The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities [CRA 2000 article]

The Clinton administration has turned the Community Reinvestment Act, a once-obscure and lightly enforced banking regulation law, into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities—and, as Senate Banking Committee chairman Phil Gramm memorably put it, a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks. Under its provisions, U.S. banks have committed nearly $1 trillion for inner-city and low-income mortgages and real estate development projects, most of it funneled through a nationwide network of left-wing community groups, intent, in some cases, on teaching their low-income clients that the financial system is their enemy and, implicitly, that government, rather than their own striving, is the key to their well-being.

The CRA's premise sounds unassailable: helping the poor buy and keep homes will stabilize and rebuild city neighborhoods. As enforced today, though, the law portends just the opposite, threatening to undermine the efforts of the upwardly mobile poor by saddling them with neighbors more than usually likely to depress property values by not maintaining their homes adequately or by losing them to foreclosure. The CRA's logic also helps to ensure that inner-city neighborhoods stay poor by discouraging the kinds of investment that might make them better off.

>>For your CRA, Financial Meltdown files (you are keeping files on this stuff aren’t you?)<<

Hahaha!

Yes, I am. And I am adding it. Here is the list so far:
Most recent:
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
http://www.shadowstats.com/article/hyperinflation-2010
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_3_financial-crisis-books.html and freerepublic reprint here http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2557196/posts
http://www.infowars.com/the-year-america-dissolved/
http://vimeo.com/13722147
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utg3PMyK_KA
Us far worse off than ancient rome
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2563601/posts

Here is 15% of my stuff from 2009:
Renowned Economic Forecaster Says US Headed For Total Collapse 12/09
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2137747/posts
deflation is really inflation 12/09
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2398516/posts
Currency getting worthless - a graph 11/09
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2392881/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2392387/posts

I actually have a log of my own posts from 2006 on. I said some crazy stuff back then, like this could get as bad or worse than the GD and even I “felt” it was over the top, but my intellect said the facts pointed to it. This was back when most analysts said housing was taking a breather before it’s next push into the stratosphere. ;)

Lorraine, This couldn’t be more timely for me. My wife is writing a paper for a class she is taking and I have been trying to convince her that the banking and mortgage problem originated with the CRA but, what Clinton did to it exacerbated the problem to the point of collapse. Thanks.

Several years ago I saw a picture in our local paper of several minority women in caps and gowns in a graduation ceremony. For some reason it caught my eye and I read the caption. These women were graduating from a class that apparently was a couple of times a week for TWO YEARS and financed by the government on how to purchase a house. Did I mention they were in caps and gowns like they were graduating from college? Aside from the ridiculous ceremony, how many of us have been through any class on how to buy a house? Don’t we just do it?

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