Does this seem a "bit" biased to anyone else? - Page 3

rebelbuc · 10-04-08, 10:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SouthernDemocrat

Well being that only about 30% of sub-prime loans at risk for foreclosure or in foreclosure were under CRA, its a load of bunk.

You know how even now you have some on the far right still claiming that Iraq had huge stockpiles of Chemical and Biological weapons, and that they were some how smuggled into Syria in the days before the war. Well, that is an example of zealots refusing to accept reality.

Similarly, we have the cult of the absolute unregulated free market doing what ever the can, no manner how absurd, to blame this crisis on anything but deregulation. Basically, their religion is under assault, so they are not going to accept reality.

Welcome to the world of Popular Right Wing Mythology. Where there are no transitional fossils, increased greenhouse gas concentrations do not warm the climate, tax cuts always result in more revenue than would have otherwise been raised, homosexuality is a choice, Peer Reviewed Science has a Liberal Bias, Iraq had massive stockpiles of WMD right before we went in, and now where liberals are supposedly completely to blame for the current financial crisis.

Even if one ignores how 3 of Obama's financial advisors have connections to the Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac crisis and have profited from their creative bookkeeping, do you give the same absolution to the Barney Franks of the world (and other Democrats) who denied for years that anything was wrong?

All I can say is I hope the investigations are real I hope everyone (D or R) goes to jail as they deserve.

rebelbuc · 10-04-08, 10:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SouthernDemocrat

So then you think that President Bush, Palin, and McCain are all douchebags as well then, right?

I am close to awarding at least honorary douche bag status to Bush has he has become too Democrat-like for my tastes. McCain is grandfathered into the non-douche bag status due to his incredible service to his country. Palin - no chance for her to ever be a douche bag!

SouthernDemocrat · 10-04-08, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by talloulou

I'd like to see evidence of what you're saying. I believe, from all I've read, the BULK the overwhelming VAST MAJORITY of subprime loans are issued to minorities.

All the subprime loans led to the housing bubble which pushed the price of housing up to ridiculous levels in many areas. When anyone, even those who can't afford it, get loans with ease the demand for houses is inflated. Folks, middle class folks, then borrowed against the equity they had in their home and thus now many are finding themselves upside down on the loans. The housing bubble affected everyone. But it began with the practice of lending to minorities who couldn't afford the absurd types of loans they were issued.

Evidence, sure:

Quote:

WHILE subprime loans deeply penetrated low-income and minority groups, a new study suggests that more upper-income borrowers and more whites took out such loans than any other groups.

Compliance Technologies, a lending-industry consultancy, last month analyzed more than 1.9 million subprime loans originated in 2006, the height of the subprime lending frenzy, and found that roughly 56 percent went to non-Hispanic whites. Affluent borrowers, those with annual income at least 120 percent of their given area’s median income, meanwhile, took out more than 39 percent of the loans.

“I was surprised to see that non-Hispanic whites received more subprime loans than all minority groups combined,” said Maurice Jourdain-Earl, a founder and managing director of Compliance Technologies.

Still, African-Americans and Hispanics received subprime loans in a greater proportion than whites. Whites made up 71 percent of the borrower population in 2006 and received 56 percent of the subprime loans originated that year. Blacks, meanwhile, made up 10 percent of the loan pool, yet received 19 percent of the subprime loans. Hispanics constituted 14 percent of the borrower community and received 20 percent of the subprime loans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/re...te/03mort.html

See, there are some on right right, specifically the far right, and with a lot of this originating from racist groups, that are trying to use the terms "disproportionate" and "majority" interchangeably. Yes, minorities received a disproportionate share of sub-prime loans. However, the majority of subprime loans went to whites, and really its those middle to upper income borrowers that are the problem here. After all, there was no huge price bubble that occurred in the ghetto. The price bubbles were in Cookie-Cutter and McMansion land. This is, above all else, a failure of deregulation. Thats why ideologues are trying to pin the blame on minorities and the poor. They just cannot admit that there is a role in the markets for the public sector. Think about it, if they did admit that, then they have just discredited 30 years of their free market cult ideology. So they are not going to own up to it, they are going to spread misinformation on top of misinformation and that is exactly what this little video is doing.

