Bouncing Ball Politics
” For years, home ownership was a big “good thing” among both liberal Democrats like Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Christopher Dodd, on the one hand, and moderate Republicans like President George W. Bush on the other hand.
Raising the rate of home ownership was the big red bouncing ball that they pursued out into the street, in utter disregard of the dangers.
A political myth has been created that no one warned of those dangers. But among the many who did warn were yours truly in 2005, Fortune and Barron’s magazines in 2004 and Britain’s The Economist magazine in 2003. Warnings specifically about the dangerous roles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were made by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in 2005 and by Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snow in 2003.
In pursuit of those higher home ownership rates, especially among low-income people and minorities, the many vast powers of the federal government — from the Federal Reserve to bank regulatory agencies and even the Department of Justice, which issued threats of anti-discrimination lawsuits — were used to force banks and other lenders to lower their standards for making mortgage loans.
What makes all this painfully ironic is that the latest data show that the rate of home ownership today is lower than it has been in 18 years. There was a rise of a few percentage points during the housing boom, but that was completely erased during the housing bust. Housing has been just one area where the bouncing ball approach to political decision-making has led the country into one disaster after another.”
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Tag Archive: Barney Frank
New Study Confirms Economy Was Destroyed By Democrat Policies
Alex Wong:Getty Images
” A new study from the widely respected National Bureau of Economic Research released this week has confirmed beyond question that the left’s race-baiting attacks on the housing market (the Community Reinvestment Act–enacted under Carter, made shockingly more aggressive under Clinton) is directly responsible for imploding the housing market and destroying the economy.
The study painstakingly sorted through failed home loans that caused the housing market collapse and identified an overwhelming connection between them and CRA mortgages.
Again, let’s review:
-President Bush went to Congress repeatedly for years warning them that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were going to destroy the economy (17 times in 2008 alone). Democrats continuously ignored him, shut down his proposals along party lines and continued raiding the institutions for campaign contributions on their way down.”
Not really news to us that pay attention , but still nice to see in print from a significant news source .
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- New study confirms economy was destroyed by Democrat policies (righttruth.typepad.com)
- We told you so, redux (babalublog.com)
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Our Great ” Racial Healer ” Is Wasting No Time
Obama To Unleash Racial-Preferences Juggernaut
If this all sounds familiar that’s because it is … can you say ” Community Reinvestment Act ” boys and girls ? For those that don’t remember , this policy , created during the Carter administration , turbo-charged by Bill Clinton and championed by the “community organizer ” crowd of Obama and his ilk , forced banks to make loans to customers regardless of their credit-worthiness thus fueling the housing bubble that led us to our current fiscal meltdown .
This is government at it’s ” best ” … create a problem , blame the private sector , demonize them and then step in with the ” Solution ” .
” If your organization has a policy or practice that doesn’t benefit minorities equally, watch out: The Obama administration could sue you for racial discrimination under a dubious legal theory that many argue is unconstitutional.
President Obama intends to close “persistent gaps” between whites and minorities in everything from credit scores and homeownership to test scores and graduation rates.
His remedy — short of new affirmative-action legislation — is to sue financial companies, schools and employers based on “disparate impact” complaints — a stealthy way to achieve racial preferences, opposed 2 to 1 by Americans.
Under this broad interpretation of civil-rights law, virtually any organization can be held liable for race bias if it maintains a policy that negatively impacts one racial group more than another — even if it has no racist motive and applies the policy evenly across all groups.
Equal Outcomes
This means that even race-neutral rules for mortgage underwriting and consumer credit scoring potentially can be deemed racist if prosecutors can produce statistics showing they tend to result in adverse outcomes for blacks or Latinos.
Already, Attorney General Eric Holder has used the club of disparate-impact lawsuits to beat almost $500 million in loan set-asides and other claims out of the nation’s largest banks.
In addition to the financial settlements — which include millions in funding for affordable-housing activists — Bank of America, Wells Fargo and SunTrust have all agreed to adopt more minority-friendly lending policies. ”
We are forced to pay for sowing the seeds of our own destruction .
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- The New Racial Justice System (frontpagemag.com)
- Disadvantaged by Affirmative Action or “Disparate Impact” (aminext.com)
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- Black America, Barack Obama, and the racial backlash (thegrio.com)
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