Obama '08?

@okie,

okie wrote:

To be honest, I have not read all of your links. As I recall, what I did read had statistical data showing black neighborhoods could not obtain loans as easily, which proves nothing. The question I keep asking is if you have any evidence that any bank had a specific policy of making a loan or not making a loan, based upon the race of the applicant. Can you provide any such evidence, yes or no? If you can, please post it.

It has been posted. It's part of both of the links I sent you, and of the main Wikipedia article on the topic. Here's the link again -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

Quote:

History
Although in the United States informal discrimination and segregation have always existed, the practice called "redlining" began with the National Housing Act of 1934, which established the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).[10] The federal government contributed to the early decay of inner city neighborhoods by withholding mortgage capital and making it difficult for these neighborhoods to attract and retain families able to purchase homes.[11] In 1935, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) asked Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) to look at 239 cities and create "residential security maps" to indicate the level of security for real-estate investments in each surveyed city. Such maps defined many minority neighborhoods in cities as ineligible to receive financing. The maps were based on assumptions about the community, not accurate assessments of an individual's or household's ability to satisfy standard lending criteria. Since African-Americans were unwelcome in white neighborhoods, which frequently instituted racial restrictive covenants to keep them out, the policy effectively meant that blacks could not secure mortgage loans at all. At various times the practice also affected other ethnic groups, including Latinos, Asians, and Jews. The assumptions in redlining resulted in a large increase in residential racial segregation and urban decay in the United States. Urban planning historians theorize that the maps were used by private and public entities for years afterwards to deny loans to people in black communities.[10] However, recent research has indicated that the HOLC did not redline in its own lending activities, and that the racist language reflected the bias of the private sector and experts hired to conduct the appraisals.[12]

On the maps, the newest areas — those considered desirable for lending purposes — were outlined in blue and known as "Type A". These were typically affluent suburbs on the outskirts of cities. "Type B" neighborhoods were considered "Still Desirable", whereas older "Type C" were labeled "Declining" and outlined in yellow. "Type D" neighborhoods were outlined in red and were considered the most risky for mortgage support. These neighborhoods tended to be the older districts in the center of cities; often they were also black neighborhoods.[10]

Some redlined maps were also created by private organizations, such as J.M. Brewer's 1934 map of Philadelphia. Private organizations created maps designed to meet the requirements of the Federal Housing Administration's underwriting manual. The lenders had to consider FHA standards if they wanted to receive FHA insurance for their loans. FHA appraisal manuals instructed banks to steer clear of areas with "inharmonious racial groups" and recommended that municipalities enact racially restrictive zoning ordinances, as well as covenants prohibiting black owners.[13][14]

Do you know what the CRA did, Okie? It forced the banks to have the same lending standards NO MATTER WHAT neighborhood they were lending to. And it basically ended the practice of systematic discrimination against minorities, no matter what their level of income.

Go to the wiki article if you want links to the source material for those paragraphs.

Here's the link again to the other series of articles:

http://powerreporting.com/color/

Quote:

The first series, published May 1-4, 1998, disclosed that Atlanta's banks and savings and loan institutions, although they had made loans for years in even the poorest white neighborhoods of Atlanta, did not lend in middle-class or more affluent black neighborhoods. The focus moved to lenders across the nation with the January 1989 article, "Blacks turned down for home loans from S&Ls twice as often as whites."

See that? Lots of lending to poor whites, NO lending to rich blacks.

If you're too lazy to look up the articles and read them yourself, consider:

http://powerreporting.com/color/1c.html

Quote:

A tale of two neighborhoods,
one black and one white

By Bill Dedman, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published May 1, 1988, Page A14
Copyright 1988, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Gresham Park neighborhood in south DeKalb County is quiet and neat. The houses are simple starters built after World War II: brick over granite, two or three bedrooms, one bath.

The neighborhood between McLendon Elementary School and the old Scottdale textile mill in north-central DeKalb is older: mostly wood-frame houses, some of them shotgun houses, some still with outhouses and chicken coops.

There also are some differences in the people who live in the two neighborhoods. The residents of Gresham Park make a little more money than the residents of McLendon. They are better-educated. They stay in the neighborhood longer.

And most residents of Gresham Park are black. Most residents of McLendon are white.

There is a difference in where they borrow money, too.

In black Gresham Park from 1981 through 1986, banks and savings and loan associations made 25 home-purchase loans in an area that has 1,728 single-family structures, according to federal reports reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In white McLendon in the same period, banks and savings and loans made 176 loans in a neighborhood of 1,438 single-family structures.

