Pretty good rundown.
Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
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In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980’s.
”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.”
In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.
The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.
It was obvious to just about everyone… yet Democrats in particular… the likes of Dodd, Clinton, Schumer, Reid, Obama, etc. endorsed and in several cases explicitly benefited from the Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The CRA was not the only or even the most important aspect which lead to the current crisis. Bad lending couldn’t have been sustained or would have been possible if not for the Federal Reserves incredibly low interest rates and market manipulation. The CRA was the vehicle which the rode the low interest wave to creating the boom.
Read and weep.
There are some other documents linked on the House Financial Service Committee site but at the time of posting they were dead
I imagine the Truth about the Community Reinvestment Act in particular is full of bullshit.
The Democrats want to distance themselves from the CRA as much as possible or spin it to look like it wasn’t a major contributor to the housing bubble. They are also looking to divert attention from the fact Fannie Mae was a major contributor to Obama as well as he chose former Fannie Mae CEO James Johnson, who was found to have cooked the books, to head his search for a vice president.
McCain may have sponsored that bill but it’s not like he understood exactly why or what the result would ultimately be. Ron Paul had been trying to change the CRA and was explaining what would occur if it didn’t change.
Even though this is a fairly infamous bill and was one of the Clinton administration’s pride and joys most people I speak with have never heard of it or understand what it did. That combined with low interest rates, devaluation of the dollar, Fannie / Freddie mess, etc. set up for the perfect storm.
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