Good Ole President Clinton,,..lets see how the Dems spin this

[RALPHEY BOY]

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/201...t-touched.html



The entire Democrat Party hardest hit:

[In 1994] the federal government declared war on an enemy — the racist lender — who officials claimed was to blame for differences in homeownership rate, and launched what would prove the costliest social crusade in U.S. history.

At President Clinton's direction, no fewer than 10 federal agencies issued a chilling ultimatum to banks and mortgage lenders to ease credit for lower-income minorities or face investigations for lending discrimination and suffer the related adverse publicity. They also were threatened with denial of access to the all-important secondary mortgage market and stiff fines, along with other penalties.

The threat was codified in a 20-page "Policy Statement on Discrimination in Lending" and entered into the Federal Register on April 15, 1994, by the Interagency Task Force on Fair Lending. Clinton set up the little-known body to coordinate an unprecedented crackdown on alleged bank redlining.

The edict — completely overlooked by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the mainstream media — was signed by then-HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, Attorney General Janet Reno, Comptroller of the Currency Eugene Ludwig and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, along with the heads of six other financial regulatory agencies...

...The unusual full-court press was predicated on a Boston Fed study showing mortgage lenders rejecting blacks and Hispanics in greater proportion than whites. The author of the 1992 study, hired by the Clinton White House, claimed it was racial "discrimination." But it was simply good underwriting.

It took private analysts, as well as at least one FDIC economist, little time to determine the Boston Fed study was terminally flawed. In addition to finding embarrassing mistakes in the data, they concluded that more relevant measures of a borrower's credit history — such as past delinquencies and whether the borrower met lenders credit standards — explained the gap in lending between whites and blacks, who on average had poorer credit and higher defaults...

Lenders -- faced with ten federal regulatory bodies, the Attorney General, the President and the HUD Secretary -- quickly fell into line.

[They] threw such a scare into the industry that the American Bankers Association issued a "fair-lending tool kit" to every member. The Mortgage Bankers Association of America signed a "fair-lending" contract with HUD. So did Countrywide.

HUD also pushed Fannie and Freddie, which in effect set industry underwriting standards, to buy subprime mortgages, freeing lenders to originate even more high-risk loans.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Barack Obama can blame George W. Bush, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, and Carmen Electra for the housing crisis. But the real culprits were the social engineers, criminals and cronies in the Clinton administration.

[F-Sharp]

You have the right policy, but the wrong president.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNqQx7sjoS8

I guess you didn't notice those numbers jump significantly until after 2000. I guess you also never heard of the "American Dream Downpayment Initiative" signed into law on December 16, 2003.

http://hud.gov/offices/cpd/affordabl...ams/home/addi/

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jun...ess/fi-homes18

Stay away from blogs people, they're bad for you.

[DTorrchia]

Guess one should stay away from Wiki and the Times as well eh F-Sharp?

Housing tax policy

In July 1978, Section 121 allowed for a $100,000 one-time exclusion in capital gains for sellers 55 years or older at the time of sale.[3] In 1981, the Section 121 exclusion was increased from $100,000 to $125,000.[3] The Tax Reform Act of 1986 eliminated the tax deduction for interest paid on credit cards. As mortgage interest remained deductible, this encouraged the use of home equity through refinancing, second mortgages, and home equity lines of credit (HELOC) by consumers.[4] The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 repealed the Section 121 exclusion and section 1034 rollover rules, and replaced them with a $500,000 married/$250,000 single exclusion of capital gains on the sale of a home, available once every two years.[5] This made housing the only investment which escaped capital gains. These tax laws encouraged people to buy expensive, fully mortgaged homes, as well as invest in second homes and investment properties, as opposed to investing in stocks, bonds, or other assets.[6][7][8]
[edit] Deregulation

See also: Financial crisis of 2007-2009#Deregulation
Historically, the financial sector was heavily regulated by the Glass–Steagall Act which separated commercial and investment banks. It also set strict limits on Banks' interest rates and loans.
Starting in the 1980s, considerable deregulation took place in banking. Banks were deregulated through:

• The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 (allowing similar banks to merge and set any interest rate).

