- In 1975 the United States had by far the highest private home ownership in the world with 64%. Besides newcomers to the workforce, college students, the young and the scarcely-educated, virtually every American with gumption could own** their own home after a few years of renting.
2. In 1975 the “suspect” home loan rate stood at roughly 0.24% or only about one in every 404 loans. Before 1977, the usual and customary down payment had long been 20%. These suspect loans granted at 3% down payment or less were not only exceedingly rare, they were typically granted to veterans with jobs and great credit working their way through college under the GI Bill.
- In 1985 the suspect home loan rate had risen to roughly 0.51% or about one in every 196 home loans. Something small had changed . . . . What?
- In 1995 the suspect home loan rate was roughly 14% or about one in every seven home loans. Something big had changed . . . . What?
- By 2005, just two years before the financial meltdown, about the time of widespread PUBLIC realization that sub-prime home loans were causing huge problems: the suspect home loan rate was roughly 34% or more than one in every three home loans. Something enormous had changed . . . . What?
- Between item #2 and item #3 above, in 1977 two things had changed. The Community Reinvestment Act was passed in 1977 (CRA ’77) by the Carter administration and Democrat’s House and Senate. For the first time in history home loan lenders were forced to knowingly make bad loans to unqualified would-be home buyers.
- Wade Rathke, a lieutenant of George Wiley, (more on this later) in 1977 with the passing of CRA ’77 created the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) which was a “test organization” (more on this later) with two commandments from Wiley, Richard Cloward, and his wife Frances Piven (more on all of them later) in 1975, following up on this TRIO’s expressed desiderata for their followers to expand their endeavors (more on this later) into 1. Voter registration and 2. Home lending. Arkansas was chosen because of the existence in that small state of an up-and-coming young politician (the lieutenant governor elected in 1976, Bill Clinton) and his wife were very compatible with the TRIO’s politics.
- Between item #3 and item #4 above, in 1977 six major things had changed. ACORN had been approved of and expanded to all 50 states. The ACORN acronym had been switched to a new meaning: Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Voter registration activities which had elected their candidate in Arkansas were now expanded to the entire country; and their overload-the-CRA ’77-law campaign that had already doubled the suspect loan rate of the whole nation just by their efforts in Arkansas was likewise a nation-wide campaign.
- Bill Clinton, the ACORN candidate, had been elected governor of Arkansas for 12 of the next 14 years.
- Clinton had become the ACORN president in 1992.
- President George H. W. Bush who prevailed on 45 of his 46 vetoes did not veto a big bill he was largely in favor of. His veto was needed for a small part of that bill which added in an expansion of CRA ’77 to federal mortgage agencies Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae.
- President Clinton used his Presidential powers to expand CRA ’77 in 1993 by huge regulatory fiat.
- President Clinton out-maneuvered the Republican Congress and got CRA law expanded twice during 1995. By the way, President Barack Obama was an ACORN lawyer for two years before and after this time, browbeating home mortgage companies and banks into making knowingly unwise loans to undeserving unqualified home loan applicants. He was known for also getting ACORN contributions simultaneously.
- Between items #4 and #5 only one major change took place in CRA ’77 but it was huge! Bill Clinton was now popular again and he was able to get a steroid version^^ of CRA ’77 passed in 1998.
- The changes after the CRA steroid version was passed in 1998 were no longer just quantitative but hugely QUALITATIVE as well. To wit:
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- It became easier for ACORN to push for $440,000 homes after 2000 then it had been to seek $110,000 homes in 1990.
- Not having a job; having only food stamps to declare as “income” and having horrific credit ratings were no longer a problem in buying very expensive homes.
- Across the Southwestern United States even illegal aliens were able to get CRA-guaranteed treatment from ACORN.
- Many of these CRA loans were now being made to EVEN LESS qualified loan applicants than before. A large percentage of these loans were now granted at 0% down payment.
- To repeat, by 2005, suspect home loans had risen to 34% of all home loans.
- In November, 2003 James Stack of Investech.com began running a chart of the Housing Industry Bubble in stocks within the home-building and financial industry and discussing the danger to the economy from the sub-prime lending crisis. The Stack Housing Industry Bubble showed a 1400% increase. Housing prices had been booming for well over a decade.
- By early January, 2005 (less than 14 months later), the Bush administration had become seriously concerned about this problem. Their bill to repeal virtually all the most dangerous provisions of CRA legislation was defeated by Congressional Democrats.
- Bush would make a total of 19 speeches about the sub-prime lending process and seek to change CRA legislation for the next 30 months. Finally, in July, 2007 a full two years and a half after the Bush administration had begun trying to change CRA law, a very weak bi-partisan bill was passed by the Congress.
- That new law would prove to be way too little, way too late . . . but it would definitely help avoid much of the worst potential consequences of the sub-prime lending crisis. While the Obama administration was passing on the lie about Bush, conservatives, and the free market causing the financial meltdown (“driving the car into the ditch”), one honest and thinking man within the administration, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner recognized the truth and spoke it. In mid-2010, Geithner praised Bush for his efforts and eventual success in passing the July, 2007, anti-CRA law. Geithner said that Bush’s actions prevented a decline into a much worse recession and especially for an all-out plummeting of home prices.
- As mentioned the new law helped but proved too little, too late to turn things totally around . . . and the financial meltdown hit us hard.
- On at least 206 occasions, President Obama has used the “car (economy) in the ditch” metaphor implying that he and the Democrats and especially the Progressives within both parties had nothing to do with the problem. This is a lie. For 34+ years the Progressive laws have violated the free markets and forced low-down payment and no-down payment loans which must be granted to totally Undeserving and Unqualified home loan applicants.
If they can't put down even 10% down payment, what are the chances they'll ever actually own their own homes rather than the bank owning it? The whole CRA thing was a huge Ponzi scheme based upon the idea that housing prices NEVER go down . . . which is patent nonsense. Of course IF housing prices NEVER go down, then these people who are getting home loans which objectively they do NOT deserve will indeed make a profit . . . so this is a share-the-wealth project as well. But, of course, no investment grows to heaven . . . home prices routinely drop, that is reality. Renting is a time-honored tradition of the young, of students, of low educated people. Many of them end up owning a home later . . . but once the government prohibited free market loan evaluations, everything becomes irreparably corrupted.

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Hell, yes!!!