Hmmm
President George W. Bush presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Alan Greenspan, on November 9, 2005 in the East Room of the White House.
Posted on 07/24/2008 3:21:45 PM PDT by vadum
Left-wing pressure groups like the Center for Responsible Lending played a role in bringing down Indymac, according to commentator Jerry Bowyer.
Around the same time Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) questioned the financial viability of the California-based bank, an event the Office of Thrift Supervision said gave "the bank a heart attack," the Center for Responsible Lending exacerbated the situation. As Bowyer writes:
Indymac has been under attack from the hard left. The Center for Responsible Lending issued an attack on Indymac within a few days of Schumer's letter. CRL is part of a small army of left of center ‘research' groups, community organizers, and public interest law firms who make their living accusing home lenders of racial redlining and predatory lending. On June 20th the Center accused Indymac of unfair practices regarding minority borrowers.The market-haters at the Center, which we wrote about in 2007, 2006, and 2005, have been trying to restrict your financial freedoms for years. Maybe Indymac, unlike the foundations that recently caved in to the shakedown artists at California's Greenlining Institute, refused to pay protection money.A suspicious person might think that a network of lefty attack groups proficient in bank bashing and frequently funded by trial lawyers and short-sellers, coordinated their activities with a law firm on the hunt and a Senator who works closely with the network.
On the other hand, maybe it is a coincidence that CRL and Sen. Schumer attacked the same bank in the same week. Maybe he didn't know about the CRL report, nor CRL about his letter. Maybe the community group didn't know about the trial-lawyer class action lawsuit which was launched against Indy a couple of weeks before all of this started.
Yeah, right.
The Center for Responsible Lending has received grants from the usual suspects on the philanthropic left: Open Society Institute ($100,000 from 2003 to 2005), the Ford Foundation ($100,000 in 2003), the Rockefeller Foundation ($150,000 in 2002), and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($500,000 in 2002).
I know firsthand, that when you explain to many people that the abandonment of sound lending practices at these institutions to cater to PC concerns of who can and cannot afford housing, you are accused of being a racist.
I went to the Fannie Mae Homepage and copied the following. Note in particular, the emphasis on giving money to people who have not shown that they know how to handle it. Far below, you can read their statement on Diversity.
If they had spent more time on sound fiscal lending practices and less time on diversity, we might not be in a position to get screwed by the government to bail these idiots out.
*******************************
Affordable Housing Solutions
In support of our mission, Fannie Mae offers several mortgage products and options that help our lender partners serve low- to moderate-income borrowers with affordable, sustainable homeownership solutions, including:
Reduced requirements for down payment and closing costs
A variety of mortgage terms and payment options
Low mortgage insurance coverage requirements
Choices for borrowers with less-than-perfect credit
Flexibility to provide loans to home buyers with no traditional credit history
Options that may provide extra flexibility for teachers, police officers, firefighters, health care workers, and retired and active members of the military, and for borrowers with a disability or a family member with a disability
Fannie Mae also works with several community-based nonprofit partners to offer special lending initiatives to meet their community’s needs.
****************************
And here is their “Misson Statement”:
About Fannie Mae - Introduction to Fannie Mae
Our Charter
Careers
Diversity & Inclusion
Fannie Mae provides stability, liquidity, and affordability to the nation’s housing finance system under all economic conditions. We are a shareholder-owned company with a public mission. We exist to expand affordable housing and bring global capital to local communities in order to serve the U.S. housing market.
Fannie Mae has a federal charter and operates in America’s secondary mortgage market to ensure that mortgage bankers and other lenders have enough funds to lend to home buyers at low rates. Our job is to help those who house America.
Fannie Mae was created in 1938, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, at a time when millions of families could not become homeowners, or risked losing their homes, for lack of a consistent supply of mortgage funds across America.
The government established Fannie Mae in order to expand the flow of mortgage funds in all communities, at all times, under all economic conditions, and to help lower the costs to buy a home.
In 1968, Fannie Mae was re-chartered by Congress as a shareholder-owned company, funded solely with private capital raised from investors on Wall Street and around the world.
Fannie Mae has a unique duty to the public it serves — and the private investors that fuel its service — to be a model company focused on service, reliability, and value.
Like all who participate in the housing market, Fannie Mae has a responsibility to help home buyers, homeowners, and communities through market challenges. We believe in the long term health of America’s housing market. The nation is growing and that growth will bring a renewed demand for housing and for responsible, sustainable mortgage lending. Fannie Mae will be there to help meet America’s changing housing needs.
***************************************************
Mission
Fannie Mae is committed to diversity and inclusion in the workforce, the workplace and the marketplace. We strive to create an environment where employees — our greatest resource — can fully engage and contribute their diverse ideas and perspectives towards innovative solutions that meet the company’s goals. In doing so, our employees drive the company’s competitive edge and serve the needs of our customers, partners and communities.
Not wise to screw with banks. CRL might get their head handed to them.
Please, stop blaming the black and Hispanic people for everything.
Here’s the story of how IndyMac really worked...
http://appraisersforum.com/showthread.php?t=141764
At the end of my first week, there was an urgent need to field review an appraisal of a subdivision in the Sacramento area. I went up there on the weekend, but also took along some other recent appraisal reports from the Sacramento area. One of the other appraisal reports concerned me. A residential subdivision had been appraised as “80% complete”, but when I visited it, it had only been rough-graded, probably no more than 15% complete. When I returned to the office on Monday I asked who the construction inspector was for that region. I was told that there were two inspectors for the Sacramento area; one was CEO Mike Perry’s father and the other one was Mike Perry’s father-in-law. The loan officer on the deal was Mike Perry’s younger brother, Roger, who had recently been hired. His previous experience had been as a cop. Thereafter I heard of favoritism towards relatives of Mike Perry and “FOMs”, and the chief credit officer advised me to take special care of Mike Perry’s brother. (“FOM” was IndyMac jargon for “Friend of Mike”.)
