I'm tired of the GOP trying to pin this mortgage mess on African Americans

[CatWoman]

do we have to be the scapegoat for EVERYTHING??

[onethatcares]

1. you and me both, I'm tired of explaining redlining

to many people.

It's the fault of rich white guys. I've never heard an African American or a Black person say, they deserve this or that. I've often wondered why they riot in their own neighborhoods but I've yet to hear a desire for more than any of us deserve.

[BlooInBloo]

2. What - you mean you don't get *used* to it after awhile?

Amazing.

:rofl:

[carpe diem]

3. when one of the major party candidates for POTUS is

African American, it helps if White people are mad a Black folks for their economic hardships...as long as it works, they'll keep doing it...

[dipsydoodle]

4. Ida thought they were the least reponsible.

I'm gauging that by what might be known in the friendliest possible way as our African UK citizens given that there no material difference. I only made up that expression as a one off, here, for convenience - they're UK citizens just like me : broadly speaking friends who were born here and their parents who came over mid fifties from the Caribbean.

[Zywiec]

24. If they came from the Caribbean

Why call them African?

:shrug:

[dipsydoodle]

27. From whence they came originally

Was called the slave trade as you well know - or should do.

[Amy6627]

5. Hopefully that will backfire on them and make African-Americans

and other minorities so angry they will come out in droves for Obama. When I heard Stenny Hoyer (I believe it was him), say that the mortgage crisis was the fault of minorities AND risky borrowers. I was livid and I am a very white Irish-American. So to Stenny just for being a minority (nothing to do with income or ability to buy) you are risky, and then I guess to him risky borrowers mean white trash?

I am one of those people in this mortgage crisis. I did not falsify anything thing I qualified for the loan I was given at the time, it was fixed for 2 years and then would adjust. My broker said in 2 years just re-fi for a new loan. You'll have a lot of equity by then and it will be no problem. So I bought my first condo. Now 2 years later the value of my condo has dropped $100K, so one will refi my loan and now I'm in negotiations with my lender if that doesn't work I have to walk.

[CatWoman]

6. Amy

:hug:

I'm so sorry to hear that

:hug:

[Amy6627]

11. Thank you, you're very sweet!

[islandmkl]

7. well, they have a point you know:

the reason you're having trouble with your mortgage is because some black guy got a mortgage...

it has nothing to do with your income falling, your personal debt rising, the cost of basic living skyrocketing (so much that the govt. doesn't even count the energy and food effects), and we are spending your kids & grandkids money on a totally fraudulent war in iraq...and it DEFINITELY has nothing to do with the financial meltdown ushered in by the Wall Street fatcats...

it's that black guy in the same shoes as you...that's who's causing all the problems...

[CatWoman]

8. you know

one of these nights I'm going to sneak in and steal that gorgeous kitty of yours :)

[TexasObserver]

9. True. They are already trying to blame consumers for accepting loans.

[ailsagirl]

10. I thought it was strictly Obama's fault

But seriously, BLAME is what they're good at. I'm hoping it's obvious to everyone--I mean, we've been down this road for eight insufferable years-- people have GOT to see the sleazoids for what they are.
Hadn't they? :shrug:

[SammyWinstonJack]

12. They put the blame on all americans who tried to realize

the "american dream" It's all bullshit! Like George Carlin said, "It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

[HughMoran]

13. Those fucking ignorant redneck bigots aren't saying that - are they?

Republicans are scum of the earth hateful bigots - many pretending to be "Christian".

[CatWoman]

14. unfortunately, yes

I even heard one say that the other morning on Washington Journal.

[JHB]

21. And don't forget they were singing a different tune just a few years ago...

See what the cat (no relation, CW :hi: ) dragged in from another thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4077308&mesg_id=4077308


But back then, the talking point was "ownership society".

[CatWoman]

22. lol

:hi:

my four drag all kinds of stuff around, too :)

[bunkerbuster1]

17. Yep, Rush is baiting them, and all the wannabes follow.

Typical right wingers; when the going gets tough, the conservatives go racist.

[HughMoran]

26. Sickening

:puke:

[anigbrowl]

15. Fuck yeah. Everyone knows you guys run Wall Street, as well as controlling the weather.

When you apologize for daylight savings time, THEN we can talk!