That's a difference of eight times the number of loans per 1,000 households.

Bankers contend that the difference in lending between white and black neighborhoods in metro Atlanta is probably caused by higher turnover in white neighborhoods. Real estate records for Gresham Park, McLendon and 21 other neighborhoods checked by the Journal-Constitution suggest otherwise.

Turnover in Gresham Park is less than in McLendon -- 50 percent less. But, of the homes that are sold, banks and savings and loans finance 31 percent in McLendon, while they finance 4 percent in Gresham Park, according to 1986 and 1987 records analyzed by the Journal-Constitution.

Gresham Park homebuyers receive the other 96 percent of their home loans from unregulated mortgage companies, finance companies, the seller and other individuals, often at higher interest rates than those offered by banks and savings and loans.

Several real estate agents who work in Gresham Park say they have learned not to send black applicants to banks and savings and loans.

The facts and stats don't lie, Okie. Black and other minorities faced persistent and systematic discrimination in the area of lending for a long time. Some of this was instituted by our own government. The CRA was an attempt to put an end to the practice; yet you relentlessly attack it, use it to justify blaming the government (or more specifically, the Democrats) for a massive failure of the private sector, and publicly blame the putative ending of Redlining on the problems banks have had with mortgages, which for the most part had nothing to do with the CRA.

I'm not calling you a racist; I'm not accusing you of anything. I don't have any interest in that. I'm just asking you to research some topics in depth. Even if you don't want to do that, when I've researched it, and post stuff showing that you're incorrect, if you are being intellectually honest with yourself, you should respect that and either read the evidence, and show that that evidence is wrong, or admit that you don't know what you are talking about.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

You may have convinced me that you might have some credence in what you post here, but only to a very limited extent. I think you need to consider that there is a huge difference between loan companies considering different risks according to neighborhood and loan companies considering different risks according to the loan applicants.

To try to explain what I am talking about here, about 30 years ago, we lived in a suburb of a large city in the west. We also had friends that lived in neighboring suburbs. As time progressed, there were more minorities that purchased houses in the neighborhood that we lived, plus other neighborhoods where some friends lived. That was all fine and good, but unfortunately the reality of what happened continued to show a lower maintenance of homes, higher crime rates and vandalism. I cannot tell you personally whether it was due to racial makeup or if it was due to income makeup of the owners, God only knows, but that did not make any difference to what continued to happen. What continued to happen is that the people living in those areas moved further out into newer sections of the suburbs.

Every once in a while when in the area, we drive into the area where we used to live, and it saddens us to see broken windows, junk cars, and lawns more dominated by weeds than there is grass anymore. Actually, I think the populations in the area are not that way because of race, but instead due to lower education, less jobs, more broken homes, and more aimless people around. Sorry, but that seems to be the reality of it there. I know for a fact that there are more upscale residential areas in that same city that have more affluent minority populations, and I doubt the banks would redline those areas as they might be justified to do in the previous areas I was talking about.

Another example, we used to live in Albuquerque, and a year or two ago when we drove through town there, we were frankly shocked to see what a shambles some of the areas had become. Some of the area looked like a war zone, with concertina wire around businesses. We were accosted at a stop light by a vagrant asking for money, and fortunately the light turned green while he was beginning to tap or bang on our windows and doors, so we gladly exited the area. The area described was nothing like that when we lived there. I would not blame any loan company for redlining some of those neighborhoods, in fact I think they might be wise to do it. Understand something though, the redlining should be done by factors like crime and home maintenance, not race of the loan applicant. Sadly, there may be some correlation between the two, but that is not the banks' fault, is it?

Can you answer a question honestly, cyclops? If you were responsible for lending practices for a bank, would you ignore the trends like I have described for those neighborhoods, which surely would affect the long term value or risk of any loan for property sold in those areas? Personally, I think you would not be doing your job if you ignored the risk factors that influence property values, which might include home maintenance, yards, crime rates, vandalism, declining schools, and so many other factors.

In my opinion, I think banks might be totally justified to grade neighborhoods for investment or loan risk. In contrast, I do not believe any discrimination should be practiced in regard to loan applicants at all. In other words, equal opportunity is owed to every man, regardless of race or color, but common sense will tell you that we cannot legislate or control equal outcomes. It is impossible, cyclops.

