On our current financial mess as it relates to housing. And it dispells all of the crap being spouted by conservatives over the cause of these problems. <link>

naw, it had to be the blacks

(seriously, I've been consistently impressed by McClatchy)

You know what they say...opinions and assholes. Everybody has one of each.

Jack

the guy is an asshole...smart... but a real, nine foot wide, unwiped and rancid asshole.

I never believed that the minority lending or sub prime lending was a problem..to me it was always obvious that the marketeers...IE: real estate agents, hole in the wall mortgage originators, and house flipping pros were the problem. They are the ones who stood off to the side with the air pumps and hoisted this bubble to unbelievable proportions...

I do however fault fannie and freddie for not investigating their bundles purchases...that is almost unforgivable. Now I am told that they were threatened into that position...I don't know whether that is true or not...but I wouldn't be surprised as it seems unlikely that the kind of money we are talking about here would be attended to by clueless idiots...they were far from clueless but the real question is whether they bought under coercion or they bought for greed...maybe a little of both.

In the end the real culprit is the very entity that is claiming to step up to the plate and save the day....UNCLE SAM....

from the real problem....high level, shrit and tie, corporate greed.

"We do know and we have seen" ... and our opinions are based on having worked in the field. This idea that the housing bubble was rife with loans to low income and minorities is totally a farce. The main ingredient that makes bread rise is yeast, and the yeast that created our housing bubble was investor loans... everyone in my field will tell you that... because it happened, condo flipping was coast to coast, regular investor purchase and hold via renting permeated the industry; real estate brokers and mortgage brokers universally became landlords, even agents and Loan Originators became landlords, and almost anyone with money to invest was buying real estate. Condo tower after condo tower was raised in every American city, God even the tiniest village saw condos built. They talk about all the construction that the bubble gave us and how much of it is vacant.

Meanwhile, the repubs keep screaming that FANNIE and FREDDIE relaxed their guidelines for poor people and minorities. This is a crock. The NINJA loans and 100% LTV loans were only available to the very best credit sector, FHA loans were never 100% LTV and always required a solid job. And the massive jumbo loans were all going to Wall Street and "private investors"... again this was all A+ paper to A+++ paper... the housing bubble was an investor bubble.... 100% of mortgage professionals will tell you so.

I opened this post expecting to see my name.

It could have been, but not this time. :-)