Fairness in home ownership

[RickWhite]

I have this great idea.

It has come to be known that banks are choosing not to give home loans in low income neighborhoods. This disproportionately affects minorities and their ability to own homes and build a nest egg and it isn't fair.

Now it might be the case that these banks are acting according to sound fiscal policy and their own financial well being but myself and other enlightened people still feel this is unfair. So, we have decided to force banks by law and against their will to give home loans to people who are highly likely to default on them.

This way, minorities will have the same opportunity to own homes and their financial situation and quality of life will be improved and society as a whole will benefit.

Now I ask you. Should we just let the banks continue their unfair practices just because they are based on sound financial reasoning or should we, as enlightened thinkers, force them to be fair to minorities?

After all, what is the worst that can happen?

 

[TheBlazehero]

Are you taking the mick or what? Of course this is what already happened. But I can't tell if you're trying to blame low income people, minorities, banks, or government policy? This is a distraction anyway, do you really think that defaults on loans to low income people is what caused the financial crisis? The policy changes leading up to these defaults were subtle change by subtle change about 20 years in the making and still probably caused little damage to the overall economic situation. Low income homes stay inexpensive by nature. Think about it.

The moneymakers know exactly what they're doing. End the Fed.

 

[RickWhite]

Are you taking the mick or what? Of course this is what already happened. But I can't tell if you're trying to blame low income people, minorities, banks, or government policy? This is a distraction anyway, do you really think that defaults on loans to low income people is what caused the financial crisis? The policy changes leading up to these defaults were subtle change by subtle change about 20 years in the making and still probably caused little damage to the overall economic situation. Low income homes stay inexpensive by nature. Think about it.

The moneymakers know exactly what they're doing. End the Fed.

Bill Clinton made radical changes to the CRA which forced banks into bad lending practices. The banks in order to control the damage, bundled the bad loans with good ones and sold them - pocketing some cash in the process. Eventually, the whole thing collapsed and a few lending giants collapsed with it. When this happened, people were unable to procure loans, GM and Chrysler nearly went bust and the ripple effect resulted in our current economic crisis.

The point for those who don't get it, is that it is generally a bad idea to monkey with things one can't possibly understand.

When the Government tries to micro-manage the free market, this kind of thing is bound to happen. Our economy is monumentally complex and free market Capitalism has been the only proven formula for success. If our Government with all its experts isn't competent to micro-manage the free market, what in the World makes stoners on RIU think they are?

 

[ViRedd]

The only enlightened thing to do, Rick, is to nationalize the banks and our entire financial systems. In other words, put the federal government in control of every aspect of the financial lives of the citizens. After all, as we enlightened folks know, there is just way too much financial privacy going on out there. We need to remove all financial decisions from the private sector and transfer these decisions to government bureaucrats, politicians and university professors, especially those who teach Marxist economic theory. Just think Comrade ... with these controls in place, coupled with the leadership of our Messiah O'BamBam, we will finally realize the joys of our long sought after Worker's Paradise!

 

[undertheice]

....put the federal government in control of every aspect of the financial lives of the citizens.

why be such a piker, lets leave all our decisions to those brilliant minds in washington. they can tell us what to eat, what to wear, when to wake up, where to work and how much we should be paid. we should obviously leave all the decisions of our lives up to those more qualified than ourselves, but why stop at washington? why not abdicate our freedoms to those wise men and women at the u.n.? i'm sure life would be so much simpler if everyone in the world would just realize how stupid they are and leave all the decisions to the chosen few.

 

[ViRedd]

^^^ And next will come the control of human breeding. Only the most qualified will be allowed to breed. That would include the best looking, the strongest and the most intelligent among us. The rest of "the little people" can go pound sand as they are simply not necessary.

 

[NoDrama]

^^^ And next will come the control of human breeding. Only the most qualified will be allowed to breed. That would include the best looking, the strongest and the most intelligent among us. The rest of "the little people" can go pound sand as they are simply not necessary.

That WOULD help with overpopulation too! I think your onto something.

 

[Illegal Smile]

If you really want to talk about unfair it's this bullshit idea that some people have below average incomes! This is an outrage. This is America and everyone should have above average incomes!

 

[undertheice]

This is America and everyone should have above average incomes!

average is a meaningless term, it is relative to the sample taken and the area under investigation. the poor in america are rich compared to most of this world and well off even when compared to most other industrialized nations. the diversity so lauded by the liberal establishment is reflected in our economic diversity as well. we harp so upon the concept of equality, but forget the elements of effort, luck and risk that are involved in the creation of wealth.

 

[Illegal Smile]

average is a meaningless term, it is relative to the sample taken and the area under investigation. the poor in america are rich compared to most of this world and well off even when compared to most other industrialized nations. the diversity so lauded by the liberal establishment is reflected in our economic diversity as well. we harp so upon the concept of equality, but forget the elements of effort, luck and risk that are involved in the creation of wealth.

Lol. For real? How about that it is mathematically impossible for more than half to be above average?

 

[maxamus1]

I have this great idea.

