Thread: Are you "Furious".

Originally Posted by MasterMason03

Gugi, if you were told for your entire life that the sky is purple and you just stepped outside on day and saw it was blue, then you would think is was some vast right-wing conspiracy.

Sorry, not interested. I left kindergarden long time ago.
Have fun.

Originally Posted by gugi

Oh, that's a really good one , FORCED!!!
I can tell you're not a banker, nor have you ever played one on TV Keep up the good work, though, the banks need you!

You simply don't know what kind of pressure was placed on the Banks. Yes, they were FORCED. They had to maintain a certain CRA rating by the Bank regulators, if not they were threatened to be exposed publicly as not fulfilling their obligation under a piece of Civil Rights Legislation. It's all spelled out here.

Here's How The Community Reinvestment Act Led To The Housing Bubble's Lax Lending - Business Insider

Originally Posted by Crotalus

You simply don't know what kind of pressure was placed on the Banks. Yes, they were FORCED. They had to maintain a certain CRA rating by the Bank regulators, if not they were threatened to be exposed publicly as not fulfilling their obligation under a piece of Civil Rights Legislation. It's all spelled out here.

Here's How The Community Reinvestment Act Led To The Housing Bubble's Lax Lending - Business Insider

And if we're using editorial links as fact, it was all debunked here:
CRE and the CRA - NYTimes.com

The PDF link is broken in that page but the Harvard document that declares the CRA's contribution to the housing market collapse as "marginal" can still be found here (direct PDF link):
http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/jc...n08-2_park.pdf

EDIT: To further clarify, that first article in the NYT was written by Paul Krugman who, as of last month, was listed as the 17th most-cited economist in the world so I think he knows what he's talking about.

Originally Posted by commiecat

And if we're using editorial links as fact, it was all debunked here:
CRE and the CRA - NYTimes.com

The PDF link is broken in that page but the Harvard document that declares the CRA's contribution to the housing market collapse as "marginal" can still be found here (direct PDF link):
http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/jc...n08-2_park.pdf

EDIT: To further clarify, that first article in the NYT was written by Paul Krugman who, as of last month, was listed as the 17th most-cited economist in the world so I think he knows what he's talking about.

The first article was not an analysis, it was just a 2 paragraph blast.

I read your link, did you bother to read mine? It goes into MUCH more detail and explains how the CRA influenced a majority of the market beyond what the data shows.

Originally Posted by Crotalus

The first article was not an analysis, it was just a 2 paragraph blast.

I read your link, did you bother to read mine? It goes into MUCH more detail and explains how the CRA influenced a majority of the market beyond what the data shows.

The analysis was in the PDF that he cited. It was an article by a renowned world economist saying that the CRA had minimal affect on the housing market collapse with a citation to hard data provided by the Home Mortgate Disclosure Act and analyzed by an economist.

Your link was an editorial published by a lawyer-turned-journalist. I think I'll side with the economists versus someone who gets paid by how many people read their articles.

We get it; you don't like democrats. To claim that the "economic problems in Europe and the US" were caused by "the democrats" (right here) is preposterous and inaccurate.

I guess it had to be Bush's fault.

Originally Posted by Crotalus

Here's How The Community Reinvestment Act Led To The Housing Bubble's Lax Lending - Business Insider

Finally something that has coherent logical arguments. I haven't read all of it but I plan to. It looks quite promising as a first step i.e. providing a logical storyline. Of course, that's not enough, the story needs to be substantiated with quantitative data.

You know people like Krugman and Friedman don't get Nobel prizes for just making good stories, they get them for making stories that match reality.

Originally Posted by gugi

Finally something that has coherent logical arguments. I haven't read all of it but I plan to. It looks quite promising as a first step i.e. providing a logical storyline. Of course, that's not enough, the story needs to be substantiated with quantitative data.

You know people like Krugman and Friedman don't get Nobel prizes for just making good stories, they get them for making stories that match reality.

I'll give ya first hand account of why the housing bubble burst. I bought my house when I was employed and making good money. Three years later, I had no job and no income. Mortgage rates had dropped a bit and I had several companies courting me to re-finance. I finally picked one and sat down with them and informed them that I had ZERO income and no immediate prospects of substantial income.

The replied to me, "Mr P.. we don't need, nor are we required to have proof of income for this deal to go through."

They re-financed my mortgage no questions asked.

Unlike a lot of people, I am making my payments and still "own" my place.

As for the CRA, I seem to recall there was a young black senator from Chicago that signed off on that bill.

Originally Posted by Wullie

As for the CRA, I seem to recall there was a young black senator from Chicago that signed off on that bill.

You mean the young, black, left-handed, Christian one? With the funny name?

Since you guys were wanting to talk about the housing bubble again I can tell you from my own personal experience the bubble started around 1976 in California. That's when prices started to climb and folks were camped outside of new housing subdivisions waiting to buy sight unseen with the intent to flip the property before the house was even built. From that point on it was a natural progression fueled by people and greed. It created a huge industry employing millions and spread throughout the country with people making money hand over foot by continuing to sell and flip and related occupations feeding off of it from banks and real estate agents and mortgage companies and appraisers and on and on. When folks couldn't afford the prices they created mortgage instruments to allow it to continue and when they couldn't even do that anymore they just resorted to fraud to qualify people.

The rightees are correct in that the Govt should have stepped in and stopped it dead in it's tracks and they didn't. But of course if the Govt did go that route the rightees would just use that as an example of too much Govt regulation getting in the way of free enterprise.

I think the housing mess is the best example I've ever seen to illustrate what happens when the Govt gets out of the way and allows the free enterprise system to operate freely.

It runs amok.