To draw a parallel for you, an insurance company will charge you more for insuring cars that have been shown to have larger risk factors, such as a camaro. The discrimination is not by race of the insurance applicant, but by make and type of car, just as loans differ from neighborhood to neighborhood. Sure, the driving record and age of the applicant will affect it, but not the race of the applicant I don't think. I believe any discrimination by race would be wrong, but I think discrimination by age, credit history, driving record, and type of car insured is totally justified. So why can't some distinction or grading be done for neighborhoods? It seems highly logical in fact. Another point, you might even be able to find statistics showing a certain racial makeup for most of the camaro buyers out there too, which you might try to use to show that insurance companies are discriminating and charging more for drivers based upon their race, but it would of course be a logical fallacy.

Conclusion: you can probably cite statistics showing differences between neighborhoods by race, and so forth, but I doubt you can cite proof that any bank had a policy of making a loan based upon race of the applicant. At least I fail to see the proof so far in your links and quotes. I do not deny that there will be statistical differences, but this will always be true for almost everything. As I said, equal outcomes are impossible. Marxists can try to achieve it, but we know it has failed miserably.

If banks have been forced to loan in high risk neighborhoods, no wonder the housing collapse and loan crisis has occurred!! The unintended consequences of too much government interference has been worse than I thought.

1 Reply

@okie,

Quote:

but I doubt you can cite proof that any bank had a policy of making a loan based upon race of the applicant.

That was posted earlier as well okie. In fact it was from a government brochure sent to the banks in the 1930s

1 Reply

@parados,

So was that an FDR thing?

1 Reply

@okie,

And you ignore the fact that several banks have settled lawsuits that they discriminated by paying out large sums of money.

1 Reply

@parados,

If they did discriminate, good, they deserve to pay up, but you did not answer the question about the FDR thing. If the government issued that advice in the 30's, that was during FDR's presidency, wasn't it?

2 Replies

@okie,

okie wrote:

If they did discriminate, good, they deserve to pay up, but you did not answer the question about the FDR thing. If the government issued that advice in the 30's, that was during FDR's presidency, wasn't it?

Were the banks owned by the US gov in 1930's? If the banks did this while FDR was in office, are you saying that FDR didn't do a good job on interfering with the private practice of these banks?

A
R
T

0 Replies

@okie,

Quote:

If they did discriminate, good

So.. are you going to admit that banks discriminated then? Or you just going to ignore your lack of argument and change the subject again. This is about the 3rd time today you have done that. When you are wrong, you just say you don't want to belabor the ridiculous arguments when it was only you that was presenting ridiculous arguments.

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okie, there have been a number of studies that control for income and credit histories and the other variables that should affect mortgage rates , and it's been found repeatedly that minorities get the shaft. This includes studies where pairs of subjects are given identical histories and go in to try to get a mortgage. Disproportionately,the minority one of the pair gets a higher interest rate mortgage or a subprime one than the white one does. That's what statistics is all about--you control the variables and race still seems to be the main factor determining how the financial institutions treat you. Google it, you'll find a wealth of data. Here's one:

http://www.consumersunion.org/finance/minority-rpt1002.htm

Your rosy mental picture of financial institutions dealing evenhandedly, with race being only a minor factor, if at all, just doesn't fit the facts on the ground, or on the lot. Unfortunately.

2 Replies

@MontereyJack,

MJ, It's not only mortgage loan fraud against minorities; they also get charged more for insurance.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

joefromchicago wrote:

okie wrote:
I think there is a black neighbor a couple houses or so down the way

That's a coincidence. He thinks there's an idiot cracker a couple of houses or so down the way.

Do not judge others by the way you apparently think, joe.

How else do you want me to judge them?

1 Reply

@okie,

No, the problem is that too many people in this country are sheep.

There are very few right-wingers who can use logic.

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@okie,

The very fact that you said, "I don't have time to read all the crap you post here" to cyclo shows that you come to the table with a mind snapped shut and padlocked.

That redlining is a tool of racism was proved by several posters here.

Furthermore, should the Census Bureau cease to count by race and/or ethnicity, racism would not end. I know that cause-and-effect are beyond your comprehension, but, not counting black people will not better their lives.

The left has worked diligently to end racism and, together with black people, has improved relations between what we call the races. Ask people who were Freedom Riders, who worked for SNCC, who participated in Freedom Summer, who led voter registration campaigns, who donate to the United Negro College FUnd about racism and redlining since you dislike anything Cyclo posts.

