Record 92,269,000 Not in Labor Force; Participation Rate Matches 36-Year Low

Unrepresented said:

Funny, I didn't think right wing apologists were officially being given full credit for "debunking" anything yet. I just assumed that they were throwing a Hail Mary out there and hoping someone foolish enough would bite.

Click to expand...

What are we apologizing for exactly ?

In the States where our Policies and principles are being applied there's Success !

The only apologist here are the people who are STILL , after 6 years trying to make excuses for the continued economic misery.

apdst said:

Nope, that's not what happened. What caused the recession was the government forcing the banks to make those risky loans.

Click to expand...

Yet it wasn't commercial banks that were subject to the ACRA that made most of those loans. they were made by mortgage companies which were exempt from those laws, and it was the high failure rate of those mortgage companies that caused our near collapse. commercial banks didn't have any financial crises until the value of all mortgage holdings was drug down by the panic which happened after the failure of companies who were highly involved with mortgage backed securities (and those institutions weren't subject to the ACRA).

The vast majority of the loans made by commercial banks were prime rate loans, and would have been made with or without the ACRA. think about it, why would any bank open a branch in a particular community? Wouldn't it only be because they felt that there was sufficient demand in that community to support a bank? If so, then wouldn't those banks have been able to easily find enough borrowers in those community to meet the ACRA guidlines?

I realize that you are just repeating what you have heard far right extremest talking heads claim, but you should really research stuff before you repeat it. that claim is 99.9% bogus.

Lakeside said:

...Let's extend the 47% to 75% and make Democrats very happy...

Click to expand...

If it was extended to 99% it should make conservatives happy. Aren't conservatives supposed to be the party of small government and low taxes?

I really don't understand why conservatives claim that they want less taxation, then they complain about our low tax rates. this country existed for well over 100 years before we even had an income tax. Any time you tax something you end up with less of it right? So why in the HELL are you complaining that we need to tax people for working and being productive and having an earned income? Do you really want fewer people to work?

The best way to eliminate poverty is to promote work. Taxing work doesn't promote it, it incentivizes it.

And what would be the economic result of higher taxes on low income earners? You know, the people who do the least desirable jobs at bargain prices? Obviously more would go on welfare, more would chose just to not work, and less money would be spent. What's the result of businesses selling fewer goods and services? Isn't it business failure, or at least the failure to expand? you don't realize that this policy that you are suggesting is BAD for our economy? You want more unemployment and less wealth creation? Geesh!

Now think about this, what would happen if we had a minimum income tax rate of 10% on all earned income, with no exemptions or deductions? Every high income earner has part of his income tax at what is now effectively the 0% rate. So your suggestion would result in EVERYONE paying more taxes, even people who you probably believe already pay more than their fair share.

In the olden days, conservatives believed in pro-growth policies. Guys like you now advocate for anti-growth policies. Just sheer stupidity on ever level.

You really need to rethink your position on this.

pinqy said:

It depends on what you mean by "employable." Those not in the labor force face no LEGAL restrictions to work, but 37 million are 65 or older and of those under 65, 11 million are disabled. And another 11 million are age 16-24 and are enrolled in school.

It's harder to count stay at home spouses, but overall 93.2% of those not in the labor force say they don't want to work.

And while the Labor Force Participation is at a 36 year low...it's higher than any year before 1978.

Click to expand...

Okay, I assume I found where you got this from:

Table A-16. Persons not in the labor force and multiple jobholders by sex, not seasonally adjusted

(would have been nice if you had a included a link in the first place, but whatever - at least you mentioned it, so thanks)

Personally, I question the number and I would need to see the exact question AND the questions that led up to it to feel it was or was not accurate.

But let's assume the number is true. That means that we 'know' that there are at least 5,016,000 people who are not in the work force but who want a job.
And that is a minimum number because the 'Other persons marginally attached to the labor force' statistic is vague to say the least.

To me, those 5,016,000 people should be considered 'unemployed', whether they are officially in the labor force or not. They wish to work, are available to work but cannot find a job they want and have given up looking out of frustration (among other reasons).

So, adding those 5,016,000 people to the unemployed gives you a U-3 figure of 9.3%.

