What are “CRA loans”? A new type of instrument? Or are you just making this up?

And whatever “CRA loans” are, why would a “not CRA rated” company feel forced to make loss-making loans, if it is mostly the CRA that is responsible for the huge losses on mortgage based derivatives?

That is, is the argument that a company might be so afraid it will be forced to make loss-making loans so it makes them anyhow, destroying itself?

If markets are efficient, why ever would the stock prices of financial companies, both those subject to CRA reporting, and those who aren’t, be climbing for 15 years at amazing rates, making management very wealthy, if both were forced to make loss-making loans?

[BR: No, that is EXACTLY what it means -- non depository banks were not under CRA regs. Are you at all familiar with these terms and what they mean? ]

Who did all these non-CRA lenders sell their loans to? was it Fannie and Freddie? If so why did FRE and FNM buy them? Oh that’s right – CRA

[BR: No, it was primarily to Wall Street; Fannie/Freddie were not permitted to buy non conforming loans -- only after Countrywide threatened to withhold ALL loans from them unless they bought the sub-prime also, did they begin to buy them. CFC CEO Angelo Mozilo lobbied to allow FNM/FRE to lower their standards -- by the time that happened in 2005, the die was already cast for housing]

GMAC made car loans and Ditech made home loans. Who owns Ditech – GMAC. So in reality it was GMAC making the home loan. So just because the company is exempt from CRA reporing requirements does not mean they were not making CRA loans.

[BR: EXACTLY WRONG: Unless DItech was a bank that opened a branch in a low income area and took deposits, the CRA was irtrelevant to them.]

Oh, but by “clearing” CRA we clear Democrats from involvement in the housing mess and that’s BR’s goal.

[BR: No, I stick to the actual facts — which you clearly are reatehr unfamiliar with — and it appears you have never read the legislation you are speaking about.

Sorry, but you don’t have the slightest clue what you are speaking about . . .

to keep it simple, I would have never expected such from you.

to provide Context, the utility of which, seemingly, a number of readers don’t understand, I’m referring to his ED: add-in @ 15:35

“Data based analysis”= “you should really sift thru…”

BR,

in as many words you could have delineated my Errors, if any, rather than, merely, shower doubt..

The Upside is that you show, in Spades, we all, including myself, of course, have room to Grow.

>> “Redlining” was Real, no doubt Credit was being to denied to, otherwise, Credit-worthy Individuals.

I’m not sure I agree with sentence #1.

To the extent the CRA led to expanding credit to people who were redlined earlier and didn’t default at any higher rate than others, then the CRA was a success.

But, if default rates were worse, then the CRA was a mistake.

So, CRA default rates do matter, if we want to judge the CRA by itself (separate from the other mistakes made in housing).

No?

If you read past the executive summary, you’ll find the typical self-serving agency report, as in should we really expect the CFTC to be an unbiased source? Kind of how the Challenger report would have turned out had Feynman not dropped sealant in ice water unannounced.

The simplest way to correlate the two sources IMHO can be found in Figures 10 and 11 of the CFTC report. IMHO seems a very concrete correlation and correspondence.

The CFTC report was rampant with speculation that could not be substantiated and statistics that did not prove their point. In fact the growth of oil consumption was slowing.

So, I guess it’s a simple choice between a self-serving report written to demonstrate superior understanding while confusing the issues, and a Pulitzer Prize-class reporter doing his homework and writing in a style the average American can understand.

Where have we seen this before?

And who exactly is running the CFTC now? As then?

I’ll only ask you to re-read my post @ 15:35