a social mobility program called the "Community Reinvestment Act" and flogged by liberal progressives Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.
Observation: Mortgage lenders, aware of the increased risks of lending (by government order) to unqualified applicants find ways to insure their investment against the inevitable and predictable losses they see through "securitization" of mortgage pools and creation of Credit Default Swaps.
Observation: The SEC failed to properly regulated and oversee mortgage pooling and CDS under existing securities laws.
Observation: Excess available housing and easily-available government-guaranteed home loans induce consumers who fail to qualify for ordinary non-government-insured home loans to fraudulently take on mortgage debt that they could not afford to repay on terms that allow them to make low payments for a short period, but which include balloon payments that such consumers cannot hope to make.
Observation: When the balloon payments on houses that consumers could not afford, but were able to purchase only because Fannie and Freddie, at the behest of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and their ilk, facilitated it, consumers begin defaulting on mortgages.
Observation: Fannie and Freddie bought up more than 90 percent of all US mortgages and became the prime insurer for toxic mortgages.
Observation: The Federal Reserve, a private corporation, gives Fannie and Freddie an unlimited open line of credit from the Federal Reserve upon which they can call to cover losses in the US housing market caused by default on known toxic mortgages.
Observation: The Federal Reserve prints hundreds of billions of new dollars to give to Fannie and Freddie which the taxpayers will have to eventually repay.
Observation: The federal government bails out mortgage lenders and insurers, transferring more than a trillion dollars from the United States to foreign investors in securitized toxic mortgage pools, making those foreign investors whole and keeping the banks from being liquidated, but leaving the US economy and mortgagees in the lurch.
Observation: Mortgage lenders foreclose on homes not in default due to the declines in property values that make the asset worth less than the loan.
Observation: Government does nothing to protect mortgagees against either predatory lending or predatory foreclosure.
Correlation: Declines in European housing markets followed declines in the US economy.
Correlation: Declines in the US economy followed declines in the US housing market.
Correlation: Federal policies enforced under the CRA, and with the participation of Fannie and Freddie, preceded declines in the US housing market.
Correlation: Federal policies enforced under the CRA cause unqualified borrowers to buy homes they could not afford.
Correlation: Social welfare engineering programs started by Carter and enhanced by Frank and Dodd et. al, give unqualified buyers the ability to obtain home loans over the objections of mortgage lenders.
Conclusion: Federal policies enforced under the CRA, with the participation of Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Congress, the Oval Office, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Federal Reserve, created an overheated housing market with easily available credit, which caused people who were unqualified to buy homes they could not afford, and combined with lax enforcement of existing securities laws by the SEC of the derivatives market, created a market bubble ripe for overproduction of housing, fraud and abuse, which eventually resulted in the housing market collapsing, bringing down foreign housing markets (and economies) through both direct and indirect connections to the US economy and the contraction of mortgage lending worldwide driven by fear that the same thing would (and did) happen in Europe.
Causation: Federal and government manipulation of the housing markets purposed to achieve social engineering goals espoused by Carter, Frank, Dodd and other leftist, liberal and progressive politicians and apologists caused the recession.
False causation: The recession was caused by "Iraq, the Medicare prescription drug program, and the Bush tax cuts."
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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