I reported my Sacramento findings in a private memo to the chief credit officer, who then distributed it to the senior managers at the construction lending subsidiary known as the Construction Lending Corporation of America (CLCA). The senior credit officer from CLCA, the manager who most resembled Tony Soprano, was the one to call me. He asked “Are you sure you saw what you said you saw?” in a rather chilling manner. He said he had been on site with Roger Perry and had seen things differently. After that call, I asked the chief credit officer why CLCA’s senior credit officer would want me to recant my report. He told me that the senior credit officer received sales commissions for every loan made, which seemed to me like a blatant conflict of interest.
All appraisals were ordered by the loan officers from a list of approved appraisers maintained by LandAmerica. I was not allowed to order appraisals, but I recognized many names on the LandAmerica list as well known, reputable appraisers. What I began to observe, however, was that loan officers were learning which appraisers were more “flexible” than others. My areas of concern were extraordinary assumptions, lack of feasibility analysis, and false information given to appraisers.
As an example, I read an appraisal of a vacant, former Costco warehouse which had been purchased for $2 million several months before, but was appraised for $17 million based on a fabricated rent roll composed of tenants that had never signed a lease or a letter of intent. Only one tenant actually moved in. I told the loan officer that I could not accept the appraisal report, as it was hypothetical. He wanted me to approve it, any way, with the understanding that no funds would be disbursed until the prospective tenants could be verified. I told him that I wasn’t going to approve a hypothetical appraisal. The loan was funded, any way.
Before you accuse me of Racism, which you have done, please illustrate WHERE I said anything about BLACK or HISPANIC people.
ANYWHERE please. Just highlight it and send it back.
I didn’t think so.
Little did I imagine it would be four posts into the thread, and by a Freeper.
Who wrote that?
What do YOU think they meant by diversity?
Blacks and Hispanics only?
They mean women, minorites, and “financially disadvantaged” and GBLT, just to mention a few. They probably also have handicapped people in there.
Nowhere did I say Blacks and Hispanics. YOU said that. If you are going to accuse someone of racism, you might start with yourself.
Are you claiming Blacks and Hispanics aren’t minorities?
No. Stay on topic. You are the one who saw “diversity” and thought blacks and hispanics, not me.
I think you are the one who is having a problem with stereotypes.
Look, you can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me, are you specifically excluding Blacks and Hispanics from your quote of “They mean women, minorites, and “financially disadvantaged” and GBLT, just to mention a few...”
No, I just think you have a bug up your ass about something else.
You have no clue whatsoever, and your response clearly indicates that.
You are doing what liberals do best, and that is called “projection”. You read my post, and YOU are the one who thought “Blacks and Hispanics”.
The point of the original post, backed up by text taken from the Fannie Mae website, is that they place much more emphasis on giving loans to people on the basis of what group they belong to, rather than adhering to sound lending practices. But that is completely lost on you, because you are hung up on some kind of PC agenda. That doesn’t fly well on FR.
If you want to put words in someone elses mouth, go to DU and do it. We don’t stand for it here.
Look, Freddie and Fannie had those rules in place for years, and now, only now it’s becoming a problem? Please, people like you are the reason why the GOP is losing the Blacks and Hispanics, their natural constituency.
A bunch of MBAS’s, CEO’s and Ayn Rand fetishiziers drive this economy into the ground and we have to deal with almost one thread a day of somebody trying to blame this on “Diversity.”
The numbers just don’t support you.
Get the government out of inflating the currency to bail out homeowners and bankers, to say nothing of being involved in the mortgage business to begin with. WTF should EVERYONE own a home anyway (which they don't really own with minimal down payments anyway).
Hmmm
President George W. Bush presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Alan Greenspan, on November 9, 2005 in the East Room of the White House.
Alan Greenspan is considered a traitor by most objectavists. In his earlier work he condemned deficit spending, fiat currency, and government control of the money supply. Amazing how power can cause someone to throw their brain out the window.
I guess that why President George W. Bush presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Alan Greenspan, on November 9, 2005 in the East Room of the White House.
Perhaps you should pull your head out of your computer and take a look at the market. People like you prefer to blame it all on white collar crooks, when it is the basic premise behind what these institutions are that is what rots the foundation. There are massive numbers of people who got loans, large ones, who had no business getting a car loan, much less a mortgage.
Gee, big surprise when these people, who are massively overextended, fall off the edge because of a spike in the cost of living. They should never have got loans, and people who got loans for $600K should have never borrowed more than $200K. Takes a rocket scientist to figure out that one. But hey, the evidence is on their website.
People like you think a white collar crook stealing a few million is going to cause this problem, or that a CEO making a fat paycheck it a thief. Open your eyes. This problem is caused by people of all stripes living on credit or taking risky loans. Fannie Mae is a relic of socialist big government from the Roosevelt administration, and Freddie Mac is a direct descendent of that. Because the socialistic Fannie Mae is more interested in giving money to people who they think have a right to get a loan whether they can pay it back or not, and because it and Freddie Mac are the LARGEST OF THEIR TYPE, well gee...golly...things went bad. But hey, it is those white collar criminals skimming it off the top that are the real bad guys.
Yeah, it it wasn’t for their corruption, this abortion of a government wealth redistribution plan would work just fine.
Your “Workers of the World Unite” crap doesn’t fly here.
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