Last Call For The Zombie CRA Lie

The jokers over at Investors' Business Daily ("When the Wall Street Journal is too liberal a source for your economics news") will keep flogging the ridiculous zombie lie that Bill Clinton created the subprime mortgage collapse through the Community Reinvestment Act.  Now that Hillary Clinton's future plans are making news, they've turned up the heat on this stale, overcooked lie.

Newly released memos from the Clinton presidential library reveal evidence the government had a big hand in the housing crisis. The worst actors were in the White House, not on Wall Street.

During the 1990s, former Clinton aides bragged that more aggressive enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act pressured banks to issue riskier mortgages, lending more proof the anti-redlining law fueled the crisis.

A 2012 National Bureau of Economic Research study found "that adherence to that act led to riskier lending by banks," with "a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by these banks in quarters around the (CRA) exam, (and) the effects are larger for loans made within CRA tracts," or low-income and minority areas.

To satisfy CRA examiners, Clinton mandated "flexible" lending by large banks. As a result, CRA-approved loans defaulted about 15% more often, the NBER found.

Exhibit A in the 7,000-page Clinton Library document dump is a 1999 memo to him from his treasury secretary, Robert Rubin.

"Public disclosure of CRA ratings, together with the changes made by the regulators under your leadership, have significantly contributed to ... financial institutions ... meeting the needs of low- and moderate-income communities and minorities," Rubin gushed. "Since 1993, the number of home mortgage loans to African Americans increased by 58%, to Hispanics by 62% and to low- and moderate-income borrowers by 38%, well above the overall market increase.

"Since 1992, nonprofit community organizations estimate that the private sector has pledged over $1 trillion in loans and investment under CRA."

And since minorities are all broke ass welfare cheats, Wall Street was "forced" to loan good money to those people and that's what destroyed our economy.   There's only one problem with this:  it's a lie that's been pushed by IBD for six years now.  I caught them doing it in November 2008.  They're still doing it now and the same rebuttal applies:

It's pretty idiotic, and any serious person rejects the argument that the CRA forced the banks into making loans they couldn't pay...including the lenders themselves.

But IBD plunges on into the darkness, admitting that even though Countrywide, the largest single subprime lender in America, was not covered under the CRA, it still "came under great pressure to loan to minorities".

No, it came under the pressure of its own greed.

And let's not forget banks like Citigroup that didn't make subprime loans at all, but still collapsed under the weight of their own bad investments they made by choice and had to be rescued with our money.

I said the same thing in December 2012 as well:

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.

And I will keep killing this lie that black people and Bill Clinton caused the goddamn financial meltdown every single time.

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch...

Esquire's Caty Enders filed this report from the Bundy Ranch this weekend.  It's a pretty sobering reminder that Bundy's rampant racism is just the tip of the massive, massive problem America has with the "sovereign citizen" and militia movements in the Age of Obama.

The crowd, fresh off their victory at the Battle of Bunkerville, gives Bundy a standing ovation. But he doesn’t seem pleased. He reproaches the crowd for failing to follow the word of God – to the letter – which he says is being delivered through him. They failed, for example, to follow his instructions to tear down the toll booths at Lake Mead and disarm the Park Service.

"The message I gave to you all was a revelation that I received. And yet not one of you can seem to even quote it.”

Cliven continues, sermon-like: "The records of our bible — how long have they been kept? Thousands of years. They’ve been turned over generation after generation, buried, and all kinds of things happen to ‘em. And yet, here, something I felt was inspired [by God] and yet we haven’t even carried it forth for even a couple of days. Shame on us.” Smattering of clapping.

He goes on to explain that, although they managed to deter the BLM, they failed to do it "within one hour," as the revelation had prophesied. So when an hour passes, he decides to get in his bulldozer and march on the BLM himself. The dozer gets stuck in the mud and he receives another revelation.

“It come to my mind real plain — the good Lord said, ‘Bundy, it’s not your job, it’s THEIR job.’ So we come back over here and heard that they had brought some cattle back. So I want you to understand,” addressing the crowd, "This is not my job, it’s YOUR job.

