Again, The CRA Did NOT Cause the Crash!

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Via The Dish:

Barry Ritholtz posts the compelling argument that if the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was a prime factor in the subprime mortgage crisis, why did the majority of defaults happen in areas not usually served by CRA loans?

Examining the big lie: How the facts of the economic crisis stack up

For example, if the CRA was to blame, the housing boom would have been in CRA regions; it would have made places such as Harlem and South Philly and Compton and inner Washington the primary locales of the run up and collapse. Further, the default rates in these areas should have been worse than other regions…What occurred was the exact opposite: The suburbs boomed and busted and went into foreclosure in much greater numbers than inner cities. The tiny suburbs and exurbs of South Florida and California and Las Vegas and Arizona were the big boomtowns, not the low-income regions. The redlined areas the CRA address missed much of the boom; places that busted had nothing to do with the CRA.

Michael Bloomberg recently revived this big lie by pinning the blame on Fannie and Freddie to draw attention away from his masters on Wall Street.

But the meme that the big bad government forcing innocent huge banks to loan to poor minorities was the central cause of the collapse is completely unsupported by the facts.

It’s a lie.

-Chris

Related articles

• Bloomberg: Don’t Blame Banks for Mortgage Crisis (outsidethebeltway.com)
• What Caused the Crash? (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)

Ayn Rand’s Unfinished Trilogy

This is hilarious!

Atlas Shrugged 2: Shrug Harder

-Chris

David Brin Reviews Atlas Shrugged (Book & Movie)

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A nice long dissection of Rand’s Atlas Shrugged by Libertarian and Science Fiction writer David Brin:

Atlas Shrugged: The Hidden Context of the Book and Film

Rather enjoyable!

His take on Randians:

The film then resumed a level of simplistic lapel-grabbing that many of us recall from our Rand-obsessed college friends — underachievers who kept grumbling from their sheltered, coddled lives, utterly convinced that they’d do much better in a world of dog-eat-dog. (Using my sf’nal powers, I have checked-out all the nearby parallel worlds where that happened; in those realms, every Randian I know was quickly turned into a slave or dog food. Sorry fellows.)

I can’t wait until Brin takes on “Avatar” which he has promised in the near future.

-Chris

Related articles

• LOL: ‘Atlas Shrugged’ DVDs Recalled Because of Objectivist-Opposing Marketing Blurb (slashfilm.com)
• 100,000 ‘Atlas Shrugged’ DVDs Recalled for Perfectly Hilarious Reason [Movies] (gawker.com)

Alabama Reaps What It Sowed

Alabama’s draconian new immigration law has caused an exodus of cheap labor and resulted in crops rotting on the vine, small businesses going belly up and tax revenues evaporating.

Well done!

From the New York Times:

Undocumented immigrants make up about 4.2 percent of Alabama’s work force, or 95,000 people in a state of 4.8 million. For all of the talk about clearing the way for unemployed Americans, there is no evidence that Alabamians in any significant numbers are rushing to fill the gap left by missing farm laborers and other low-wage immigrant workers.

So, Alabama is going to suffer some hard years, even if it miraculously decides to overturn the law.

It serves Alabamians right.

-Chris

Related articles

• Alabama’s Harsh Anti-Immigration Law Could Cause Its Economy To Contract By At Least $40 Million (thinkprogress.org)
• Imminent Changes To Alabama Immigration Law? (npr.org)

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This piece on Salon.com today put me in mind of how conservatives view the Constitution.

Peter Van Buren opens by reminding everyone of the full text of the 1st Amendment of the Constitution:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Citing the case of Morris Davis, a researcher at the Library of Congress who was fired for voicing his opinion in the pages of the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, Van Buren reports:

On November 12, 2009, the day after his op-ed and letter appeared, Davis was told by his boss that the pieces had caused the library concern over his “poor judgment and suitability to serve… not consistent with ‘acceptable service’” — as the letter of admonishment he received put the matter. It referred only to his op-ed and Washington Post letter, and said nothing about his work performance as a researcher. One week later, Davis was fired.

Throughout cases like Morris’s, the adoption of the onerous provisions of the Patriot Act and the police response to Occupy Wall Street, conservatives have been noticeably silent — if not cheering on or dismissing police violence.

However, when it comes to the 2nd Amendment, they are adamant about defending one clause while sheepishly ignoring the first clause:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The Tea Party and other useful subsidiaries of the GOP are regularly in the streets tilting at ephemeral boogeymen they imagine are crouching in the bushes, just waiting to snatch all guns away.

This non-existent threat to the one clause of the amendment is a big money-maker for right-wing politicians and the National Rifle Association.

The right would have a proper Constitutional beef against President Obama if the openly criticized his continuation of the policies of the Patriot Act.

But they can’t.

Conservatives and their organs on cable television, radio, the blogosphere and in print were boisterously haranguing anyone on the left who dared to question these policies.

Protesters were called anti-American and we are seeing some of the same vitriol being used against the Occupy Wall Street folks.

So, while Obama record on civil rights and liberties leaves much to be desired, the field of candidates that would oppose him have all expressed little or no passion to support the actual Constitution, or want do institute polices that are clearly subversive.

Our rights are being steadily eroded, and nary a word is being said.

Meanwhile, in an environment where no action has been taken to strengthen gun laws, there is much howling.

By definition, vociferous factions of the GOP are campaigning for a self-fulfilling prophecy by ignoring real Constitutional erosion and calling for “Second Amendment remedies” to everything from parking tickets and –gasp– providing affordable healthcare to everyone.

-Chris

Related articles

• No free speech at Mr. Jefferson’s library (cbsnews.com)