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Posted on 04/12/2010 7:42:50 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Both use controversial tactics to force powerful institutions to toe their line, but does that mean the Greenlining Institute and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now are two sides of the same coin?
Depends on who you ask.
Greenlining says on its Web site that “since 1993, the Greenlining Institute has blossomed into a major policy player throughout California and the nation ... garnering over $2.4 trillion dollars in investments into traditionally underserved areas.”
Even so, Greenlining has purposely flown beneath the radar of public opinion since its inception. That began to change, however, when the subprime meltdown started and ACORN became involved in scandals over embezzlement, voter fraud and questionable loan practices in 2008.
Suddenly, the Internet was rife with exposes like, “California’s Greenlining Institute: Arm-Twisting for Financial Affirmative Action” “The mortgage crisis: who’s to blame?” and “The Greenlining Institute: Shakedown Artists.”
The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 that empowered groups like Greenlining was now on the radar in Washington, as several Republicans on the House Financial Service Committee were hoping to make it a law of the past.
“Should we repeal the CRA? Absolutely,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas. “Do we have the votes today? I seriously doubt that.”
Referring to Greenlining and ACORN, Rep. Ed Royce, R-CA, told The Washington Examiner that “armed with the ability to file Community Reinvestment Act complaints with federal bank regulators, this organization could stall or prevent bank mergers or expansion plans.
“In order to avoid these filings, financial institutions would either lower their lending requirements to meet the needs of ACORN associates or they would simply pay out funds to one of the many ACORN-affiliated organizations.
“It appears these actions amount to little more than legalized extortion. The most unfortunate side to all of this is that the American taxpayers are subsidizing these efforts and they will continue to do so until we completely wall off these activist groups from federal funding,” Royce said.
Greenlining’s new Executive Director Orson Aguilar says his group isn’t anything like ACORN.
“It would be an ignorant comparison, our work is totally different,” he said. “We got attacked last year by conservative media and we had nothing to do with ACORN. We were being successful at advocating. It means we’re being effective.”
Its advocacy is meant to bring healthy commerce to low-income areas and in turn that helps the banks garner more business, Aguilar said.
Greenlining founder Robert Gnaizda said he even warned former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan in 2004 that subprime lending trouble was brewing and it was wrong to blame Greenlining for the crisis.
“I was the first one to tell him,” he said.
Other experts are not convinced.
“It’s all the bank’s fault, the borrower never makes a mistake,” intoned Edward Pinto, the former chief credit officer of Fannie Mae. “The community groups with the support and assistance of Congress and the support of HUD have accomplished this crisis.”
Pinto tries to spread the word about the dangers of low-income funding via newspaper editorials and congressional hearings. Last September, he testified before the House Committee on Financial Services on which Royce and Hensarling serve.
“We’ve got this culture today that everybody deserves to have a house, health care or whatever handed to them regardless whether done anything to deserve it,” Pinto said. “The general public does not agree with that.”
FReep mail me if you want on/off the list.
We're seeing the fallout from the Political Correctness atrocity. In the real world, these people would be considered nothing more than extortionists and mobsters running protection rackets using coercion and threats.
REFERENCE Financial Bust Connected to Illegal Alien Mortgages
Human Events | October 5, 2009 | William Campenni
FR Posted by machogirl
......the new alchemists: mortgage bankers...... They found a way to turn worthless mortgages into hordes of gold. Or at least they thought they had.
There were other factors that contributed to the collapse of the credit markets. Low interest rates by the Federal Reserve, lowered standards by FannieMae and FreddyMac, securitized mortgages (derivatives and collateralized debt obligations -- a real alchemic brew), the machinations of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, the Community Reinvestment Act, Alan Greenspan, and so forth. etc. But of themselves, and even in concert, they could not have brought about a collapse of the magnitude that ensued.
So what supplied this quintessential element? It was the opportunity to exploit the sudden and coincidental housing needs of millions of illegal aliens with subprime mortgages.
The grand schemes and diabolical financial instruments would otherwise lie fallow without a huge base of mortgages to hold up the Ponzi pyramid, and the new market of the 12 -- more likely 20 -- million housing-starved illegal alien populace was the ripe, low hanging fruit. (Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
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The subprime mortgage meltdown can be attributed to illegal invaders fraudulently getting loans with stolen identities; if they could breathe and make an X, they got a mortgage, no questions asked. The conniving illegals then flipped the mortgaged houses among relatives at higher and higher prices.......the last relative absconds to Mexico with loads of cash, leaving banks (and taxpayers) holding the bag.
CASE IN POINT A TV documentary "House of Cards" showed an illegal who could not speak English, who mowed loans for a living, getting a sub-prime mortgage for a posh California property worthy of a multi-millionaire. Of course he defaulted----the corrupt illegal had lied about his income on the mortgage application.
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As FReeper raybbr postulated: "the illegal's sense of entititlement to tear down our government while enjoying US prosperity, the principles of democracy, our legislative process, and our thriving society is an affront to every real American."
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But there's a secondary problem----the secularization of the culture---wherein moral certitudes, and the Golden Rule, were tossed aside in favor of self-absorbed individuality. At one time, getting a mortgage was considered a moral obligation----one blessing of living in a free republic. Mortgage-holders took on the responsibility; they budgeted and had second jobs in order to pay their obligations. Default was not an option.
Feb 8, 2010
Editorial, The Wall St Journal
FR Posted February 08, 2010 by The Raven ...
HUD's Web visitors learn that in 1999 "Then-HUD Secy Cuomo (Clinton appointee) established new Affordable Housing Goals requiring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—--the two government-sponsored enterprises involved in housing finance—--to buy $2.4 trillion in mortgages in the next 10 years. This will mean new affordable housing for about 28.1 million low- and moderate-income families."
"Cuomo's historic action raised the required percentage of mortgage loans for low- and moderate-income families that the companies must buy from the current 42% of their total purchases to a new high of 50%—-----a 19% increase—in the year 2001"........ (Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com
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REFERENCE Entitled, "Highlights of HUD Accomplishments 1997-1999," the document chronicles the accomplishments under the leadership of Secretary Andrew Cuomo, who took office in January 1997.
HUD's Web visitors learn that in 1999: "Secretary Cuomo established new Affordable Housing Goals requiring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—two government sponsored enterprises involved in housing finance—to buy $2.4 trillion in mortgages in the next 10 years. This will mean new affordable housing for about 28.1 million low- and moderate-income families."
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CUOMO AND BILL CLINTON CREATED CONDITIONS FOR MELTDOWN (Village Voice 8-5-08) Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development Secretary in history (Clinton appointee), made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country’s current crisis.
Cuomo took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments.
Cuomo turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded “kickbacks” to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. (There were rampant rumors that Cuomo himself pocketed greatly from his HUD position.)
Three to four million families are facing foreclosure (as of 2008), and Cuomo is one of the reasons why....
SOURCE http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-08-05/news/how-andrew-cuomo-gave-birth-to-the-crisis-at-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac/
“HUD’s Web visitors learn that in 1999: “Secretary Cuomo established new Affordable Housing Goals requiring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—two government sponsored enterprises involved in housing finance—to buy $2.4 trillion in mortgages in the next 10 years. This will mean new affordable housing for about 28.1 million low- and moderate-income families.”
Aye, there’s the rub. How does the funding of 2.4 trillion dollars in mortgages for low income people make a house ‘AFFORDABLE” ?
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