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@okie,

"Until cyclops provides proof that the banks knew what color the applicants were . . ."

Gee, applications for mortgages were all made in person before the internet and most such applications still are. Then there is the matter that most homes are sold by realtors, who see the prospective buyers in person and the fact that realtors assist the buyers with their mortgage applications upon request.

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@okie,

Has it occurred to you that there are people who are proud of their race and/or ethnicity and want to proclaim it?

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@okie,

You think there is a black neighbor only a couple of houses away but you don't know for certain??!!

1 Reply

From Salon.com:

Politico's story about the GOP establishment's attitude toward a Sarah Palin presidential candidacy landed with a splash on Monday, even though it simply stated the obvious: the party's D.C. class is generally convinced that a Palin nomination would hand Barack Obama the White House for four more years. This view is generally shared by non-Republicans, too. Asked a while back about Palin claiming the Republican nod in '12, David Plouffe said, "Something tells me we won't get that lucky."

What is interesting to ponder here is whether the conventional wisdom about Palin's general election prospects is valid -- and, if so, whether the GOP establishment would be able to stop her from winning the nomination.

I think the answer to the latter question is a qualified yes. The Politico piece notes that Palin's '12 rivals -- Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty, in particular -- are quietly and informally working to thwart her. On their own, I don't think they can pull this off. But if the leading opinion-shapers on the right -- Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and so on -- were to join the cause, then Palin would be in trouble on the GOP side.

Just consider how the story played out on Monday, with Palin going on Fox News to rail against Politico for attacking her with anonymous sources -- and with Romney scrambling to play dumb and to insist that he thinks a Palin bid would be "great." To Republican voters, this only reinforced perceptions that Palin is the target of the liberal media, and that Romney isn't beneath using that liberal media to take her down. If this keeps happening, Palin's standing within the GOP will only grow. But if Fox News, which now employs her, were to start raising serious questions about her electability (say, after she leaves the payroll early next year to start her campaign), and if Limbaugh and Hannity were to reinforce them, the GOP base could conceivably revisit its assessment of Palin; it's not that Republicans would decide they don't like her -- just that they don't think she should be their presidential nominee.

But will this be necessary? Jonathan Bernstein has made a good case that Palin is more electable than most assume -- provided the economy is still reeling and voters are anxious to kick Obama out of the White House. (If this isn't the case, as I've written, all discussions about 2012 are pretty much irrelevant because Obama will be reelected.) As Bernstein put it:

Yes, Palin is very unpopular right now, no question about it. That hurts her chances of winning the nomination. But if she does manage to do that, well, we're not talking about today's Palin any more. Republicans would rally around her; newsmagazines and network news poobahs would do features on how she's grown since '08; I don't need to tell you how enthusiastic the folks at Fox News and conservative talk show hosts will be. She will have won GOP presidential debates (doesn't matter how she performs; since we're assuming she's nominated, that means she won the primaries that followed the debates, which means she'll be declared the winner).

There's plenty of truth to this, and it makes me think of Ronald Reagan, who we now remember as an uncommonly effective communicator who, as Time put it six years into his presidency, "found America's sweet spot." But when the 1980 campaign cycle began, Reagan was actually the Republican most Democrats wanted to run against; he was mainly known as a polarizing ideologue with a flimsy grasp of policy. The idea of Reagan's finger on the nuclear button, the thinking went, would be enough to keep Jimmy Carter in the White House for four more years, no matter how high inflation or unemployment was. (Ted Kennedy's backers were equally confident that their man, if he could derail Carter in the '80 primaries, would be able to defeat Reagan.) Many in the GOP establishment shared this view; Reagan was the candidate of the "New Right" -- the conservative grass-roots network that was steadily taking over the GOP in the 1970s, pushing aside the Rockefeller/Eastern Establishment crowd.

But Reagan, of course, ended up winning in 1980, in a rout. The reason was the economy (and, to a lesser extent, the Iran hostage crisis), which had brought Carter's poll numbers to frighteningly low levels. Voters simply wanted Carter out -- and if that meant voting for Reagan, so be it. That's the same basic attitude that explains the public's apparent willingness to vote for just about any Republican on the ballot this year. If that sentiment prevails in 2012, well, then maybe Palin could pull out a general election.