• The Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 (allowing Adjustable-rate mortgages).

• The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999 (allowing commercial and investment banks to merge).

This deregulation allowed many risky products to exist (such as Adjustable-rate mortgages) which contributed to the housing bubble and easy credit.
Most blame on deregulation is put on the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has called Senator Phil Gramm "the father of the financial crisis" due to his sponsorship of the act.[9] Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has also argued that GLB helped to create the crisis.


http://www.time.com/time/specials/pa...877322,00.html


"President Clinton's tenure was characterized by economic prosperity and financial deregulation, which in many ways set the stage for the excesses of recent years. Among his biggest strokes of free-wheeling capitalism was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, a cornerstone of Depression-era regulation. He also signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which exempted credit-default swaps from regulation. In 1995 Clinton loosened housing rules by rewriting the Community Reinvestment Act, which put added pressure on banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods. It is the subject of heated political and scholarly debate whether any of these moves are to blame for our troubles, but they certainly played a role in creating a permissive lending environment".

The above is a quote from Time magazine, not Fox news.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_187732 2,00.html #ixzz1cWB5yIyN

Also worth watching for info on the financial meltdown:
http://www.sonyclassics.com/insidejob/

Once again F-Sharp, your attempts to re-write history will simply hit a brick wall around here. There is plenty of blame to lay at the feet of both the Democrats and the Republicans. Clinton, Barney Frank and crew certainly did plenty of damage on the Democrat side as did Gramm and others on the Republican side. In the end it's been proven time and time again in our Country's history that greed knows no political party. Your efforts to protect Clinton in this disaster are futile.



Bill Clinton signs into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act, November 12, 1999

[RALPHEY BOY]

Originally Posted by F-Sharp

You have the right policy, but the wrong president.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNqQx7sjoS8

I guess you didn't notice those numbers jump significantly until after 2000. I guess you also never heard of the "American Dream Downpayment Initiative" signed into law on December 16, 2000

and I guess you did not notice the law went into effect January 1, 2001???

This is where it all started with Clinton then the Republicans did little to quash it..all greedy Politicians are to blame...but more so Clinton and the Dems...

and 2nd, American Dream was a very small part of the meltdown, if you knew Underwriting( you really need to learn that for it would make your arguments so much more plausible) you would know that FHA is/was much harder of a loan to get than a Subprime or B Paper loan.

FHA: always full income docs, always full asset disclosure, no BK's within 2 years, No Forceclosure within 3 years

Subprime guides were so much easier

[WyldemanATX]

You need to realize that people like Fsharp are unable to take their emotions out and use logic. They will continue to attack your source and claim that their source is the correct one. Blogs may have more truth than any other media outlet that exists. All mainstream media and government included are using key phrases to keep your emotion into your decisions as to who is telling the truth. Smoke and mirrors. This is the cause of dumbing down of America to sell you on who is lining their pockets.

[RALPHEY BOY]

http://www.huduser.org/portal/period...ol7num1t2.html
this study was done right before 2006





