tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post6129978949267465661..comments2023-08-03T08:10:44.885-04:00Comments on Angular Unconformities: Keeping good booksUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-8802905282405587522008-11-03T16:35:00.000-05:002008-11-03T16:35:00.000-05:00My intent in discussing the sloppiness I observed ...My intent in discussing the sloppiness I observed in mortgage documentation and recordkeeping was not to offer it as a main cause, but only to show how these things were emblematic of larger problems. And it's much more complicated than "a bunch of minorities didn't pay back their loans that they didn't deserve in the first place," which appears to be the underlying mentality behind your post. I realize that's the official story that Wall Street and their cohorts in Washington want people to believe, but it's a quite a reach in a lot of ways. Uncreditworthyness and subprime defaults did play a role, but certainly not the most significant one. The vast majority of foreclosures in the recent crisis were made by entities that were not subject to the Community Reinvestment Act, which has had a comendable track record since its inception in the late 1970s. In other words, blaming some nefarious liberal policy for forcing businesses to conduct business against their best interests just doesn't hold up. I don't claim to be any kind of a financial or economic expert, but it would be nice if people would look at things from a practical standpoint instead of finding some political bogeyman to pin everything on.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14829009445010453845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-8518867908764530772008-10-24T20:11:00.000-04:002008-10-24T20:11:00.000-04:00While these things did in fact happen, the meaning...While these things did in fact happen, the meaning and blame, as implied in the cited article, are wrong. Beginning in the '90s, financial institutions were pressured to make riskier loans to unqualified homebuyers. The alternative was to be accused of redlining--that is, refusing to loan based purely on racial grounds, which could have led to prosecution of the firms. <BR/><BR/>But the pressure to make them loan to uncredit-worthy borrowers didn't change the essential uncreditworthyness of those borrowers, hence the need to fudge and obfuscate to make them look creditworthy.<BR/><BR/>And, ironically, after being accused of redlining, refusing to loan to people who couldn't afford to repay loans, these firms are now being accused of unscrupulously loaning money to people who can't afford to repay the loans.James Hanleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18431950784819780004noreply@blogger.com