Forcing banks to lend to people who could not possibly pay the money back was the quickest way to destroy the middle class. Establishment Republicans like George Bush were all for it.
10/6/11, "Census: Housing bust worst since Great Depression," AP Hope Yen
"New census figures show homeownership over the past decade saw the biggest drop since the Great Depression.
The analysis released Thursday by the Census Bureau found the homeownership rate fell to 65.1 percent in 2010, from 66.2 percent in 2000. That drop-off of 1.1 percentage points after the housing bust is the largest since 1940, when the rate plummeted more than 4 percentage points over a 10-year period, to 43.6 percent.
Analysts say the notion of homeownership as the "American dream" may be changing. Many economists believe the U.S. will never return to its mid-decade peak, in which
- roughly 70 percent of occupied households were owned by their residents."
George W. Bush didn't start the Community Reinvestment Act, but he encouraged it:
6/27/2009, "Here's How The Community Reinvestment Act Led To The Housing Bubble's Lax Lending," Business Insider, John Carney
"What's more, George W. Bush was a major proponent of the kind of mortgages that banks had started making under the CRA (Community Reinvestment Act). He urged low-to-no doc mortgages and the elimination of downpayments, just like the CRA regulators had long done. “We certainly don't want there to be a fine print preventing people from owning their home,” the President said in a 2002 speech.
- “We can change the print, and we've got to.”"
No comments:
Post a Comment