That said, it also should be noted that even in this year's absurdly anti-Democratic climate, the electorate does seem to have its limits. The perfect illustration of this comes in Delaware, where voters were ready to send Mike Castle, a long-serving Republican congressman, to the Senate in a cakewalk. But instead, the GOP base insisted on nominating Christine O'Donnell, whose antics and pronouncements have so unnerved voters that they're now poised to elect a Democrat, Chris Coons. And while Delaware is the most vivid illustration of Tea Party overreach this year, it's not the only one. Take Sharron Angle, who may still slip through in Nevada. But a generic Republican would have won that race by 15-20 points; Angle's liabilities have made it much closer than it ever should have been.

I don't think Sarah Palin would be as flawed a candidate as O'Donnell has been. But if the climate is right for the GOP in '12, I do believe that -- much more than Reagan did in '80 -- she'd test the willingness of voters to throw out the incumbent for someone, anyone.

Steve Kornacki is Salon's news editor. Reach him by email at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @SteveKornacki More Steve Kornacki

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@joefromchicago,

okie's response to your idiot cracker remark shows how skin-thinned and how self-contradictory he is. He constantly writes I-think and in-my-opinion and yet he takes umbrage when someone who has read his posts for years thinks he is a idiot cracker. Wink

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Leftist liberals seek to secure their right to steal wealth others earn.

Rightist liberals seek to secure their right to retain wealth they earn.

Leftist Liberals think legitimizing the stealing of wealth others earn will lead to equalization of wealth and the elimination of poverty.

Rightist Liberals think that laws that violate the Constitution must be repealed in order to rescue and renew America and its people.

Quote:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html
Amendment V. No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

An individual's lawfully earned income is part of an individual's property. Lawfully earned income taken by government and used to secure everyone's--not merely some's--lives, liberties, and pursuits of happiness, is just compensation.

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@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

okie, there have been a number of studies that control for income and credit histories and the other variables that should affect mortgage rates , and it's been found repeatedly that minorities get the shaft. This includes studies where pairs of subjects are given identical histories and go in to try to get a mortgage. Disproportionately,the minority one of the pair gets a higher interest rate mortgage or a subprime one than the white one does. That's what statistics is all about--you control the variables and race still seems to be the main factor determining how the financial institutions treat you.

Crucial question here, MJ, in regard to evaluating statistics. There are at least two factors here, one being the loan applicant and how qualified the applicant is, the other being what the loan is being obtained for the purpose of purchasing. I get the impression here that many of the statistics being thrown out here at me, they have to do with loan applicant and do not consider wht is being purchased. For example, can you prove that a minority and a non-minority going to a loan company, and they have the same exact credit history, are treated differently if they apply to purchase the very same property? If they are purchasing different properties, one in a high risk neighborhood and the other in a non-high risk neighborhood, it would not be surprising if they are treated differently.

The point I am trying to get across here is that there are intellectually dishonest people that can use statistics to supposedly prove racism, when in fact the statistics do not always have the same variables applied. You not only have the credit history and financial situation for the loan applicant, but almost as important or moreso is the property or asset that the loan is going to be used to purchase.

I can cite you another example from my memory. A number of years ago, I was reading something about the fact that citizens of Pueblo, Colorado were complaining about being treated unfairly because of higher medical insurance. However, when the numbers were examined more closely, it came to light that smoking rates, and perhaps other factors like weight were affecting lifespans and diseases like heart disease, cancer, etc. Therefore, the higher insurance rates were not due to racial issues, they were due to other factors that are legitimately and rightly considered by insurance companies.

As the old saying goes, figures don't lie, but liars will figure. Statistics can be used in all kinds of ways, but if they are not evaluated with intellectual honesty, you will get a skewed picture of what is actually going on. I am not going to argue that discrimination does not occur or has not occurred in the home loan industry, as I simply do not know that much about it and so I cannot speak with authority here. However, I very much doubt that you or cyclops are authorities on this either, and I also know from experience that race hustlers have not always been intellectually honest when using statistics.

Relative to the above, I had the occasion to attend a seminar in Anaheim, CA a year or two ago. While there, I learned that there was a very vibrant Vietnamese population in the area, and that the people were prospering. After walking to a local grocery store and seeing many of those people there, with nice cars and very nice homes in the area, I believed what I was told about them. Obviously if those people had ever faced discrimination, including home loan difficulties, it has not bothered them much and they have obviously overcome it anyway, but it stimulated a question in my mind, does success result from inward forces and motivation or does it result from outside influences? I believe the answer is that the overwhelming force that determines outcome for any individual or minority is that which comes from within.

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