Foreclosure Risk Lowered With Downpayment Assistance

The recent housing crisis has made clear the importance of ensuring that when a family achieves homeownership, it is a sustainable homeownership. There is always a tension when attempting to expand homeownership, with the risk that households will be unable to meet mortgage obligations and remain in the homes they purchased. This was the concern Congress had in 2006 when it directed HUD to determine foreclosure and delinquency rates for those who received assistance through the American Dream Downpayment Initiative (ADDI), a program designed to help expand homeownership among lower-income households.
According to the resulting study, Rates of Foreclosure in HOME and ADDI Programs, such difficulties seem to be the exception, not the rule.1 This study finds that foreclosure rates among homebuyers assisted through the HOME and ADDI programs were lower when compared with the subprime market and with overall foreclosure rates for buyers with loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Established by the American Dream Downpayment Act of 2003, the ADDI program was funded in fiscal years 2004–2007. ADDI provided assistance with downpayments, closing costs, and rehabilitation associated with a home purchase. ADDI was not subsequently funded because HOME programs also offered the kind of assistance that made homeownership affordable and sustainable for low-income families. The funding was allocated to existing HOME programs created under Title II of the National Affordable Housing Act of 1990.2
Because both programs served lower-income homebuyers, researchers combined data from the two programs to obtain a larger study group. Researchers gathered information from a representative sample of more than 4,000 homebuyers identified by state and local governments that administered the program. The estimated annual foreclosure rates of HOME and ADDI participants from 2001 through 2005 were then compared with those of the FHA-insured mortgage portfolio as of early 2008 — a similar population of homeowners, many of whom have low incomes and are first-time homebuyers. The differences were statistically significant. Between 2001 and 2005, foreclosure rates among HOME and ADDI participants were 25 percent lower than the rates found among all FHA-insured borrowers. Loans originating in earlier years (2000–2002) had higher rates of foreclosure than those in more recent originations (2003–2005), in part because the longer a loan is in existence, the more time it has to experience a foreclosure.
The study explored the effects of a number of other variables on delinquency, default, and foreclosure rates. Stricter credit eligibility requirements and greater equity through homebuyer assistance and borrower cash were related to lower foreclosure rates. Adjustable-rate mortgages, high-cost loans, reliance on lenders to keep interest rates down, nonprofit seller-funded downpayment programs, and declining prices of surrounding homes, on the other hand, were all associated with higher foreclosure rates.
A factor that is strongly linked with higher foreclosure rates among HOME- and ADDI-assisted homebuyers was the use of FHA-insured mortgages. The researchers hypothesize that HOME- and ADDI-assisted homebuyers who had "poorer credit histories were more likely to rely on FHA-insured mortgages" and less likely to obtain prime mortgages. The prevalence of these riskier homeowners in the FHA portfolio resulted in these homebuyers having higher rates of foreclosure in comparison to HOME- and ADDI-assisted buyers. Nevertheless, "their foreclosure rate was still much lower than the rates experienced by buyers using seller-provided downpayment assistance and only slightly higher than the foreclosure rates of the overall FHA-insured portfolio."3
Overall, the study concludes that the HOME and ADDI programs succeeded in making sustainable homeownership possible among low-income households. However, because the study period ended before the mortgage crisis began in earnest, and because these mortgages were not significantly involved in the subprime market, an analysis of their subsequent performance is not yet available.

[F-Sharp]

Originally Posted by DTorrchia

Once again F-Sharp, your attempts to re-write history will simply hit a brick wall around here.

What the hell does the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act have to do with the original post, my post, or the topic at hand? It was Republican legislation...as in Sen. Phil Gramm (R), Rep. Jim Leach (R), and Rep. Thomas Blilley (R). The Community Reinvestment Act has been around since 1977 and has been revised by every President since 1989. So this is your response to what exactly? I'm not going to argue that some of Clinton's agenda may have been a precursor in some way to the housing bust, but trying to blame the entire housing bust that occurred in 2007 on Clinton and some 20 page policy statement written back in 1994 is just asinine. If you want to know my opinion on the Gramm-Leach-Blilley act and do I believe it was a mistake, I would say absolutely and resoundingly yes! But as usual, that's not what the original post is about, and just you trying to disguise the fact that you didn't actually bother to read it.

Remember D, we've already talked about these Strawman debate tactics of yours. If you're going to attack a position, at least attack the position that's actually being discussed.