DA60 said:

Link please to the stat that proves that 93.2% of those not in the work force SPECIFICALLY stated that they 'don't want to work'...as you stated?

Click to expand...

I may be wrong, but I thought that the labor force participation rate was based on the percentage of people age 16 and over who are not institutionalized, who are either working or actively seeking work. If that is correct, then it should be obvious that those who are not working or seeking work do not chose to work. now maybe some of them don't chose to work because they are discouraged or because they don't want to work for low wages, but regardless, they still chose not to work.

If they did chose to work, they would either be working or seeking work.

the only issue I see with a low labor force participation rate are the people who chose not to work because they prefer to suck off the tax payer. If we eliminated means tested benefits, then a low labor force participation rate would be no issue at all because those people would either start seeking work or they would just have to starve (I could care less either way - it's a choice).

imagep said:

I may be wrong, but I thought that the labor force participation rate was based on the percentage of people age 16 and over who are not institutionalized, who are either working or actively seeking work. If that is correct, then it should be obvious that those who are not working or seeking work do not chose to work. now maybe some of them don't chose to work because they are discouraged or because they don't want to work for low wages, but regardless, they still chose not to work.

If they did chose to work, they would either be working or seeking work.

Click to expand...

Btw, I think I found the stat pinqy was referring to:

Table A-16. Persons not in the labor force and multiple jobholders by sex, not seasonally adjusted

Ockham said:

A president who promotes business growth instead of personal welfare? A president who uses the bully pulpit to promote better education options like charter schools in urban cities? A president who can work with congress instead of just spew idealogue partisan nonsense? A President who pushes for adult training and skill workshops instead of pushing more foodstamps to get people out of work working again?


That will be $250,000 please. No personal checks.

Click to expand...

Fantastic idea and worth much, much more I might add. Brilliant and humble too!

You know what, I would settle for two things...

A president who will work with congress..

and

Who will effectively address the squalor of America's cities, beginning with education...

One view of the documentary "Waiting for Superman" convinced me there hasn't ever been a US politician who has ever taken the time to understand the problem. Your inner cities make our aboriginal reserves look like paradise

American said:

[...] The number of those not unemployed, but employable and not working seems to be going up. This is a crisis in my opinion.

Click to expand...

It's a Republican crisis because we have a Democrat president. So, pardon me while I yawn.

The Labor Force Participation Rate is a bogus number anyway because it includes those under 18 who are likely to be part time workers and those over 64 who are likely to be retired. In the latter scenario, of course the rate is going to fall at this particular demographic point in time because there is a bulge of baby boomers who are retiring.

But, rather than think independently and rationally, considering all the myriad factors involved, let's proceed with the crisis du jour.

December 2013
Labor force projections to 2022: the labor force participation rate continues to fall

Because of the decreasing labor force participation rate of youths and the prime age group, the overall labor force participation rate is expected to decline. The participation rates of older workers are projected to increase, but remain significantly lower than those of the prime age group. A combination of a slower growth of the civilian noninstitutional population and falling participation rates will lower labor force growth to a projected 0.5 percent annually.

The U.S. civilian labor force—the number of people working or looking for work—has gone through substantial changes in its size and demographic composition over the last half of the 20th century. During the 1970s and 1980s, the labor force grew vigorously as women’s labor force participation rates surged and the baby-boom generation entered the labor market. However, the dynamic demographic, economic, and social forces that once spurred the level, growth, and composition of the labor force have changed and are now damping labor force growth. The labor force participation rate of women, which peaked in 1999, has been on a declining trend. In addition, instead of entering the labor force, baby boomers are retiring in large numbers and exiting the workforce. Once again, the baby-boom generation has become a generator of change, this time in its retirement. Moreover, the jobless recovery of the 2001 recession, coupled with the severe economic impact of the 2007–2009 recession, caused disruptions in the labor market. In the first 12 years of the 21st century, the growth of the population has slowed and labor force participation rates generally have declined. As a result, labor force growth also has slowed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects that the next 10 years will bring about an aging labor force that is growing slowly, a declining overall labor force participation rate, and more diversity in the racial and ethnic composition of the labor force.