It has come to be known that banks are choosing not to give home loans in low income neighborhoods. This disproportionately affects minorities and their ability to own homes and build a nest egg and it isn't fair.

Now it might be the case that these banks are acting according to sound fiscal policy and their own financial well being but myself and other enlightened people still feel this is unfair. So, we have decided to force banks by law and against their will to give home loans to people who are highly likely to default on them.

This way, minorities will have the same opportunity to own homes and their financial situation and quality of life will be improved and society as a whole will benefit.

Now I ask you. Should we just let the banks continue their unfair practices just because they are based on sound financial reasoning or should we, as enlightened thinkers, force them to be fair to minorities?

After all, what is the worst that can happen?

i am sick of you middle class a$$es blaming everything on the poor, also minorities are not the only ones that are poor, their are many races that are. don't just blame ppl with bad credit or the poor for bringing down the housing market. what about all you middle class ppl that bought 500,000 dollar houses but couldn't afford but 300,000 dollar houses. so yes keep putting blame on the lower class to make your selves feel better.

 

[RickWhite]

i am sick of you middle class a$$es blaming everything on the poor, also minorities are not the only ones that are poor, their are many races that are. don't just blame ppl with bad credit or the poor for bringing down the housing market. what about all you middle class ppl that bought 500,000 dollar houses but couldn't afford but 300,000 dollar houses. so yes keep putting blame on the lower class to make your selves feel better.

You might want to work on that reading comprehension a little. First, it was Bill Clinton and the Democrats in Congress that deserve the lions share of the blame.

But, the point of the post is not to blame anyone - the point is to demonstrate that the road to hell really is paved with good intentions and that we really must keep this in mind when we arrogantly assume that any of us are qualified to haphazardly micro-manage things like the free market.

Free market Capitalism is a work of genius. It should be studied, appreciated and respected, not micro-managed by arrogant ignoramuses.

 

[Woomeister]

If you cant afford something why should you have it??????

 

[maxamus1]

You might want to work on that reading comprehension a little. First, it was Bill Clinton and the Democrats in Congress that deserve the lions share of the blame.

But, the point of the post is not to blame anyone - the point is to demonstrate that the road to hell really is paved with good intentions and that we really must keep this in mind when we arrogantly assume that any of us are qualified to haphazardly micro-manage things like the free market.

Free market Capitalism is a work of genius. It should be studied, appreciated and respected, not micro-managed by arrogant ignoramuses.

my bad i took it as sarcasm. so my apologies.

 

[TheBlazehero]

we haven't operated under free markets for a really long time. system kind of sucks when policy and politicians are bought and paid for. and when our government is really a bank.

 

[abe23]

December 14, 2009
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Disaster and Denial

By PAUL KRUGMAN
When I first began writing for The Times, I was naïve about many things. But my biggest misconception was this: I actually believed that influential people could be moved by evidence, that they would change their views if events completely refuted their beliefs.

And to be fair, it does happen now and then. I’ve been highly critical of Alan Greenspan over the years (since long before it was fashionable), but give the former Fed chairman credit: he has admitted that he was wrong about the ability of financial markets to police themselves.

But he’s a rare case. Just how rare was demonstrated by what happened last Friday in the House of Representatives, when — with the meltdown caused by a runaway financial system still fresh in our minds, and the mass unemployment that meltdown caused still very much in evidence — every single Republican and 27 Democrats voted against a quite modest effort to rein in Wall Street excesses.

Let’s recall how we got into our current mess.

America emerged from the Great Depression with a tightly regulated banking system. The regulations worked: the nation was spared major financial crises for almost four decades after World War II. But as the memory of the Depression faded, bankers began to chafe at the restrictions they faced. And politicians, increasingly under the influence of free-market ideology, showed a growing willingness to give bankers what they wanted.

The first big wave of deregulation took place under Ronald Reagan — and quickly led to disaster, in the form of the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s. Taxpayers ended up paying more than 2 percent of G.D.P., the equivalent of around $300 billion today, to clean up the mess.

But the proponents of deregulation were undaunted, and in the decade leading up to the current crisis politicians in both parties bought into the notion that New Deal-era restrictions on bankers were nothing but pointless red tape. In a memorable 2003 incident, top bank regulators staged a photo-op in which they used garden shears and a chainsaw to cut up stacks of paper representing regulations.

And the bankers — liberated both by legislation that removed traditional restrictions and by the hands-off attitude of regulators who didn’t believe in regulation — responded by dramatically loosening lending standards. The result was a credit boom and a monstrous real estate bubble, followed by the worst economic slump since the Great Depression. Ironically, the effort to contain the crisis required government intervention on a much larger scale than would have been needed to prevent the crisis in the first place: government rescues of troubled institutions, large-scale lending by the Federal Reserve to the private sector, and so on.

Given this history, you might have expected the emergence of a national consensus in favor of restoring more-effective financial regulation, so as to avoid a repeat performance. But you would have been wrong.