Yayasmom · 10-05-08, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by talloulou

Oh and the Calvin Roberson stuff....man I can't wait for the media to start investigating that crap. If Obama really did play a role in suing a bank, citicorp, in order to REQUIRE them to grant loans to African Americans who were unqualified then he's an even bigger douchebag than I ever could have imagined.

What media will cover it? You'd think someone would've been all over that already.

Yayasmom · 10-05-08, 09:02 AM

Nevermind about it

The silenced majority · 10-05-08, 09:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SouthernDemocrat

Evidence, sure:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/re...te/03mort.html

See, there are some on right right, specifically the far right, and with a lot of this originating from racist groups, that are trying to use the terms "disproportionate" and "majority" interchangeably. Yes, minorities received a disproportionate share of sub-prime loans. However, the majority of subprime loans went to whites, and really its those middle to upper income borrowers that are the problem here. After all, there was no huge price bubble that occurred in the ghetto. The price bubbles were in Cookie-Cutter and McMansion land. This is, above all else, a failure of deregulation. Thats why ideologues are trying to pin the blame on minorities and the poor. They just cannot admit that there is a role in the markets for the public sector. Think about it, if they did admit that, then they have just discredited 30 years of their free market cult ideology. So they are not going to own up to it, they are going to spread misinformation on top of misinformation and that is exactly what this little video is doing.

Nice data, bit that only examines the total percentages of who received sub-prime mortgages, not who's defaulted on them. If you look at the default rates on educational loans, blacks are 5 times as likely as whites to not pay back their loans. Hispanics are twice as likely not to as whites.

Again more blame the racist white conservative ~ the catalyst for this stealth reparations.

That's exactly what it is ~ reparations.

The banks were forced to loan money to minorities who couldn't afford a mortgage. The government bought up all the liabilities on those loans then dumped the defaulted ones on the backs of the taxpayers to fund. Politicians - having no spine, wouldn't not do the right thing and evict these people from the houses they should have never moved in to in the first place, so the taxpayer will now have to pay for their homes. Reparations.

SouthernDemocrat · 10-05-08, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The silenced majority

Nice data, bit that only examines the total percentages of who received sub-prime mortgages, not who's defaulted on them. If you look at the default rates on educational loans, blacks are 5 times as likely as whites to not pay back their loans. Hispanics are twice as likely not to as whites.

Again more blame the racist white conservative ~ the catalyst for this stealth reparations.

That's exactly what it is ~ reparations.

The banks were forced to loan money to minorities who couldn't afford a mortgage. The government bought up all the liabilities on those loans then dumped the defaulted ones on the backs of the taxpayers to fund. Politicians - having no spine, wouldn't not do the right thing and evict these people from the houses they should have never moved in to in the first place, so the taxpayer will now have to pay for their homes. Reparations.

Ok, wait a second. You are trying to extrapolate default rates on mortgages from educational loans. Thats an absurd comparison.

Come back when you have actual data on default rates for non-whites in sub-prime mortgages versus whites in sub-prime mortgages, and then compare that to the housing price bubbles in minority neighborhoods versus primarily white neighborhoods.

prrriiide · 10-05-08, 06:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by talloulou

I'd like to see evidence of what you're saying. I believe, from all I've read, the BULK the overwhelming VAST MAJORITY of subprime loans are issued to minorities.

All the subprime loans led to the housing bubble which pushed the price of housing up to ridiculous levels in many areas. When anyone, even those who can't afford it, get loans with ease the demand for houses is inflated. Folks, middle class folks, then borrowed against the equity they had in their home and thus now many are finding themselves upside down on the loans. The housing bubble affected everyone. But it began with the practice of lending to minorities who couldn't afford the absurd types of loans they were issued.

You want evidence? Here's some from the law firm of Traiger & Hinckley, LLP, specialists in CRA compliance. In summary, it states that:

Quote:

-- CRA Banks were 66 percent less likely than other lenders to
originate a high cost loan;

-- The average high cost loan made by CRA Banks was priced 68
basis points lower than the average high cost loan originated
by other lenders;

-- CRA Banks were more than twice as likely as other lenders to
hold originated loans in their portfolio; and

-- The higher a metropolitan area's concentration of bank
branches, the lower its foreclosure rate.