[DTorrchia]

Originally Posted by F-Sharp

What the hell does the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act have to do with the original post, my post, or the topic at hand? It was Republican legislation...as in Sen. Phil Gramm (R), Rep. Jim Leach (R), and Rep. Thomas Blilley (R). The Community Reinvestment Act has been around since 1977 and has been revised by every President since 1989. So this is your response to what exactly? I'm not going to argue that some of Clinton's agenda may have been a precursor in some way to the housing bust, but trying to blame the entire housing bust that occurred in 2007 on Clinton and some 20 page policy statement written back in 1994 is just asinine. If you want to know my opinion on the Gramm-Leach-Blilley act and do I believe it was a mistake, I would say absolutely and resoundingly yes! But as usual, that's not what the original post is about, and just you trying to disguise the fact that you didn't actually bother to read it.

Remember D, we've already talked about these Strawman debate tactics of yours. If you're going to attack a position, at least attack the position that's actually being discussed.

LOL, ok "F" if you say so. I encourage you to do a little reading and fact checking of your own to understand the correlation between the CRA act and the Gramm-Leach-Blilley act.
A good place to start would be here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act

Pay close attention to the changes beginning in 1995.

[F-Sharp]

Originally Posted by DTorrchia

LOL, ok "F" if you say so. I encourage you to do a little reading and fact checking of your own to understand the correlation between the CRA act and the Gramm-Leach-Blilley act.
A good place to start would be here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act

Pay close attention to the changes beginning in 1995.

Yeah, I say so and you don't have a clue what you're talking about. CRA qualification falls under two categories...borrowers income or property location...think low-income and ghetto respectively. CRA loans were all conventional full doc loans programs, meaning these were fixed rate loans underwritten to conventional or often times even more restrictive standards specifically due to having to qualify for CRA status.

None, I repeat NONE of these loans were sub-prime, interest-only, option arms, stated income, or negative amoritization loans that were the fuel that fired the housing meltdown. It was these types of loans along with the deregulation brought about through Gramm-Leach-Bliley and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (both Republican written and supported legislation) that caused this mess. CRA had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with it.

So, how about you try and explain that correlation? The only actual correlation I see is the compromise the House Democrats at the time made on GLB and CFM in order to get CRA passed.

[DTorrchia]

Originally Posted by F-Sharp

Yeah, I say so and you don't have a clue what you're talking about. CRA qualification falls under two categories...borrowers income or property location...think low-income and ghetto respectively. CRA loans were all conventional full doc loans programs, meaning these were fixed rate loans underwritten to conventional or often times even more restrictive standards specifically due to having to qualify for CRA status.

None, I repeat NONE of these loans were sub-prime, interest-only, option arms, stated income, or negative amoritization loans that were the fuel that fired the housing meltdown.

I enjoy it when your arrogance causes you to make statements like the one above. NONE (repeat) NONE of these loans were sub-prime?
That would put you at odds with Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner. Please tell us all how you know more than the Federal Reserve Governor who stated: "First, only a small portion of sub-prime mortgage originations are related to the CRA"
Small portions? Hmmm sounds like a few more than "NONE, I repeat NONE!"
Let's move on with more from the Federal Reserve Governor:
"6% of all the higher-priced loans were extended by CRA-covered lenders to lower-income borrowers or neighborhoods in their CRA assessment areas".
Now, that's his viewpoint, one which shows that your research isn't as thorough as you try so arrogantly to make people believe.

Just to be balanced....here's a few more viewpoints on the CRA in relation to the Housing Crisis.
http://articles.businessinsider.com/...mortgage-rates

http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/...housing-crisis

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/201...ie-and-freddie

http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/03/com...schweizer.html

"According to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, in the first 20 years of the act, up to 1997, commitments totaled approximately $200 billion. But from 1997 to 2007, commitments exploded to more than $4.2 trillion. (Keep in mind this is more than four times the size of the current health bill being debated in Congress.) The burdens on individual banks can be enormous. Washington Mutual, for example, pledged $1 trillion in mortgages to those with credit histories that "fall outside typical credit, income or debt constraints," and was awarded the 2003 CRA Community Impact Award for its Community Access program. Four years later it was taken over by the Office of Thrift Supervision. In 2004 Bank of America ( BAC - news - people ) agreed to provide $750 billion in CRA loans to applicants with poor credit who had previous difficulty obtaining a mortgage. By 2008 Bank of America was reporting that CRA loans represented only 7% of its portfolio but 29% of its losses. Numerous large banks are now in the middle of enormous CRA commitments."

