Essay, you got one thing correct..'' Market correction is just another name for survival of the fittest.'' This is correct, the market doesn't care what color you are, your gender, religion, age or political affiliation, it cares about balance and efficiency. When this is put out of balance by lending money to unqualified people, or unbalancing prices against true value a correction ensues.
As far as I'm concerned ,this sub-prime disaster started with the laws eliminating redlining in the real estate markets.
'' [edit] Redlining
Redlining is related to steering because it is denying financial support and services to neighborhoods based on race, ethnicity, or economic status[7]. Rather than subtly steering individual families towards certain areas or only giving them information on certain racial areas, redlining was a blatantly and legally tolerated criteria for financial institutions to decide where to put their money. Originating in the New Deal, this procedure was a protocol for deciding where federal, state and city funds would go to for financial services. Affluent middle and upper middle class white areas where outlined in green on a map, meaning that financial services were clear to be rendered and these areas were desirable for investment. Racial areas, specifically African-American neighborhoods were outlined in red, meaning they were undesirable and poor, not to mention racially heterogeneous. These maps were used by banking institutions to construct guidelines for lending money. As a consequence, many of these redlined areas, which were also typically located in urban environments as whites tended to move out to the suburbs of America, experienced deterioration on a rapid scale. Since these areas have been neglected and redlined and cannot receive funds from banks to revitalize, they cannot attract businesses, which perpetuates the cycle of poverty. The poverty often leads to crime and neighborhoods become further neglected because they continue to be unattractive to outside investment, and continue to be redlined by banks. Thus, private banks and financial institutions as well as the U.S. government are accused of being responsible for these practices in several instances, which before the Fair Housing Act were widespread and blatant throughout the U.S. Redlining is still practiced today on a more subtle setting. Instead of having official maps circulated to institutions, which is illegal, the public domain tends to ignore poor and non-white neighborhoods by denying basic public services''
Link..
Civil Rights Act of 1968 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Although this was noble in concept, this law almost REQUIRED lenders to lend to poorly qualified buyers. As money and credit became more plentiful
and regulations on lenders were softened, the so-called predatory lenders devised packages such as no-doc loans allowing ever more unqualified buyers to purchase homes. Seeing all this money flowing, some real crooks disguised as helpers of the poor showed up.
ANOTHER ACORN SCANDAL
Posted: 3:43 am
July 13, 2008
The folks at the far-left radical activist group ACORN are embroiled in a financial corruption and cover-up scandal that they managed to keep hidden from their donors and political partners for eight years.
Now their deception has been uncovered for all to see.
But is ACORN's leadership apologetic? Not in the slightest. "We did what we thought was right," said the group's president, Maude Hurd.
ACORN's founder - whose brother perpetrated the fraud - also defended the cover-up, saying publicity would have given the group's critics a "weapon."
As if there wasn't enough ammunition already to discredit ACORN.
The New York Times reports that Dale Rathke - whose brother started the group back in 1970 as a vehicle to help low-income people "take back what's rightfully theirs" - embezzled nearly $1 million from ACORN back in 1999 and 2000.
How did ACORN handle the crime? By disguising it on the books as a loan from one of its contractors and letting Rathke's family make restitution at the rate of $30,000 a year. (An anonymous donor reportedly has agreed to pick up the remaining $800,000 tab.)
Incredibly, ACORN kept Rathke on the payroll as a $38,000-a-year employee until as recently as last month - and only let him go when word of his fraud leaked to donors.
And, the Times reports, most of the people who covered up the embezzlement are still working for ACORN.
Actually, none of this really should surprise. After all, "fraud" has practically been ACORN's middle name.
As Michelle Malkin wrote on these pages last month, the group recently settled the largest case of voter fraud in Washington state history - having submitted thousands of bogus voter-registration forms.
ACORN has been implicated in similar schemes in 14 other states - including Ohio, where a worker traded crack cocaine for fraudulent registrations.
Back in the '80s and '90s, ACORN's tactics included trespassing, illegal seizure of private property, physical harassment, intimidation and outright extortion.
For example, in 1985, ACORN illegally seized 25 abandoned buildings owned by New York City and installed squatters as residents. A weak-kneed City Hall eventually gave the group title to the buildings - proving that crime can pay.
Amazingly, a large chunk of ACORN's budget is provided by taxpayers.
Much of the rest comes from gullible foundations and groups like the United Federation of Teachers - which has partnered up with ACORN in efforts to kill Mayor Bloomberg's school reform.
The Times reports that many of ACORN's philanthropic benefactors have begun taking a close look at the group's finances.
It's long overdue.
These people are not conservatives, and it would be difficult for me to believe that Chris Dodd and Barney Frank don't know them very, very well.
These crooks were inserted into the bailout package by whom?, and this is one of the main reasons the package has not been approved. The Dems just can't resist feathering their nest by scurrilous tactics like these.
Anyway, the market is correcting for excess as it always does, but the libs are trying to skew the process.