;-)

[CatWoman]

19. LOLOLOLOL!!!

:rofl:

[bunkerbuster1]

16. Jay Bookman had a very nice takedown, which he buried,

inexplicably, in his own blog's comments section.

from
http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/ajc/bookman/entries/2008/09/23/ive_been_watching_henry_paulso.html#comment-135592403

the CRA has been in effect since 1977. That’s 31 years ago. As Matt Yglesias puts it:

“Are we supposed to believe that CRA was working smoothly throughout the Carter, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton years and then only under Bush II did overzealous anti-”redlining” enforcement come into play, perhaps a result of Dubya’s legendarily close relationship with ACORN? Or maybe overzealous enforcement back in the late 1970s is somehow responsible for a real estate blowout that only materialized 30 years later? It doesn’t even come close to making sense.”

Second, the CRA applies only to traditional banks, which in Atlanta and other metro areas orginate less than 25 percent of mortgages.

Third, while a few smaller traditional banks have failed, the far bigger problem has been with mortgage companies and investment banks, which have no CRA requirements. If CRA was a major problem, you would see CRA-regulated neighborhood traditional banks having the big problems, while mortgage companies and non-CRA banks would be exempt. The opposite is true.

Fourth, most CRA loans are well-documented, traditional type mortgage loans, not the no-doc, low-doc and adjustable-rate garbage which is where the problem lies.

Fifth, an analysis of CRA impacts released in January concluded that “To a much greater extent than other lenders, CRA Banks avoided making the types of home purchase mortgage loans that provoked the foreclosure crisis.”

That same study found that banks covered by CRA were more than twice as likely to keep loans on their own books rather than sell them to Wall Street. In Atlanta, CRA banks retained 51 percent of mortgages to low and moderate-income borrowers, while non-CRA lenders kept only 20 percent of those loans, shipping 80 percent off to Wall Street.

So those non-CRA lenders were the source of the problem.

This is worth having around the next time some asshole goes on about how banks "had to lend to the shiftless dark folk".

[CatWoman]

20. I post on that blog

I remember when that was posted :)

[bunkerbuster1]

28. Redneck Convert? That you?

Have a good day everybody.

[Bigmack]

18. To all the whites who say...

"I'm not sure I could vote for a black man."

I would like to point out the color of ALL those motherfuckers on Wall Street bending us over and taking aim right now.

I'm not voting for no white man!

signed,

White Boy

[dana_b]

23. they cannot take reponsibility for their own actions

I believe that it's impossible for them to do so!! Seriousy - it's a disease. Kind of like Crohns but with a lot more poop involved.

[stillcool]

25. The ultimate con-game..

..anyone could play, but African-Americans and Latino's were targeted. It's just like when they flooded the country with cocaine to support the Contra's and then arrested the users. They got their money for the drugs, the money to build the prisons, the money from the prison labor.

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 18, 2002
President Reiterates Goal on Homeownership

Remarks by the President on Homeownership
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Washington, D.C.
******
The goal is, everybody who wants to own a home has got a shot at doing so. The problem is we have what we call a homeownership gap in America. Three-quarters of Anglos own their homes, and yet less than 50 percent of African Americans and Hispanics own homes. That ownership gap signals that something might be wrong in the land of plenty. And we need to do something about it.

We are here in Washington, D.C. to address problems. So I've set this goal for the country. We want 5.5 million more homeowners by 2010 -- million more minority homeowners by 2010. (Applause.) Five-and-a-half million families by 2010 will own a home. That is our goal. It is a realistic goal. But it's going to mean we're going to have to work hard to achieve the goal, all of us. And by all of us, I mean not only the federal government, but the private sector, as well.

And so I want to, one, encourage you to do everything you can to work in a realistic, smart way to get this done. I repeat, we're here for a reason. And part of the reason is to make this dream extend everywhere.

I'm going to do my part by setting the goal, by reminding people of the goal, by heralding the goal, and by calling people into action, both the federal level, state level, local level, and in the private sector. (Applause.)

And so what are the barriers that we can deal with here in Washington? Well, probably the single barrier to first-time homeownership is high down payments. People take a look at the down payment, they say that's too high, I'm not buying. They may have the desire to buy, but they don't have the wherewithal to handle the down payment. We can deal with that. And so I've asked Congress to fully fund an American Dream down payment fund which will help a low-income family to qualify to buy, to buy. (Applause.)