"This morning, I said a prayer, and this is what I received. I heard a voice say, 'Sheriff Gillespie, your work is not done. Every sheriff across the United States, take the guns away from the United States bureaucrats.’” Lots of clapping for this.

Yep, just another day on the Insane Destroy The United States Government Ranch.

A former Arizona sheriff turned Texas political candidate, Richard Mack, speaks next.

“I don’t believe the BLM has any authority whatsoever — they have no law enforcement authority in Clark County.” In conclusion he yells into the microphone, “(William Wallace!) FREEEDOOOOOM!"

After the speeches, Nevada Assemblywoman Michelle Fiore steps off the stage. Wearing a diamond-studded pistol pendant, she raises her eyebrows in the direction of a shadowy government operation. "When you really look at this, it’s not about the environmental stuff — it’s a lot deeper than what’s coming out in the media.”

In the downtime, a group of men laments the way the world has changed. Obama, a Muslim Kenyan, doesn't let kids say the pledge in school anymore. Steve, from Beaver, Utah, says it’s all down to regulation and changes that happened during Vietnam. “I want it to be like it was growing up in the fifties. I want it to be just like that — for [the kids]. Though it can’t be just like that, because they have the internet.”

"That's what's wrong: the Internet," agrees another.

On the other hand, the notion of taking the country back from "The Negro" president is never far from the minds of these assholes.  That's what really drove them insane.  And they will not stop until somebody is hurt or dead.

And even then, they'll just keep going.  I'm a million times more worried about these racist nutjobs who view people like me as subhuman vermin that need to be exterminated than I am being attacked by "Islamic terrorists" or anything.  Multiply that further by the fact that most of the Republican party backs these assholes, and that they in turn see the GOP as their ticket to getting rid of the rest of us.

Grimm Fandango

Our old friend, NY Republican Rep. Michael "break you in half like a boy" Grimm apparently has much bigger problems than his bizarre and utterly self-serving 180 into climate change convert to Chris Hayes (mainly because it means his Staten Island/Brooklyn district would be underwater when it happens and the voters know it.)

He's the latest Republican to face an indictment over funny business with his money business.

Rep. Michael G. Grimm is expected to be indicted by the U.S. Attorney in New York, his attorney and a source familiar with the case confirmed to CQ Roll Call. […]

The indictment of the New York Republican would come nearly two years after the Justice Department first launched a formal investigation into Grimm’s campaign finances. It began the summer of 2012, several months after revelations first surfaced in a New York Times article that the lawmaker, then a freshman, might have bolstered his first bid for congressional office by filing erroneous campaign finance reports and offering to help get a green card for a non-citizen on condition that the individual help raise money on Grimm’s behalf.

NBC is also reporting that the indictment will stem from Grimm's business dealings outside of Congress.

For those who need a refresher on the timeline of Grimm’s troubles, the New York Times ran a report in February 2012 on allegations the congressman – himself a former FBI agent – skirted fundraising limits and accepted envelopes with cash in them in 2010, during his first campaign. The Times also documented Grimm’s business partnership with a fellow former FBI agent who was indicted on racketeering and fraud charges.

In July 2012, a federal grand jury was convened after the FBI’s public corruption unit interviewed several Grimm campaign workers. A law enforcement source told the New York Daily News at the time, “Let’s say, so far, it is a tool to get people’s attention – that we are serious about our questions about the congressman.”

And now it looks like those questions will be put very distinctly to Grimm in a court of law.  Can't say I'm sorry to see the guy get the hook.  Hopefully his opponent Democrat Domenic Recchia can score a pickup for Team Blue in November.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• As President Obama announced the threat of new sanctions against Russia as early as next week, Russian jets entered Ukranian airspace as Kiev warned Moscow was trying to start "WW III".
• A 16-year-old Connecticut high school girl was stabbed to death Friday as police are investigating a suspect who reportedly became enraged that she rejected his offer to go to the school's prom.
• A Justice Department corruption probe into US banks hiring the children of prominent Chinese officials is now being expanded to include other industries besides finance.
• European Union officials are also considering new sanctions against Russia as international monitoring teams in Ukraine may have been captured and are being used as hostages by militants.
• Stanford University's new password policy balances complexity with length as shorter passwords must contain more character types, while longer ones can be all lower case.