[...] According to the Census Bureau’s 2012 population projections, the U.S. population is expected to continue to grow slowly, to grow older, and to become more racially and ethnically diverse.2 During the 2012–2022 period, the growth of the labor force is anticipated to be due entirely to population growth, as the overall labor force participation rate is expected to decrease from 63.7 percent in 2012 to 61.6 percent in 2022.

Labor force projections to 2022: the labor force participation rate continues to fall : Monthly Labor Review : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Click to expand...

For a more rounded dataset from which to form a more illuminated opinion, try something outside the right wing echo chamber sometime.

FDR had the same problem that Obama has now. He started his administration with class war, anti-business rhetoric. It wasn't until midterms when the house and senate went republican that the economy started doing better. Then, of course, the war finally turned it around. There was a study some years back that argued Roosevelt's policies actually prolonged the depression longer than it should of been.

With the economy its all about self fulfilling prophecy. If people think things are getting better, they will start spending more and business will invest more and hire more. As long as there's an anti-business, class warrior that divides people on every dimension the psychology of the country and business will remain the same. Unfortunately, we have another few years to get through.

DA60 said:

Probably a lot (I read a Fed report that suggested as many as half).

However, how many of those are retiring entirely because they cannot find work and were thus forced to retire?

Click to expand...

I agree, however if they can figure out how to survive without working, then more power to them, it doesn't harm me a bit (except for possibly them drawing means tested benefits). If they really absolutely needed a job to survive, they would never have stopped looking for work, they would take a min wage job, or cut grass or sell scrap metal, or play an intrument for tips on a street corner or do something else useful.

imagep said:

Yet it wasn't commercial banks that were subject to the ACRA that made most of those loans. they were made by mortgage companies which were exempt from those laws, and it was the high failure rate of those mortgage companies that caused our near collapse. commercial banks didn't have any financial crises until the value of all mortgage holdings was drug down by the panic which happened after the failure of companies who were highly involved with mortgage backed securities (and those institutions weren't subject to the ACRA).

The vast majority of the loans made by commercial banks were prime rate loans, and would have been made with or without the ACRA. think about it, why would any bank open a branch in a particular community? Wouldn't it only be because they felt that there was sufficient demand in that community to support a bank? If so, then wouldn't those banks have been able to easily find enough borrowers in those community to meet the ACRA guidlines?

I realize that you are just repeating what you have heard far right extremest talking heads claim, but you should really research stuff before you repeat it. that claim is 99.9% bogus.

Click to expand...

Wrong.

In 1998 Janet Reno gave a speech bragging about the effectiveness of Clintons 1995 CRA changes that allowed the Federal government to dictate how lenders approved potential borrowers

She named over 13 successful DOJ lawsuites so far against lenders and one against NationWide Insurance.

She also vowed to continue the lawsuites and mentioned the importance of Banks providing " Equal credit ".

And the DOJ wasn't the only agency or even the only people targeting banks with fair lending lawsuits

HUD targeted lenders ( 2.1 Billion lawsuite against ACUBank ) and so did attorney's like Barrack Obama.

After Obama got elected Eric Holder continued these bank shakedowns. ( Wells Fargo )

So you're absolutely full of it.

How about you take a whole 15 minutes and do a bit of objective research instead of making stuff up off the top of your head ?

imagep said:

I agree, however if they can figure out how to survive without working, then more power to them, it doesn't harm me a bit (except for possibly them drawing means tested benefits). If they really absolutely needed a job to survive, they would never have stopped looking for work, they would take a min wage job, or cut grass or sell scrap metal, or play an intrument for tips on a street corner or do something else useful.

Click to expand...

Nobody in America, theoretically, needs a job to survive.

Food stamps, shelters, Medicaid/Medicare and other forms of welfare make that a virtual thing of the past.


It's not about surviving, it's about living.

And I strongly suspect that many Americans do not consider surviving with enough food and shelter to not perish as 'living'...merely existing.



And for me, to merely exist is not enough.

If all I can do is 'exist' and not 'live'...pass.

I am afraid of dying.

But I am FAR more afraid of living badly.

