Blame Game Gets Nasty When It Targets the Poor

[struggle4progress]

By Michelle Singletary
Sunday, October 12, 2008; Page F01

... Passed by Congress in an effort to stop discriminatory banking practices against minorities and low- and moderate-income families, <the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, or> CRA compels banks to lend responsibly to customers in local communities where they take deposits.

As we fall deeper into financial trouble, people are looking to assign blame. Critics of CRA say that it has put pressure on banks to make subprime mortgages to poor people and minorities. Therefore, it's CRA's fault that we're experiencing a financial upheaval in our economy.

CRA "legalized the idea that lending institutions could not make loan decisions based solely on criteria such as income and ability to pay the loan back," a reader wrote to me ...

CRA specifies that financial institutions cannot be forced to make loans or investments or provide services inconsistent with safe and sound banking practices ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/11/AR2008101100173.html

[patrice]

1. Dr. Ravi Batra, the economist that Thom Hartmann (Air America Radio) relies on, says

that those CRA mortgages were only one of "the dominos in a chain reaction", not the cause of the collapse.

http://www.ravibatra.com/

One of the video clips from McCain's stump speeches this week, i think, had an audience member ranting on about "Socialism" causing the financial collapse, obviously based upon the popular FALSE perception that defaults on sub-standard mortgages killed Wall Street. IGNORANT and WRONG! :crazy: