Posted on 09/29/2008 3:48:08 AM PDT by Schnucki
The roots of today's mortgage-based financial crisis can be traced back to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which Jimmy Carter signed in 1977. Seeking to address complaints from anti-poverty activists and housing advocates about banks allegedly discriminating against minority borrowers and "redlining" inner-city neighborhoods, the CRA decreed that banks had "an affirmative obligation" to meet the credit needs of victims of discrimination in borrowing.
To add a government stick to the process, the CRA decreed that federal banking regulators would consider how well banks were doing in meeting the goal of more multiculturalism in loaning when considering requests by banks to open new branches or to merge.
A good "CRA rating" was earned by way of increasing loans in poor neighborhoods. Conversely, lenders with low ratings could be fined.
The Fed, for instance, warned banks that failure to comply with government guidelines regarding the delivery of "equal credit" could subject them to "civil liability for actual or punitive damages in individual or class actions, with liability for punitive damages being as much as $10,000 in individual actions and the lesser of $500,000 or 1 percent of the creditor's net worth in class actions."
However well-intentioned in terms of delivering "economic justice," this push for more government-directed social engineering produced a widespread weakening of long-established industry standards for credit worthiness.
Led by Congressional Democrats, this policy of replacing private and decentralized decision-making with a system of centrally-delivered rewards and punishments was basically a one-party effort. Republicans, it seems, were more aware of the unintended consequences that flow from government interference in the market.
As Investor's Business Daily recently put it, succinctly and correctly: "Over the past 30 years, Democrats, along with a handful of Republicans, have demonized lenders as racist and passed regulation after regulation pressuring them to make more loans
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
Of course they did. Reverse discrimination at its finest. Home ownership of whites should have grown tremendously as well. When they lowered the bar, it should have been lowered for everyone, but it wasn't. They kept whites from being included.
This is the political correctness atrocity at work. It would have been too "judgemental" to tell marginal people they could not afford to buy a house beyond their means.
Political correctness is the sword that slew the economic dragon.
Many of the laws requiring government oversight of the market written after the last great market crash-----in 1929---- were eliminated during the Clinton administration---one of many ignorant moves by the self-absorbed "tolerant and compassionate" liberal Clintons.
It's not beyond reason to conclude that the mortgage/market debacle is the consequences of (1) moral relativity----and (2) disestablimentarianism (the deranged obsession with tearing down the foundation of Western Civilization).
Anything remotely connected to moral absolutes of right and wrong smacks of "religion" to disturbed religion-hating liberals.....and has to be destroyed.
TAXPAYERS DEMAND POLITICIANS (1) SAY THEY WILL REPLACE REGULATORY LAWS, (2) throw out political correctness, AND (3) NEVER EVER ALLOW ILLEGALS AND OTHER MARGINALS TO PROFIT FROM OUR ECONOMIC SYSTEM.
You have the choice of socialism or sustaining assets.
With Carter out on the road getting massive media attention every time he criticizes Bush, everyone should know that this crisis started with his program; one that was encouraged and protected by Democrats almost exclusively. Democrats through government agencies built a scheme to require lenders to loan to less qualified as a means of helping the less fortunate and driving campaign contributions.
We are finding out that mass socialism or "free property" can not coexist with growth, safe assets, low taxes and low unemployment.
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