So to inform you:

2 out of 3 sub-prime loans made in the US came from mortgage brokers not constrained by the CRA. CRA lenders were 58% less likely to originate high-cost (sub-prime) loans to low and moderate income borrowers.

The CRA is the law that was litigated in the class-action suit Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank. This law was specifically designed to eliminate redlining. To educate you, redlining was the practice where banks would not lend in a particular geographic area, regardless of the applicant's qualifications. White investors had great difficulty in securing financing for projects located in redlined areas. Minorities had zero chance. This is why there has been a rennaisance of center-city residential areas. For reference, take a look at the West 40's in Manhattan before the advent of the CRA, and look at it now. It is a vibrant area thanks in large part to the banks being required to make loans for projects in that area at the same rate that they made loans for projects in other areas. So what the legal team that included Obama was litigating was not the creation of new law. It was a lawsuit brought to force CitiBank to adhere to existing law that was legislated in 1977. The lawsuit did not force Citi to make loans to unqualified borrowers. From snopes.com:

Quote:

Specifically, the lawsuit charged that CitiBank "rejected loan applications of minority aplicants while approving loan applications filed by white applicants with similar financial characteristics and credit histories." THe case was eventually settled out of court, with some class members receiving cash payments and Citibank agreeing to help ease the way for low- and moderate-income people to apply for mortgages.

Although Barack Obama was involved in the Buycks-Roberson case, he did not file the lawsuit, nor was he the lead attornet in the matter. He was a junior member of an eight-lawyer team that worked on the case.

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So, to summarize:

The law used as the basis for the lawsuit, the CRA, regarding loan access for lower income individuals dates to 1977, 18 years before Buycks-Roberson, so no "new" law was sought.
Citibank is subject to the provisions of the CRA.
Financial institutions regulated under the provisions of the CRA are far less likely to approve high-risk loans.
90% of sub-prime loans were made by institutions not subject to the provisions of the CRA.
Obama was not the lead attorney on the case, did not file the suit, and did not argue the case
CRA institutions are twice as likely to hold the loans in thier own portfolio, as opposed to flipping them into Fannie/Freddie and then onto the un-regulated secondary mortgage markets
The case did not ask that loans be made to unqualified applicants. It asked that minority applicants with equal qualifications as white applicants be given the same consideration for laons.

This case is another prime example of the type of strawman, ad hominem attacks that have become the norm this election cycle. The lawsuit has no relationship whatsoever with the mortgage crisis, because the plaintiffs were only asking for equal time for equal qualifications.

prrriiide · 10-05-08, 06:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The silenced majority

Nice data, bit that only examines the total percentages of who received sub-prime mortgages, not who's defaulted on them. If you look at the default rates on educational loans, blacks are 5 times as likely as whites to not pay back their loans. Hispanics are twice as likely not to as whites.

Again more blame the racist white conservative ~ the catalyst for this stealth reparations.

That's exactly what it is ~ reparations.

The banks were forced to loan money to minorities who couldn't afford a mortgage. The government bought up all the liabilities on those loans then dumped the defaulted ones on the backs of the taxpayers to fund. Politicians - having no spine, wouldn't not do the right thing and evict these people from the houses they should have never moved in to in the first place, so the taxpayer will now have to pay for their homes. Reparations.

You need to learn the law. The law does not cover financial institutions like mortgage brokers. Non-CRA institutions were responsible for 90.8% of all high-cost mortgages in the 15 most populous MSAs in America. They were responsible for 88.9% of all high-cost loans originated to low- and -moderate-income borrowers.

Traiger & Hinckley

The idea that CRA loans are the cause of this mortgage crisis has been put forth and perpetuated by right-wing spin hacks, knowing that 99% of Americans don't know that 90% of the risky loans were made by institutions not subject to the provisions of the CRA.

Follow the link. Read the study. Open your eyes to the lie.