I actually voted for Lindsey Graham this year, maybe he’ll end up make me proud of that fact.

I will meet you part way and say that the CRA was not the *entire* cause of the real estate market. But it most certainly was the starting point for the real estate market crisis… which is the cause of the financial crisis in total.

Your argument is that because there were only a few CRA banks, whose high risk “anti-redlining” loans most certainly did (and do) end up in Fannie/Freddie, that it wasn’t the problem. What you continually ignore is fair housing and equal opportunity laws.

1995-Robert Rubin, Clinton’s Treasury Secy, rewrites the compliance regs for CRA on the sly to avoid the incoming GOP Congress. For these CRA banks to now prove they are not “redlining”, they must have an x amount these loans on the books in order to grow, merge, expand.

These risky buyers do not qualify under the standard loan criteria, so low doc, no doc, stated income, wide variety of ARM loans, interest only, and other exotic loans become all the rage.

Here’s where your flawed thinking comes into play…. you think that they can create mortgages for those who don’t meet standard criteria, and limit that to minorities?? That’s not only against the law, but really offensive. Why should a streamline loan package be created to allow risky buyers to borrow with minimal standards just because they are a designated minority, and not offer the same benefits to stable buyers?

When you create these conditions, you cannot simply say you will give them only to risky borrowers that are minority.

That started the ball rolling… these risky loans.

Now, I say I will meet you part way on your statement because these loans, on their own, wouldn’t have caused the fail. But because of the fast, easy money, the “demand” increased. This drove the prices up too fast to be sustainable. Had the prices not gone up, we would just replace a foreclosure buyer with a good buyer. But with the housing prices (supply v demand because of the easy money….) you could no longer replace the bad loan with a good one because the housing prices were inflated. The $300K loan needed to be replaced witih a $210K loan…. which meant the bank was out the cash.

But sorry, guy… can’t stand idly by while you perpetuate the myth that these loans had “nothing” to do with the real estate mortgage/credit crisis. They are the very foundation, piled on by other mitigating factors.

Hopefully he’s being asked to head up a new immigration reform deal.

I just did a quick Google on “automobile quality ratings” and checked “compact/sporty” — here’s a representative page:

http://www.jdpower.com/autos/ratings/dependability-ratings-by-category/compact-premium-sporty-car

Compare Honda with Mercedes. Both US made. Both non-unionized. Quality has more to do with management than with unionization.

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

Tell me Larry, are the Toyota plants here in the U.S. unionized?

I think that the reliability of non-unionized, American-made Toyotas and the non-reliability of non-unionized, American-made Mercedes cars, and the non-reliability of unionized, American-made cars all are owing to differences in management, as opposed to differences in unionization vs. non-unionization. To my knowledge, the German assembly plants for Mercedes and BMW in Germany do employ trade union-represented workers. Don’t have time to research this, right now; nor to research status of Japanese auto trade unions, in Japan.

Foreign auto makers do enjoy a tremendous advantage over US manufacturers, in that foreign country governments generally pay for health care and also provide generous unemployment and retirement benefits. American auto makers pay more for health care than they pay for steel. Foreign auto makers don’t have to pay for health care.

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

As for the FM/FM dabacle, that was primarily dem owned. No, the answer is not more government regulation–simply enforce what was in place. The dems saw to it that did not happen. They short circuited the safeties that were in place and profited by doing so—at eveyone elses expense.

Oh and Larry, the media made it a point to blame the Reps for the problem. They claimed it was lack of regulation (deregulation in fact) initiated by the GOP that caused it. Also, just because the banks didn’t blame their collapse on anti-capitalist regulations doesn’t mean it isn’t so.

When anyone starts talking about the subprime mortgage thing and attributing it to Republican greed, I ask them to consider a simple series of rhetorical questions:

a) How many times in the past 5-10 years do you recall a bank or other lending institution being pilloried in the media, or taken to court, by “community groups” for discriminating against minority and or low income borrowers?

b) In how many of those instances was the institution forced either though loss of goodwill or by court order to change its lending policies?

c) In how many of those cases were the changes in policies toward more responsible lending?

First, no one ever attributed the financial crisis to “Republican greed.” Greed is greed; Democrats are every bit as greedy as Republicans and there was as much Democratic money invested in mortgage backed securities as Republican money.

Second, Community Reinvestment Act loans had nothing at all to do with the financial crisis.

Thirdly, here’s a list of banks which failed in the past 8 years:

http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html

Not a single officer in a single failed bank has ever blamed their failure on being “forced” to change the bank’s lending policies to promote home loans to low income borrowers.

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

Greed is what makes capitalism work, actually. Without unions, there wouldn’t have been 40 hours work weeks, health benefits, safe working conditions, and many other workplace conditions which benefit workers, most of whom have never belonged to unions.

I think that unions have been central to the success of American capitalism. Are you aware of any modern capitalist economy which has flourished without labor unions?

Obviously, there has to be renegotiation of existing labor contracts as market conditions change, in any industry.

What I object to is the huge double standard. People are adamant that the auto companies should be allowed to fail, in part as “punishment” for having capitulated in the past to union demands. Well, as stated, in normal circumstances, the relationships between organized labor and management have always been self-correcting. This is part of the built in genius of capitalism. But the reason that the auto companies are going under is because of the collapse of the non-unionized financial sector, which was just as egregiously mismanaged as the auto industry was mismanaged.

What I personally would have favored is allowing all the financial institutions to fail, and to use the $700 billion to capitalize new financial institutions, who would be starting out with no debt. In addition to voting for Obama, I voted for my local, extremely conservative GOP congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, in part because he voted — both times — against the financial institution bail out.

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

a) How many times in the past 5-10 years do you recall a bank or other lending institution being pilloried in the media, or taken to court, by “community groups” for discriminating against minority and or low income borrowers?

b) In how many of those instances was the institution forced either though loss of goodwill or by court order to change its lending policies?

c) In how many of those cases were the changes in policies toward more responsible lending?

My answers: a) dozens, b) often, c) never. Is my point clear? “Community Organizers” like Obama and ACORN have used the principles developed by Marxist agitators to instill a sense of grievance and victimization in any groups they could get in front of. And then they used those emotions they fanned to blackmail lending institutions to reducing either the cost or the qualifications for mortgages and other types of loans, and they have done this all across the country for years.

I would LOVE to be able to buy a GM car that was as reliable as a Toyota. As long as they are held hostage by the bloated UAW ticks, it will never happen.

My mechanic tells me that the old Mercedes cars, assembled in Wolfsburg, are much more reliable than the newer ones, assembled in non-unionized Tuscaloosa. I haven’t looked up what the various auto reliability websites have to say about this.

- LW/HB