Yes indeed, the CRA was the club that the lefties used to extort money out of the banks to lend to minority borrowers. It was so important that Banks lending departments were forced to post their CRA Notice in a prominent place within their lending areas and in their lobbies...From that Bank Extortion Act everything else flowed—the corruption, the derivatives, the fraudulent sale of weak loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the excessive closing costs, the heavy penalties if banks violated the CRA- even losing up to 10% of their assets for violations...The democrats and leftists shoved this Law down the banks throats and the Banks played the game...
When Sub-prime lending came into play, that was the beginning of the end...Now you had banks forced to make risky loans to customers with poor credit histories, or no credit history, and sometimes without jobs and withour any proof that they could repay the loan—it was illegal for the bank to ask to see copies of social security income or disability income....Social policy took preference over sound bank lending practices and so we now have this debacle to deal with...We no longer have a safe banking system, not with laws like the CRA on the books...The CRA should be abolished now to save the banking system...otherwise, the criminality and unwise lending will just proceed but at a slower pace...Fed Chairman Bernanke should lift the CRA immediately and get the Banks out of the extortion racket...You can either have a sound banking system, or you can have a system open to criminals and thievery and extortion...Take your pick....
More people need to be aware of the political ramifications of this especially before the election!
Does not seem to be much being said about this in MSM or on financial channels :(