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ed...ancial_fiasco/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123811225716453243.html

Apparently yours isn't the only viewpoint out there and apparently numerous others tend to disagree with your "None, I repeat None!" mantra.

Keep up the good fight!



It was these types of loans along with the deregulation brought about through Gramm-Leach-Bliley and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (both Republican written and supported legislation) that caused this mess. CRA had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with it.

So, how about you try and explain that correlation? The only actual correlation I see is the compromise the House Democrats at the time made on GLB and CFM in order to get CRA passed.

I also took the liberty to utilize your favorite posting style!

[F-Sharp]

Let's see, was this your link? Let's read that quote again shall we? This time in its entirety with the words you conveniently left out.

"We found that the loans that are the focus of the CRA represent a very small portion of the subprime lending market, casting considerable doubt on the potential contribution that the law could have made to the subprime mortgage crisis."

Are you really so hell-bent on making me look wrong that you have to resort to misquoting and misrepresenting statements D? And please tell me you're not gloating over the difference between none and "very small". I didn't make that up, it came from a reliable source. Your information is simply (and irrelevantly) different. Who's to say that "very small percentage" were not loans that were not qualified that fell through the cracks? Regardless, it's completely useless information to the topic at hand. I'll be the first one to admit when I am wrong about something, but you're going to have a very hard time convincing me by misquoting information that supports everything I stated. It also doesn't help your position (whatever that position actually is, I honestly don't have a clue now) to quote anti-liberal pundit commentary.

I take issue with much of Mr. Schweizer's statements, but I wont waste my time picking apart his very distorted and flat-out incorrect statements he tries to push off as fact. In a nutshell, "fall outside typical credit, income or debt constraints" pretty much gives him away, simply meaning that he's referring to sub-prime loans and the like. He also fails to make any mention of the fact that many of those so-called CRA obligations were actually converted to sub-prime loans as re-fi's by predatory lenders. Here's another excellent very "non-partisan" link that lays out much of what I've already stated. It even has pretty pictures and charts.

http://dallasfed.org/ca/bcp/2009/bcp0901.cfm

Put it this way, all the facts I've read are pretty clear that this housing crisis started with sub-prime and other non-conventional foreclosures. If those facts are indeed correct, then how exactly did a "very small percentage" of CRA loans have anything to do with that? Only in the last two years have we begun to see an increase in conventional loan foreclosures, and those current foreclosures can be attributed to the impacts of the recession caused entirely by the aforementioned.

[DTorrchia]

Originally Posted by F-Sharp

Let's see, was this your link? Let's read that quote again shall we? This time in its entirety with the words you conveniently left out.

"We found that the loans that are the focus of the CRA represent a very small portion of the subprime lending market, casting considerable doubt on the potential contribution that the law could have made to the subprime mortgage crisis."

Are you really so hell-bent on making me look wrong that you have to resort to misquoting and misrepresenting statements D? And please tell me you're not gloating over the difference between none and "very small".

I placed in the information necessary to dispute your ridiculous "None, I repeat None!" assertion about no sub-prime loans being linked to the CRA.
Whether you consider 6% to be small or not is a matter of opinion. I then also specifically stated that these views were of the Governor of the Reserve and then placed counter-view points to his own.
I also included some data from Bank of America showing what effect their CRA loans had within their banking institution....which showed that your "small percentage" that you accuse me gloating over accounted for 29% of their bad loans. By 2008 Bank of America was reporting that CRA loans represented only 7% of its portfolio but 29% of its losses.


This has nothing to do with gloating but simply stating facts. Maybe you consider the above insignificant, irrelevant or whatever other term you care to use to try to marginalize it but those numbers speak for themselves and when it's my tax dollars being used to bail out a POS bank like BOA, in part because of these loans, it matters to me.
I have nothing to hide which is why I posted the link that I took the 6% from. If anyone however should know about selective editing it would probably be you....for an example of this one needs to look no further than here:
http://www.eccie.net/showthread.php?...44#post1811244

I didn't make that up, it came from a reliable source.

Well your "reliable source" (that you don't name for obvious reasons) had this one wrong and even the most basic of searches found numerous examples of sub-prime loans linked to the CRA.


Your information is simply (and irrelevantly) different.

Of course it's "irrelevantly different" when it shows that you embellish and exaggerate in your responses (something you've done more than once). When the statistics you so love to tout don't add up in your favor, you simply call them irrelevant.

Who's to say that "very small percentage" were not loans that were not qualified that fell through the cracks? Regardless, it's completely useless information to the topic at hand. I'll be the first one to admit when I am wrong about something, but you're going to have a very hard time convincing me by misquoting information that supports everything I stated.

And yet, I can't fine ONE example going back and reading your posts where you ever seem to have admitted being wrong.....no matter what statistics are shown to you, you always find a way to marginalize them if they don't fit your agenda. For your claim of "I'll be the first to admit when I'm wrong about something" to have merit, you'd have to show at least one example where you actually did admit you were wrong. Not just with me...with ANY poster you've debated here with......Oh wait.....I guess you NEVER are wrong here....right?! LOL
Because according to what you've stated in your posts, we're just stupid and have no clue what we're talking about. F-Sharp is the only expert on EVERYTHING.


It also doesn't help your position (whatever that position actually is, I honestly don't have a clue now) to quote anti-liberal pundit commentary.

Did you even BOTHER to read the various titles held by the various people that commented in the WSJ link I provided? They are all anti-liberal pundits? Ok!

I take issue with much of Mr. Schweizer's statements, but I wont waste my time picking apart his very distorted and flat-out incorrect statements he tries to push off as fact. In a nutshell, "fall outside typical credit, income or debt constraints" pretty much gives him away, simply meaning that he's referring to sub-prime loans and the like. He also fails to make any mention of the fact that many of those so-called CRA obligations were actually converted to sub-prime loans as re-fi's by predatory lenders. Here's another excellent very "non-partisan" link that lays out much of what I've already stated. It even has pretty pictures and charts.

http://dallasfed.org/ca/bcp/2009/bcp0901.cfm

Put it this way, all the facts I've read are pretty clear that this housing crisis started with sub-prime and other non-conventional foreclosures. If those facts are indeed correct, then how exactly did a "very small percentage" of CRA loans have anything to do with that? Only in the last two years have we begun to see an increase in conventional loan foreclosures, and those current foreclosures can be attributed to the impacts of the recession caused entirely by the aforementioned.

There is a plethora of information out there that takes issue with that. I have never blamed the ENTIRE housing crisis on the CRA but Clinton's adjustments to the CRA, his support of Gramm-Leach-Bliley etc (anyone who thinks the repeal of Glass-Steagall was forced on an unwilling Bill Clinton need only read his Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin’s testimony to Congress in 1995) certainly helped to contribute to the overall mess.
I certainly have never said Clinton was the architect of the housing/financial crisis but his policies in regards to the CRA and his support and signing of Gramm-Leach-Bliley certainly contributed. Most serious analysts of the financial crisis concur with this.

[F-Sharp]

Originally Posted by DTorrchia

I certainly have never said Clinton was the architect of the housing/financial crisis but his policies in regards to the CRA and his support and signing of Gramm-Leach-Bliley certainly contributed. Most serious analysts of the financial crisis concur with this.

So, let's see if I have this straight. Despite writing several thousand words on the topic in this thread, you never actually said Clinton was the architect of the housing crisis (which, incidentally is what this thread is all about), and knowing now that "his policies in regards to the CRA..." produced a "very small percentage" of non-conventional loans, you're still most certain that it played some role in the housing crisis. And to be certain, you're actually basing your opinion on a commentary writer who's claim to fame are books titled "How big government liberals wrecked the global economy" and the ever popular "Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy".

