No they were not...they were forbidden to redline entire areas...big difference...a few bad loans would not have brought this country to it’s knees except for credit default swaps and the banks leveraging themselves...prime loans are in default...more of them then the poor people type loans...also, I know because some of those subprime loans went to people in Warren that some of those banks engaged in predatory lending and had they given proper loans to these people would not have had so many defaults...these mortgage payments tripled in many cases...The banks are in trouble because they gamed the system gambled with our money and lost...so did we as a country. They do not deserve to be defended by conservatives, what they did is not free market nor is it capitalism.
Read the article I linked. Redlining was addressed with the CRA. The 1992 bill set mandated numbers. And it set Penalties - fines. I have read most of that entire bill, the 1992 one, as well as the CRA I know what’s in them. The article I linked is heavily referenced/sourced as well.
I am sorry, your argument is false.
http://www.capitalresearch.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/toeachtheirhome.pdf
ACORN knew EXACTLY what and how to use the CRA and ACORN lobbied heavily for the changes made to it in 1992 KNOWING that it would make it easier to force more banks to write bad loans, ALSO opening up the market to utterly unscrupulus lenders who took advantage of the loopholes and profiteering that Congress CREATED.
They knew what they were doing, and didn’t give a crap. This is a GOVERNMENT created Crisis. It is all deliberate. Burying one’s head in the sand isn’t going to change it.