Fenton said:

Wrong.

In 1998 Janet Reno gave a speech bragging about the effectiveness of Clintons 1995 CRA changes that allowed the Federal government to dictate how lenders approved potential borrowers

She named over 13 successful DOJ lawsuites so far against lenders and one against NationWide Insurance.

She also vowed to continue the lawsuites and mentioned the importance of Banks providing " Equal credit ".

And the DOJ wasn't the only agency or even the only people targeting banks with fair lending lawsuits

HUD targeted lenders ( 2.1 Billion lawsuite against ACUBank ) and so did attorney's like Barrack Obama.

After Obama got elected Eric Holder continued these bank shakedowns. ( Wells Fargo )

So you're absolutely full of it.

How about you take a whole 15 minutes and do a bit of objective research instead of making stuff up off the top of your head ?

Click to expand...

I'm not disputing the fact that the CRA existed, only the fact that it was the cause of the mortgage bubble/crash.

so were the majority of foreclosed mortgages issued by commercial banks subject to the ACRA or entities not subject to it? Look it up, you will be surprised.

Charts for the “Facts of the Economic Crisis” Column | The Big Picture

imagep said:

Yet it wasn't commercial banks that were subject to the ACRA that made most of those loans. they were made by mortgage companies which were exempt from those laws, and it was the high failure rate of those mortgage companies that caused our near collapse. commercial banks didn't have any financial crises until the value of all mortgage holdings was drug down by the panic which happened after the failure of companies who were highly involved with mortgage backed securities (and those institutions weren't subject to the ACRA).

The vast majority of the loans made by commercial banks were prime rate loans, and would have been made with or without the ACRA. think about it, why would any bank open a branch in a particular community? Wouldn't it only be because they felt that there was sufficient demand in that community to support a bank? If so, then wouldn't those banks have been able to easily find enough borrowers in those community to meet the ACRA guidlines?

I realize that you are just repeating what you have heard far right extremest talking heads claim, but you should really research stuff before you repeat it. that claim is 99.9% bogus.

Click to expand...

I can't believe that there are people on here who blame mortgage companies for the idiots who purchased homes that they could not afford to pay for. The idiots who signed the paperwork for their purchase are the ones to blame. If they are going to be stupid enough to purchase a home they can not afford they better be tough, or at least learn how to read.

imagep said:

I'm not disputing the fact that the CRA existed, only the fact that it was the cause of the mortgage bubble/crash.

so were the majority of foreclosed mortgages issued by commercial banks subject to the ACRA or entities not subject to it? Look it up, you will be surprised.

Charts for the “Facts of the Economic Crisis” Column | The Big Picture

Click to expand...

Wait, are you seriously trying to condense down the entire Sub-prime Bubble into two years ? Your'e pulling a VERN then ?

Fine, you post a hack chart, and I'll give the " Right wing " response...

Unfortunately the Democrat strategy IS to condense down the entire Sub-prime housing bubble, from beginning to end to 2 years. 2004-2006.

Even though Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got into the Sub-prime business in 1998.

Freddie Mac Jumps into Subprime Mortgages - American Banker 175th Year Flashback Article - American Banker 175th Year Flashback

" Freddie Mac is diving into subprime lending, ending months of speculation over how deeply the agency would go into the burgeoning market.

Freddie Mac and its rival, Fannie Mae, outlined their approaches to lending to tarnished borrowers at the Mortgage Bankers Association's annual meeting Tuesday in New York. Their participation could accelerate growth in a sector that has become a new frontier for many lenders and, ultimately, could bring rates down for borrowers.

Chairman Leland C. Brendsel said Freddie will begin buying lower-quality loans over the coming year and proceed further down the credit spectrum in 1999. "We will buy all the loans we can that meet our parameters and can be priced profitably."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

And in 1999 Clinton Pushed them to enter into even more Sub-prime purchases...

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending - NYTimes.com

" In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans "

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

And in 2000 Andrew Cuomo committed the GSEs to purchase 2.4 Trillion in Sub-prime loans....
HUD Archives: Cuomo Announces Action to Provide $2.4 Trillion in Mortgages for Affordable Housing for 28.1 Million Families

" Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo today announced a policy to require the nation's two largest housing finance companies to buy $2.4 trillion in mortgages over the next 10 years to provide affordable housing for about 28.1 million low- and moderate-income families."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-==-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-

This way the Democrats can blame George Bush for everything and use the ridiculous chart you just posted to back up this asinine assertion.

So lets shoot down this ridiculous narrative by starting with Horsemanship rates. From 1993 to 2000, they rose 5 %. ( 63 % to 68 % )

Under Bush ( 2000- 2008 ) they rose another 1 % and a fraction of that was actually Sub-prime.

Your dubious Chart suggest that there were enough Sub-prime loans Made ( within a 1 % increase in Home-ownership rates ) then securitized and then distributed out into Capital Markets via CDO tranches all over the world and in just 2 years, to cause a collapse that washed out nearly 60 Trillion dollars in wealth worldwide AND to Bankrupt two Iconic American Institutions leaving them holding over 5 TRILLION dollars in debt and a good portion that debt was either Sub-prime loans or securities backed by Sub-Prime loans.

To prove the GSEs purchased TONS of trash debt we can start with the fact that the FED via QE agreed to buy up 1.5 TRILLION dollars in worthless " AAA '' securities and recent Law suites filed by Eric Holder AND FHFA made public the Hundreds of Billions of dollars of worthless Securities that Fannie and Freddie KNOWINGLY purchased.

So Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchased over 2 Trillion in trash loans and securities and most likely allot more than that.

Anyway, Capital Markets are proportionally sized to the size of the Country they reside in. When untold amounts of toxic MBSs went belly up all at once it corrupted CDO's filled with other investments to go belly up.

So this partisan assertion that Sub-prime only started in 2004 just doesn't add up at all. It's IMPOSSIBLE that a small amount of Trash loans over two years would bring cause a Financial Meltdown that extended out to Capital Markets all over the world and bankrupted two iconic American Financial Institutions

Anyway, the idiot who created that chart apparently doesn't possess a shred of integrity. Otherwise he would have NAMED which lender made the vast majority of those worthless loans POST 2004.

So I'll name the lender. It was CountryWide. He probably didn't mention CountryWide because Fannie Mae was the primary consumer of their trash loans AND because CountryWide gave out VIP loans to a certain Democrat Politician who served on the Senate Banking Committee,

Dodd and Countrywide - WSJ

Here's the Fannie and Freddie Foundation bragging about CountryWide in 2004....

" Countrywide tends to follow the most flexible underwriting criteria permitted under GSE and FHA guidelines. Because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac tend to give their best lenders access to the most flexible underwriting criteria, Countrywide benefits from its status as one of the largest originators of mortgage loans and one of the largest participants in the GSE programs. …

When necessary—in cases where applicants have no established credit history, for example—Countrywide uses nontraditional credit, a practice now accepted by the GSEs "

I could continue. Post more facts that predate your narrative by a good 10 years, but something tells me you'll just continue to define the Financial Collapse according to your own subjective terms, and not the facts.

imagep said:

Yet it wasn't commercial banks that were subject to the ACRA that made most of those loans. they were made by mortgage companies which were exempt from those laws, and it was the high failure rate of those mortgage companies that caused our near collapse. commercial banks didn't have any financial crises until the value of all mortgage holdings was drug down by the panic which happened after the failure of companies who were highly involved with mortgage backed securities (and those institutions weren't subject to the ACRA).

The vast majority of the loans made by commercial banks were prime rate loans, and would have been made with or without the ACRA. think about it, why would any bank open a branch in a particular community? Wouldn't it only be because they felt that there was sufficient demand in that community to support a bank? If so, then wouldn't those banks have been able to easily find enough borrowers in those community to meet the ACRA guidlines?

I realize that you are just repeating what you have heard far right extremest talking heads claim, but you should really research stuff before you repeat it. that claim is 99.9% bogus.

Click to expand...

The Government Did It - Forbes

Fenton said:

It's IMPOSSIBLE that a small amount of Trash loans over two years would bring cause a Financial Meltdown that extended out to Capital Markets all over the world and bankrupted two iconic American Financial Institutions

Click to expand...

