Last Call

My favorite Zombie Lie of the housing collapse is back again, Broke Ass Black People Caused The Recession.  Every six months or so we get another iteration of this idiocy that centers around the Community Reinvestment Act, which because of "racial quotas" forced banks to make subprime loans to unqualified brown people, which collapsed the housing sector and the economy.  No surprise, it's Investor's Business Daily again with this lie.

Democrats and the media insist the Community Reinvestment Act, the anti-redlining law beefed up by President Clinton, had nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis and recession.

But a new study by the respected National Bureau of Economic Research finds, "Yes, it did. We find that adherence to that act led to riskier lending by banks."

Added NBER: "There is a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by these banks in quarters around the (CRA) exam. Moreover, the effects are larger for loans made within CRA tracts," or predominantly low-income and minority areas."

Except as I've been saying for years now, the CRA's effect on the housing collapse was minimal because the banks that made the vast majority of bad subprime loans never made them under the CRA.  Investor's Business Daily has been pushing this outright falsehood for four years now.

 

And I've killed this lie again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

 

Once again, the mortgage brokers that made nearly all of the subprime loans that went bad were MORTGAGE BROKERS and NOT BANKS.   Because they WERE NOT BANKS, they were NOT SUBJECT TO THE COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT AT ALL.

This "study" doesn't prove anything, other than Investor's Business Daily is the NewsMax of the financial world.

Method To His Madness

Hey folks?  Listen up.  NRA executive VP and spokesman Wayne LaPierre is crazy.  Like a fox.

Gun enthusiasts thronged to shows around the country on Saturday to buy assault weapons they fear will soon be outlawed after a massacre of school children in Connecticut prompted calls for tighter controls on firearms.

Reuters reporters went to gun shows in Pennsylvania, Missouri and Texas, and found long lines to get in the door, crowds around the dealer booths, a rush to buy assault weapons even at higher prices and some dealers selling out.

The busiest table at the R.K. Gun & Knife show at an exposition center near the Kansas City, Missouri airport was offering assault weapons near the entrance.

West Plains, Missouri dealer Keith's Guns sold out of about 20 AR-15 style assault rifles in a little over an hour, owner Keith Gray said.

And NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo is doing everything he can to help the NRA sell more guns, more ammo, more everything.

In a radio interview on Thursday with Albany’s WGDJ-AM, New York governor Andrew Cuomo said that he plans to work with state legislators next month to submit a proposal for new gun-control laws; in particular, Cuomo said, “our focus is assault weapons,” because current state laws regulating the weapons “have more holes that Swiss cheese.”

“I don’t think legitimate sportsmen are going to say, ‘I need an assault weapon to go hunting,’” he said.

Cuomo continued, “Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option. Permitting could be an option — keep your gun but permit it.”

Boom.  The NRA is going to be using Cuomo's comments for years and the gun lobby will keep getting richer and richer and buy off more lawmakers.  The NRA's response as the nation's largest firearms manufacturer lobbyist group to the Newtown massacre could not have worked out any better for them, frankly.

So glad politicians on "our side" are happy to do all the lifting for them.

Maker's Mark Of Bad Taste

So depressingly expected that I haven't written about it, but this week details of a lawsuit versus the Maker's Mark Bourbon House and Lounge in Louisville's 4th Street Live district became public.  Ian Boudreau has the deets:

The suit, filed in Jefferson County court by Andre Mulligan, alleges that he and his brother approached the Maker’s Mark Bourbon House and Lounge management in August this year to secure reservations for an event scheduled for Aug. 18. According to Mulligan’s suit, the restaurant management “demanded to know the ratio of ‘black people’ to ‘white people’” in the party, and then refused to grant a reservation when Mulligan explained that everyone attending the party would be black.

When the Mulligans and their party showed up anyway on Aug. 18, the complaint says the 4^th Street Live security personnel barred them from entry into the downtown area, which covers about two city blocks (the Baltimore-based Cordish Operating Ventures, which runs 4^th Street Live, is also named in the complaint).


This isn’t the first time 4^th Street Live and associated clubs have been accused of racism. In 2006, a Jefferson County judge ordered two clubs to visibly post the “dress codes” they had cited when barring two African-American men from entering The Red Cheetah and Parrot Bay. These dress codes had drawn a lot of local criticism at the time for being rather obviously targeted at African-American men – many felt as if Cordish’s ban on “gang-related” clothing was being used specifically to prevent young black men from entering the area at night, when the bars and clubs are busiest.

Living here in Kentucky, I've had friends of both races tell me 4th Street Live at night is not very friendly for groups of black folk.  People don't like to be reminded it seems that what few black folk live here are in the urban areas of Louisville and Lexington.  It's been a long time problem at 4th Street Live, and that's why I've only been there once two years ago (and during the day.)  Overpriced tourist trap area anyway, but the vibe I got there definitely made me not want to go back.

Which was the point, I guess.  Everyone acts surprised that this kind of thing still exists in 2013, but why should we be?  As Ian points out, we elected arguably the most racist senator in the country in Rand "The Civil Rights Act is unconstitutional" Paul.  What did you expect from Kentucky?