With respect to the “greed” charge that is the current meme, he asked a simple question: if greed could be satisfied by lending to this segment of the population, why would HUD have to force banks to write the business??
This question destroys the greed charge. “Wall Street” financial institutions were up-stream, so to speak, on the flow of mortgage paper from the firms that sold the mortgages to the homeowner. When several government agencies and the Treasury department themselves were all scoring market participants on what percent of their total loans went to targeted economic groups, how is it “greed” when these businesses figure out efficient ways to handle the deals and make money off them??
Economist and professor Donald Boudreaux wrote a delightful comeback to this charge on the Cafe Hayek blog:
“Saying that “greed” caused today's problems is like saying that gravity caused the death of someone pushed from the top floor of the Empire State building. Some things are sufficiently constant in human affairs - and self-interest, even greed, is among them - that they explain nothing.”
Wonderful quote! I'm going to write to the blog and see if they'll let me cite it in a letter I am writing to my (Catholic) pastor, who gave a Respect Life Sunday homily that essentially said abortion wasn't that crucial an issue, greed under the current political leadership had led us to a situation where people weren't "being taken care of" by the government and thus we weren't expressing "pro-life attitudes," and Catholics had to vote for "change." This, of course, was his way of saying what he didn't dare come out and say, which was that Catholics should vote for Obama.
It won't do much good, but I'm writing a letter to the pastor and the bishop (who unfortunately shares his opinions), and sending a copy to the appropriate NCCB office.
I am sick and tired of this "greed" theme that, as the writer said, is a constant and explains absolutely nothing in itself.
Because the "greed" wasn't in the banks...
Follow the money...