Not when the house of cards, the highly leveraged tranched, chopped up MBS that were made up of these overvalued properties began to have high default levels. Once they began to topple then whole thing collapsed because of all of the high levels of leverage these investment houses were operating under. They could not begin to cover small losses, the CDO's multiplied the effect. You still have no concept of how brittle the PRIVATE banking sector was within mortgage securities.

"

apdst said:

The Government Did It - Forbes

Click to expand...

The Ayn Randian version.

PS...it is wonderful to see Fenton back to his thread hijacking ways again.

apdst said:

Nope, that's not what happened. What caused the recession was the government forcing the banks to make those risky loans.

Click to expand...

That sure as hell isn't true. Banks would give anyone a loan with little or no income verification because of greed and the shortsightedness that real estate values would just keep rising. Liar loans, no down loans and all sorts of hybrids then sold off as mortgage backed securities to even greedier investors all backed up by insurance that was unable to cover anything (see AIG) and given a triple AAA credit rating by the scummy rating agencies. I worked for one of the largest US banks for 18 years and quite involved in the accounting for MBS, FX, Derivatives all insured by AMBAC, CAPMAC, MBIA and all the deals rated by S&P and Moodys. A complete cluster f@#k. I went on an interview just before the crash with a company that just dealt with subprime loans. Needless to say they are no longer in business.

American said:

Record 92,269,000 Not in Labor Force; Participation Rate Matches 36-Year Low | CNS News

[im]http://www.cnsnews.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/large/images/LABOR%20FORCE-PARTICIPATION-AUGUST.jpg[/img]

The number of those not unemployed, but employable and not working seems to be going up. This is a crisis in my opinion.

Click to expand...

The QEs worked BUT didn't and can't solve the larger Structural Problems.
1. Globalization Devouring our Blue Collar Jobs and lowering wages of even those that stayed.
2. Our Horrible immigration policy/Free-for-all which has Caused even more erosion in wages/a Double Whammy to the Blue Collar/Middle Class.
3. The Demographic Structural problem of 10,000 Boomers retiring every day.
Collecting SS and slamming Medicare.
This promises to get WORSE/cumulative every year for at least the next 15, perhaps 20.
So You can pin a part of the ''participation rate'' on Obama, but probably not more than Half.
Participation IS going to erode.

4. That's why, though I am for Balanced Budgets, it's Not crazy to Run a Deficit while the Demographic Pig works it way through the Python.
But No, that didn't mean from 2000-2015 except for the necessary post-Crash Bail-out.

5. Japan is Finished IMO.
It is a large Black Swan that could trigger another Huge sell-off in World markets.
It's much Worse than Greece was fiscally.
6. China has been desperately pumping up their economy with about 3-4x the rate of our QEs. Of course, they're doing it with our money.
But their economy is a phantom and their numbers (ie, 7% growth) are Not trustworthy.
7. Europe/EU/Draghi is increasing it's QE because they are dead in the water.

So good luck with real jobs growth catching hold.
We do have our fracking which is probably 100% of our 2% economic growth.

Hari Seldon said:

That sure as hell isn't true. Banks would give anyone a loan with little or no income verification because of greed and the shortsightedness that real estate values would just keep rising. Liar loans, no down loans and all sorts of hybrids then sold off as mortgage backed securities to even greedier investors all backed up by insurance that was unable to cover anything (see AIG) and given a triple AAA credit rating by the scummy rating agencies. I worked for one of the largest US banks for 18 years and quite involved in the accounting for MBS, FX, Derivatives all insured by AMBAC, CAPMAC, MBIA and all the deals rated by S&P and Moodys. A complete cluster f@#k. I went on an interview just before the crash with a company that just dealt with subprime loans. Needless to say they are no longer in business.

Click to expand...

Hmmmm....Well here's some information on Clinton's " Fair lending Task Force "

" 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 agencies will not tolerate lending discrimination in any form," the document warned financial institutions."
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Smoking-Gun-Edict-Shows-Gov-ibd-3846212214.html

And here's Janet Reno bragging about the effectiveness of the new regulations in 1998...

" I have found, and I think and I hope that you have found, that lenders have listened and learned. Bank commitments, as we have noted, have increased within the last four years. The figures are staggering: an 86 percent increase of all bank commitments under the Act since it went into effect more than 20 years ago.

The new Community Reinvestment Act regulations enable lenders to develop customized strategic plans for meeting their obligations under the Act, and many have been developed in partnership with your local organizations. In this way you are not only helping to rebuild your communities, but you are showing bankers how to be responsible corporate citizens. In short, you can't do it just with capital, you can't do it just with people who care; we can do it together.

We want to see equal credit being offered by banks because it is the right thing to do, because the law requires it, because it is good business, because people accept it.

You've noted that since the inception of our fair lending initiative in 1992 the Department has filed and settled 13 major fair lending lawsuits. We are going to continue these efforts under the Acting Assistant Attorney General Bill Lann Lee in every way that we possibly can. We will continue to focus on discrimination in underwriting, the process of evaluating the qualifications of credit applicants. This was the issue in our suits against Shawmut in Boston, Northern Trust Company in Chicago, and First National Bank of Donna Anna in New Mexico "

In 1999 HUD settled with ACUBank for 2.1 Billion for supposed " discrimination so the DOJ wasn't the only Federal agency shaking down banks for " discriminatory lending practices.

Then there were the private lawsuits that sued banks for " discrimination " . Obama was a plaintiffs attorney in a case against Citi Bank in Chicago.


In 1994 the Riegle Neal Act was signed that tied a banks CRA score directly to their ability to get Federal Approval to merge and expand across state lines.

In 1995 Clinton changed the CRA laws via his Home-ownership Strategy. Banks HAD to show that they were actually making loans to low income applicants or people with poor credit.

Here's the National Bureau of Economic Research's take on whether or not the CRA laws contributed to the Financial Meltdown...
Did the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Lead to Risky Lending?

Yes, it did. We use exogenous variation in banks’ incentives to conform to the standards of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) around regulatory exam dates to trace out the effect of the CRA on lending activity. Our empirical strategy compares lending behavior of banks undergoing CRA exams within a given census tract in a given month to the behavior of banks operating in the same census tract-month that do not face these exams. We find that adherence to the act led to riskier lending by banks: in the six quarters surrounding the CRA exams lending is elevated on average by about 5 percent every quarter and loans in these quarters default by about 15 percent more often. "


And finally there's the Home-ownership rates under Clinton as compared to the Home ownership rates under Bush..

In 1993 the Home-ownership rate was 63 %. In 2000 it was 68 %. So a 5% increase thanks to the Federally mandated lowering of lending standards.

Under Bush Home-ownership rates rose another 1 %.

Greed huh ??? No, REGULATIONS and forced " equity "

Hari Seldon said:

That sure as hell isn't true. Banks would give anyone a loan with little or no income verification because of greed and the shortsightedness that real estate values would just keep rising. Liar loans, no down loans and all sorts of hybrids then sold off as mortgage backed securities to even greedier investors all backed up by insurance that was unable to cover anything (see AIG) and given a triple AAA credit rating by the scummy rating agencies. I worked for one of the largest US banks for 18 years and quite involved in the accounting for MBS, FX, Derivatives all insured by AMBAC, CAPMAC, MBIA and all the deals rated by S&P and Moodys. A complete cluster f@#k. I went on an interview just before the crash with a company that just dealt with subprime loans. Needless to say they are no longer in business.

Click to expand...

Ok...

Obama pushed banks to give subprime loans to Chicago blacks | The Daily Caller

Do you even know what an MBS is? How a out a credit default swap or an interest rate swap. A monoline insurance company? The government did not force anybody to come up with those extremely complex financial instruments all based for the most part on the value of real estate which was parceled out to such an extent no one even knew who ultimately held the title to the foreclosed homes. But you can believe it was all the fault of the CRA.

apdst said:

Ok...

Obama pushed banks to give subprime loans to Chicago blacks | The Daily Caller

Click to expand...

And that is what caused the financial crisis. Congratulations you figured it out. :doh