We believe when this fund is fully funded and properly administered, which it will be under the Bush administration, that over 40,000 families a year -- 40,000 families a year -- will be able to realize the dream we want them to be able to realize, and that's owning their own home. (Applause.)

The second barrier to ownership is the lack of affordable housing. There are neighborhoods in America where you just can't find a house that's affordable to purchase, and we need to deal with that problem. The best way to do so, I think, is to set up a single family affordable housing tax credit to the tune of $2.4 billion over the next five years to encourage affordable single family housing in inner-city America. (Applause.)

The third problem is the fact that the rules are too complex. People get discouraged by the fine print on the contracts. They take a look and say, well, I'm not so sure I want to sign this. There's too many words. (Laughter.) There's too many pitfalls. So one of the things that the Secretary is going to do is he's going to simplify the closing documents and all the documents that have to deal with homeownership.

It is essential that we make it easier for people to buy a home, not harder. And in order to do so, we've got to educate folks. Some of us take homeownership for granted, but there are people -- obviously, the home purchase is a significant, significant decision by our fellow Americans. We've got people who have newly arrived to our country, don't know the customs. We've got people in certain neighborhoods that just aren't really sure what it means to buy a home. And it seems like to us that it makes sense to have a outreach program, an education program that explains the whys and wherefores of buying a house, to make it easier for people to not only understand the legal implications and ramifications, but to make it easier to understand how to get a good loan.

There's some people out there that can fall prey to unscrupulous lenders, and we have an obligation to educate and to use our resource base to help people understand how to purchase a home and what -- where the good opportunities might exist for home purchasing.

Finally, we want to make sure the Section 8 homeownership program is fully implemented. This is a program that provides vouchers for first-time home buyers which they can use for down payments and/or mortgage payments. (Applause.)

So this is an ambitious start here at the federal level. And, again, I repeat, you all need to help us every way you can. But the private sector needs to help, too. They need to help, too. Of course, it's in their interest. If you're a realtor, it's in your interest that somebody be interested in buying a home. If you're a homebuilder, it's in your interest that somebody be interested in buying a home.

And so, therefore, I've called -- yesterday, I called upon the private sector to help us and help the home buyers. We need more capital in the private markets for first-time, low-income buyers. And I'm proud to report that Fannie Mae has heard the call and, as I understand, it's about $440 billion over a period of time. They've used their influence to create that much capital available for the type of home buyer we're talking about here. It's in their charter; it now needs to be implemented. Freddie Mac is interested in helping. I appreciate both of those agencies providing the underpinnings of good capital.
Thank you all for coming by.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020618-1.html

and the kicker from Alan Greenspan

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/32b85c72-859b-11dd-a1ac-0000779fd18c.html
Bruised by stock market losses, Americans bought houses. The mortgage industry used securitised bonds to ensure that the people who initiated the mortgage did not worry about getting paid back; risk was packaged and sold to others. This time Mr Greenspan did not just stand aside. He said repeatedly that housing was a safe investment because prices do not fall. Home owners could wait out any downturn. Is it any surprise that so many people thought if the world’s financial genius held this view it must be all right?

Even as things went completely wild, Mr Greenspan dismissed those who warned that a new bubble was emerging. It was just a case of a little “froth” in a few areas. Later, after waiting until 2007, two years after he left office, he conceded that “froth” had been his euphemism for “bubble”. “All the froth bubbles add up to an aggregate bubble,” he told the Financial Times.

This time, as with the equity bubble, the mistake was not to set interest rates too low; it was to stand back as wildly imprudent policies were pursued by mortgage lenders. Indeed, any lender would have been encouraged by his words in April 2005: “Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately. These improvements have led to rapid growth in subprime mortgage lending.” Well, he was right about the rapid growth in subprime lending.

[MiniMe]

29. Be fair, you are sharing the blame for this one with the illegal aliens

I actually heard that from a repuke last night. "The illegal alien up the street lied on his mortgage app".

I asked how he knew he lied on his app and why he said they were an illegal alien. He of course had no answers. But dammit he knows he is right. :eyes: