Okay, HLF, you requested, and I've delivered...

And here it is…

Link #1 – Slate Article. Great opinion piece by a guy that is totally biased as hell. Useless for anything other than enlightening us to his opinion, because little of it has any basis in fact, and those points that do have factual basis are irrelevant to somehow blaming the Republican party for this meltdown. Again, subprime mortgages were made possible by democratic fiat, not republican. That one company failed without offering subprime mortagages is irrelevant. Companies fail all of the time for many different reasons. They probably would have failed anyway, crisis or not.

As an aside, his claims that the CRA did not force banks to provide no money down, underwriting out the window, risky loans are true. However, the CRA did require that the banks loan to the poor and minorities, and THE ONLY WAY TO GET THAT DONE IS TO TAKE THE STEPS ABOVE! That is like saying that seatbelt laws don’t require you to install seat belts in your old antique car, but if you are caught driving without a seatbelt, you’ll be fined. Yes, the law didn’t say that they had to provide risky loans, it just said that they had to provide loans to poor and minorities. To do so required that they had to provide risky loans!

Link #2 – Identical to link 1. Even if I concede that the CRA wasn’t the momentum needed to get the ball rolling on this catastrophe, there is still nothing in here to indicate that the republicans had anything to do with instigating the crisis. This was all happening during a democratic majority congress, and a democratic administration, too, so if you want to argue that inaction equals responsibility, then we all share the blame. This thing was real back when dems held congress and the POTUS, too, and they did nothing. Inaction means you can be blamed for one thing, and one thing only. Your inaction. You can’t be blamed for creating the problem, when the momentum for the problem was started by someone else, namely, the democrats. And, as I’ve pointed out several times, it was REPUBLICANS that tried to do something about this 2 years ago, but they were blocked by, you guessed it, the DEMOCRATS. So who is really to blame here?

Link #3 –

• Did the 1977 legislation, or any other legislation since, require banks to not verify income or payment history of mortgage applicants? Totally irrelevant. In order to loan to the people in question, this had to become a standard. The CRA demanded that you loan to these people, it did not say how. That it left that part out does not mean that it did not require it. How else can you loan to a poor person with insufficient income and no payment history? Again, it is like saying that you have to mow the lawn, but saying that does not imply that you are allowed to get out the lawn mower. It is a stupid argument.
• 50% of subprime loans were made by mortgage service companies not subject comprehensive federal supervision; another 30% were made by banks or thrifts which are not subject to routine supervision or examinations. How was this caused by either CRA or GSEs ?
By the same logic, I must ask “how was any of this caused by the republicans?” The subprime industry was created by the CRA. They did not exist before the CRA. That some businesses were selling these products of the CRA, even though they were not under it’s bylaws, is irrelevant. The fact is, these are DEMOCRAT creations. They were being sold during the democratic majority and administration during the 90’s, so any argument that inaction equals guilt should be spread evenly between both parties. Again, you’ve failed to show that the republicans are at fault here.
• What about "No Money Down" Mortgages (0% down payments) ? Were they required by the CRA? Fannie? Freddie?
Again, totally irrelevant. That they were not required by the act does not mean that they were not necessary to live up to the demands of the act. Try mowing the lawn without a lawn mower, and you’ll get my point.
• Explain the shift in Loan to value from 80% to 120%: What was it in the Act that changed this traditional lending requirement? See the above point. Again, you cannot mow the lawn without a lawn mower, and you cannot make required loans to individuals that cannot come up with 80% loan to value without changing the requirement. • Did any Federal legislation require real estate agents and mortgage writers to use the same corrupt appraisers again and again? How did they manage to always come in at exactly the purchase price, no matter what? And this was the republicans fault, how?
• Did the CRA require banks to develop automated underwriting (AU) systems that emphasized speed rather than accuracy in order to process the greatest number of mortgage apps as quickly as possible? It did not, but it did require a quota of CRA mortgages. Could this possibly have required an automated system to keep up with quotas? I simply don’t know, but again, I cannot figure how this was the republican’s fault. This was all happening back during the dem’s day under Clinton, too, and they did nothing but encourage it, per Snorpht’s article.
• How exactly did legislation force Moody's, S&Ps and Fitch to rate junk paper as Triple AAA? How, exactly, did the republicans force… … to rate junk paper as Triple AAA?
• What about piggy back loans? Were banks required by Congress to lend the first mortgage and do a HELOC for the down payment -- at the same time? Again, totally irrelevant. That this was not required by the act does not mean that this was not necessary to live up to the demands of the act. How else can a person with no assets, no credit, and no payment history come up with a down payment? You have to meet the requirements of the act, how can you do it without cutting corners to get it done? Try mowing the lawn without a lawn mower, and you’ll get my point.

• Internal bank memos showed employees how to cheat the system to get poor mortgages prospects approved that shouldn't have been: Titled How to Get an "Iffy" loan approved at JPM Chase. (Was circulating that memo also a FNM/FRE/CRA requirement?)
No, it wasn’t, but it was probably necessary to live up to the requirements of the act. How many more times am I going to have to say this? That it wasn’t specifically required does not mean that, in order to meet the demands of the act, it was not NECESSARY. The CRA didn’t demand any of this, but to get what it DID demand, all of this was necessary!
• The four biggest problem areas for housing (by price decreases) are: Phoenix, Arizona; Las Vegas, Nevada; Miami, Florida, and San Diego, California. Explain exactly how these affluent, non-minority regions were impacted by the Community Reinvesment Act ?
Give me a break. Seriously? Those cities probably have the highest rates of minority poverty of any city in the US! Ever been to any of these cities and seen the migrant workers begging for work ont eh side of the road? I have.
• Did the GSEs require banks to not check credit scores? Assets? Income?
No, it did not, but to meet the demands of the act, this became necessary. I’m getting tired of repeating myself. Need I go on?
• What was it about the CRA or GSEs that mandated fund managers load up on an investment product that was hard to value, thinly traded, and poorly understood
Uh, lets see, how about the requirement to loan lots of money to people that they would never, ever have loaned money to before (hard to value), that did not have a market because no one ahd ever done it before because it was a bad, bad, bad idea(thinly traded), and since it was a bad idea, and no one had ever done it before, the loans were poorly understood. That pretty much sums up the requirements of the CRA right there, doesn’t it? So, to answer te question, EVERYTHING about the CRA required all of those things. It was the whole point of the CRA to begin with!
• What was it in the Act that forced banks to make "interest only" loans? Were "Neg Am loans" also part of the legislative requirements also?
How else can a poor person, who they are now required to give a mortgage to, afford the mortgage? Again, that it did not specifically require it does not mean that it wasn’tnecessary to get the job done.
• Consider this February 2003 speech by Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozlilo at the American Bankers National Real Estate Conference. He advocated zero down payment mortgages -- was that a CRA requirement too, or just a grab for more market share, and bad banking?
I think I’ve broached this one enough. That the CRA did not require it does not mean that it wasn’t necessary

I would very much like to see what you would suggest the banks had done to live up to the CRA’s requirements. Give fixed-rate, 30 year mortgages with 10% down payment, as was typical, established practice pre-CRA? None of the intended targets could afford that! The bank would have been in violation of the CRA. They HAD to do these things to meet CRA requirements. That the CRA did not have verbage specifically requiring these things is totally irrelevant. They were necessary to get the job done, like a lawn mower is necessary to mow the lawn. When my Dad told me to mow the lawn as a kid, it was pretty much implied that it was necessary to use the lawn mower. He didn’t have to specifically tell me to use the lawn mower to mow the lawn. Same goes here.
Link #4 – Irrelevant to the discussion, and if Fannie and Freddie were really so immune to the CRA-created crisis, why did the federal government have to seize them a few weeks back? This doesn’t make any sense, is not applicable to reality. Also, that there were many businesses trying to cash in on this FAKE market created by a democrat-backed act is not the republican’s fault, it is the fault of the dems who created the FAKE subprime market to begin with. How can you argue otherwise?
Link #5 – So what? They gave Obama a bunch of money, also, and all of this happened under the “leadership” of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. That it was a republican think tank they paid means only that they couldn’t find a democratic think tank to tell them what they wanted to hear. They were interested in free-market perspective, not what they would get from a democratic institution, I fear.
Also, did you notice that your article pretty much sums up what I’ve been saying all along in the following:
“In the midst of DCI's yearlong effort, Hagel and 25 other Republican senators pleaded unsuccessfully with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to allow a vote.
"If effective regulatory reform legislation ... is not enacted this year, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole," the senators wrote in a letter that proved prescient.
In the end, there was not enough Republican support for Hagel's bill to warrant bringing it up for a vote because Democrats also opposed it and the votes of some would be needed for passage. The measure died at the end of the 109th Congress.”

Emphasis added.

Okay, smarty-pants, so tell me again how this was caused by the republicans?