Rick
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2007
- Messages
- 1,844
The Community Reinvestment Act simply put an end to "redlining."
False - that was merely the original 1977 act, which was modified a number of times, notably in 1992 mandating subprime loans to minorities. Nothing much happened with that till the late 1990s, when bill clinton appointed franklin raines head of fanny mae, with orders to let primary lenders know that fanny mae would buy hundreds of millions of dollars of such loans and securitize them for investors. That was the origin of the collapse along with the low interst rates.
"Harmfully low interest rates?" I think you'd be hard put to show that low interest rates are a problem.
Read up - this is now recognized by most serious writers on the issue and economists. The fanny mae subprime mortgages and low interest rates worked hand in hand to fuel the housing bubble.
Now, being able to buy a house that you can't really afford via "creative" financing, and the bank being able to sell said loan as a secure mortgage may have had a little bit to do with the soaring cost of real estate and subsequent crash.
A "little bit"?
So, whose fault was it that loans that were not ever going to be paid were sold as secure paper?
Mortgages are almost always noin-recourse loans - anyone who sold them as secure was lying, anyone who believed it was a fool.