Talk to conservatives about the financial crisis and you enter an alternative, bizarro universe in which government bureaucrats, not greedy bankers, caused the meltdown. It’s a universe in which government-sponsored lending agencies triggered the crisis, even though private lenders actually made the vast majority of subprime loans. It’s a universe in which regulators coerced bankers into making loans to unqualified borrowers, even though only one of the top 25 subprime lenders was subject to the regulations in question.

Oh, and conservatives simply ignore the catastrophe in commercial real estate: in their universe the only bad loans were those made to poor people and members of minority groups, because bad loans to developers of shopping malls and office towers don’t fit the narrative.

In part, the prevalence of this narrative reflects the principle enunciated by Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” As Democrats have pointed out, three days before the House vote on banking reform Republican leaders met with more than 100 financial-industry lobbyists to coordinate strategies. But it also reflects the extent to which the modern Republican Party is committed to a bankrupt ideology, one that won’t let it face up to the reality of what happened to the U.S. economy.

So it’s up to the Democrats — and more specifically, since the House has passed its bill, it’s up to “centrist” Democrats in the Senate. Are they willing to learn something from the disaster that has overtaken the U.S. economy, and get behind financial reform?

Let’s hope so. For one thing is clear: if politicians refuse to learn from the history of the recent financial crisis, they will condemn all of us to repeat it.

 

[RickWhite]

Paul Krugman is a far Left professor trying to use politics make a name for himself and he is full of shit.

Nowhere in his article does he say what deregulation took place - just that "deregulation" of the banking industry caused the loan crisis. This wouldn't be acceptable work from a student, much less a professor.

It is an irrefutable fact that Government does force banks to write bad loans. It is posted on the wall in many banks - you can walk in and read it. Banks, under the CRA, are regularly audited and given a CRA score based on their compliance. If they are found not to be in compliance they can be sued and suffer other negative ramifications. It is absolutely factual that the CRA was a major cause of the loan crisis.

Krugman's argument that the CRA is not to blame evidenced by the fact that commercial real estate went south as well, is also a load of crap. When the lending crisis occurred our entire economy went south. Commercial real estate naturally went with it because people became laid off and stopped spending money. It is kind of hard to pay the rent for your business when everyone stops shopping there. That is pretty simple economics.

BTW, it was the Republicans led by John McCain that tried to reign in the irresponsible policies of Fannie and Freddie and it was the Democrats that squashed these efforts. Although many politicians received money from Fannie and Freddie, the lion's share of the money went to top ranking Democrats. With Barak Obama being one of the highest paid.

Watch this. There are many more like it and all the info is easily verified.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM

Here is a good explanation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4&annotation_id=annotation_918789&feature=ivhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIgqfM5C8lY

 

[Mindmelted]

^^^ And next will come the control of human breeding. Only the most qualified will be allowed to breed. That would include the best looking, the strongest and the most intelligent among us. The rest of "the little people" can go pound sand as they are simply not necessary.

Some humans need to be controlled on breeding.
Like the bitch that just had her 19th child.
That is ridiculous to say the least.

 

[abe23]

Paul Krugman is a far Left professor trying to use politics make a name for himself and he is full of shit.

Nowhere in his article does he say what deregulation took place - just that "deregulation" of the banking industry caused the loan crisis. This wouldn't be acceptable work from a student, much less a professor.

It is an irrefutable fact that Government does force banks to write bad loans. It is posted on the wall in many banks - you can walk in and read it. Banks, under the CRA, are regularly audited and given a CRA score based on their compliance. If they are found not to be in compliance they can be sued and suffer other negative ramifications. It is absolutely factual that the CRA was a major cause of the loan crisis.

Krugman's argument that the CRA is not to blame evidenced by the fact that commercial real estate went south as well, is also a load of crap. When the lending crisis occurred our entire economy went south. Commercial real estate naturally went with it because people became laid off and stopped spending money. It is kind of hard to pay the rent for your business when everyone stops shopping there. That is pretty simple economics.

BTW, it was the Republicans led by John McCain that tried to reign in the irresponsible policies of Fannie and Freddie and it was the Democrats that squashed these efforts. Although many politicians received money from Fannie and Freddie, the lion's share of the money went to top ranking Democrats. With Barak Obama being one of the highest paid.

Watch this. There are many more like it and all the info is easily verified.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM

Here is a good explanation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4&annotation_id=annotation_918789&feature=ivhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIgqfM5C8lY

So the CRA forced the sub-prime lenders to offer loans to people with no income or assets and allowed them to bundle them with good mortgages and poison the whole financial system?

I agree with you that some of the policies dems have been pushing to increase homeownership set the stage for the subprime crisis and it's definitely related, but to claim that that's what caused this mess is a stretch. Why didn't these prescient republicans fix the problem when they had the white house and congress for 6 years?

 

[medicineman]

^^^ And next will come the control of human breeding. Only the most qualified will be allowed to breed. That would include the best looking, the strongest and the most intelligent among us. The rest of "the little people" can go pound sand as they are simply not necessary.

Geeze, I guess I'll be doing a lot of breeding then, LOL.