Alrighty then.

I guess we should at least be grateful for the acknowlegment that Clinton's signing on to Republican legislation was definitely a bad thing.

[DTorrchia]

Originally Posted by F-Sharp

So, let's see if I have this straight. Despite writing several thousand words on the topic in this thread, you never actually said Clinton was the architect of the housing crisis (which, incidentally is what this thread is all about), and knowing now that "his policies in regards to the CRA..." produced a "very small percentage" of non-conventional loans, you're still most certain that it played some role in the housing crisis. And to be certain, you're actually basing your opinion on a commentary writer who's claim to fame are books titled "How big government liberals wrecked the global economy" and the ever popular "Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy".

Alrighty then.

I guess we should at least be grateful for the acknowlegment that Clinton's signing on to Republican legislation was definitely a bad thing.

Ahhh, yes, backed into a corner your defense once again is to use distortion.

So let's expand a little on some of the people and data that tend to show the role Clinton and the CRA played.

"But to the extent that the federal government is to blame, the main fed culprits are the beefed up Community Reinvestment Act and the run-amok Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. All played a key role in loosening lending standards."-David Henderson
Mr. Henderson is a research fellow with the Hoover Institution, an economics professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, and editor of "The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics" (Liberty Fund, 2008)

We find statistical evidence to indicate that policies at the Government Sponsored Enterprises, monetary policy and the Community Reinvestment Act all compromised large bank performance for the 1999 through 2008 period.-Journal of Banking Regulation (2011)
This finding is also consistent with those who have claimed that the CRA pushed bankers into risky lending that may not have occurred in the absence of the regulation. Further, the controversy surrounding the role of the CRA in the crisis has evolved somewhat since the fall of 2008. In the months immediately following October of 2008, scholars at the Federal Reserve released studies exonerating the CRA in the crisis largely on the basis that CRA loans only comprised 6 per cent of total high-priced loans to low-income borrowers. This is the part you so famously touted was proof that the CRA played no role right F-Sharp? Keep reading..

However, more recent data shed new light on the extent to which CRA loans may have played a role. Pinto shows that over $3.5 trillion in CRA loans were originated at commercial banks between 1993 and 2007.26 Of these, Pinto indicates that approximately half went to the GSEs, 10 per cent were insured by the FHA, 10 per cent were sold off as MBSs and the remainder was held by banks. The empirical results of this article suggest that the extent to which large commercial banks were making and buying CRA loans significantly hurt their performance.-http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jbr/journal/v12/n3/full/jbr20113a.html#bib7


Keep talking F-Sharp.....

[F-Sharp]

So are you now back to blaming Clinton and CRA loans, or are you just still desperately trying to prove me wrong?

"But to the extent that the federal government is to blame, the main fed culprits are the beefed up Community Reinvestment Act and the run-amok Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. All played a key role in loosening lending standards."

Yeah, yeah. This is coming from the same so-called economist genius who just this week is running around telling everyone that buying American is a bad idea, and that sending jobs overseas is a good idea. Don't you ever do background checks on the folks you seem to place so much faith in? The sky is not blue, and up is actually down. What role, when?

"We find statistical evidence to indicate that policies at the Government Sponsored Enterprises, monetary policy and the Community Reinvestment Act all compromised large bank performance for the 1999 through 2008 period."

Again, what statistical evidence where? All the unbiased, non-partisan statistics I've found and posted clearly point otherwise.

"The empirical results of this article suggest that the extent to which large commercial banks were making and buying CRA loans significantly hurt their performance."

Yeah, yeah. We already talked about the buy-up of CRA loans by predatory lenders a few posts back. That has nothing to do with CRA loans themselves.

Now try again. This time use the same information, just add more underlines and move them around a bit more. Maybe you can really dilute your regurgitation of shit you don't actually read, much less comprehend with REALLY BIG LETTERS, or really obnoxious colors.