Who's To Blame For the Mortgage Problem, According to Ann Coulter
 

THEY GAVE YOUR MORTGAGE TO A LESS QUALIFIED MINORITY
September 24, 2008


On MSNBC this week, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter tried to connect John McCain to the current financial disaster, saying: "If you remember the Keating Five scandal that (McCain) was a part of. ... He's really getting a free ride on the fact that he was in the middle of the last great financial scandal in our country."

McCain was "in the middle of" the Keating Five case in the sense that he was "exonerated." The lawyer for the Senate Ethics Committee wanted McCain removed from the investigation altogether, but, as The New York Times reported: "Sen. McCain was the only Republican embroiled in the affair, and Democrats on the panel would not release him."

So John McCain has been held hostage by both the Viet Cong and the Democrats.

Alter couldn't be expected to know that: As usual, he was lifting material directly from Kausfiles. What is unusual was that he was stealing a random thought sent in by Kausfiles' mother, who, the day before, had e-mailed: "It's time to bring up the Keating Five. Let McCain explain that scandal away."

The Senate Ethics Committee lawyer who investigated McCain already had explained that scandal away -- repeatedly. It was celebrated lawyer Robert Bennett, most famous for defending a certain horny hick president a few years ago.

In February this year, on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes," Bennett said, for the eight billionth time:

"First, I should tell your listeners I'm a registered Democrat, so I'm not on (McCain's) side of a lot of issues. But I investigated John McCain for a year and a half, at least, when I was special counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee in the Keating Five. ... And if there is one thing I am absolutely confident of, it is John McCain is an honest man. I recommended to the Senate Ethics Committee that he be cut out of the case, that there was no evidence against him."

It's bad enough for Alter to be constantly ripping off Kausfiles. Now he's so devoid of his own ideas, he's ripping off the idle musings of Kausfiles' mother.

Even if McCain had been implicated in the Keating Five scandal -- and he wasn't -- that would still have absolutely nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis currently roiling the financial markets. This crisis was caused by political correctness being forced on the mortgage lending industry in the Clinton era.

Before the Democrats' affirmative action lending policies became an embarrassment, the Los Angeles Times reported that, starting in 1992, a majority-Democratic Congress "mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers. Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains."

Under Clinton, the entire federal government put massive pressure on banks to grant more mortgages to the poor and minorities. Clinton's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Andrew Cuomo, investigated Fannie Mae for racial discrimination and proposed that 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low- to moderate-income borrowers by the year 2001.

Instead of looking at "outdated criteria," such as the mortgage applicant's credit history and ability to make a down payment, banks were encouraged to consider nontraditional measures of credit-worthiness, such as having a good jump shot or having a missing child named "Caylee."

Threatening lawsuits, Clinton's Federal Reserve demanded that banks treat welfare payments and unemployment benefits as valid income sources to qualify for a mortgage. That isn't a joke -- it's a fact.

When Democrats controlled both the executive and legislative branches, political correctness was given a veto over sound business practices.

In 1999, liberals were bragging about extending affirmative action to the financial sector. Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein hailed the Clinton administration's affirmative action lending policies as one of the "hidden success stories" of the Clinton administration, saying that "black and Latino homeownership has surged to the highest level ever recorded."

Meanwhile, economists were screaming from the rooftops that the Democrats were forcing mortgage lenders to issue loans that would fail the moment the housing market slowed and deadbeat borrowers couldn't get out of their loans by selling their houses.

A decade later, the housing bubble burst and, as predicted, food-stamp-backed mortgages collapsed. Democrats set an affirmative action time-bomb and now it's gone off.

In Bush's first year in office, the White House chief economist, N. Gregory Mankiw, warned that the government's "implicit subsidy" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, combined with loans to unqualified borrowers, was creating a huge risk for the entire financial system.

Rep. Barney Frank denounced Mankiw, saying he had no "concern about housing." How dare you oppose suicidal loans to people who can't repay them! The New York Times reported that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "under heavy assault by the Republicans," but these entities still had "important political allies" in the Democrats.

Now, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, middle-class taxpayers are going to be forced to bail out the Democrats' two most important constituent groups: rich Wall Street bankers and welfare recipients.

Political correctness had already ruined education, sports, science and entertainment. But it took a Democratic president with a Democratic congress for political correctness to wreck the financial industry.

COPYRIGHT 2008 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
4520 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64111

Once again, Coulter manages to make a couple of really good points in the midst of a complete rant. She's a smart woman - I just wish she would use her intelligence for good rather than solely to push some agenda.

wow....she's racist

Read it twice and couldn't figure out how "she's racist".

it was kind of a joke, but the jump shot and kaylee or whatever were

The title is "They Gave Your Mortgage to a Less Qualified Minority."

Now, she may be speaking about an economic minority (although those that can not afford to buy a home are actually a majority in numbers, I think), but she was probably talking about a racial minority.

Which is horse hockey in my opinion - I've seen plenty of white folks who have been foreclosed on.

She does make good points. But, everything about Ann Coulter makes my hair stand on end. She's a Nutty McNutterson, IMO.

*ahem. as a "minority", let me make sure i phrase this as PC as possible.

was there a mad rush of "minorities" who got into power positions and decide to hook up minority homeseekers? did freddie and fannie become "minority" owned companies and give out only minority loans?

these MINORITIES are not usually high enough in these offices to pull rank like that, so a white person was the one GIVING MINORITIES LOANS. you cant give yourself a loan! someone has to APPROVE IT.

while it is true, a lot of hispanic and blacks were given loans in that time, it was a good thing on some respects. that meant this demographic was succeeding in making a solid living for themselves and their famililies, and contributing in positive ways to the economy. i saw on the news a few weeks ago where black women were given completely different loan rates and stipulations than white males with the exact same credit score and history, job history, and down payment. sound fair to you? well i guess Ann is saying that if this black person hadnt bothered trying to make a home for her family, then we wouldnt be in this mess.

I guess I'm just saying that the pool of unqualified buyers was not only made up of racial minorities - I fall into the "unqualified buyers" pool myself, and the only thing that makes me a minority is that I'm female.

I'm not down with buying young anyway, though. I had an econ professor say that if the whole country rented, our savings pool would go up and our economy would be stronger (because banks would have more money for capital and investment loans). Don't know if that's 100% true, and even though I know that "in the long run" I'm spending more to rent than I would to own - but I do know my savings account has more of a bump every month because I rent than it would if I were paying a mortgage.

Amen, sister.

How did I know that a piece by Ann Coulter was going to put the blame squarely on the shoulders of minority homeowners and the Democrats?

Because she's not named Barney Frank, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi or the New York Times?

*kidding, kidding*

Ann is a treat. and she knows that any non-white, non-republicans dont want to hear what she has to say anyway, thats why i think it was meant as a racial thing. what does she have to lose? i dont care what she thinks!

but to say "minority" covers soooo many people. and im sure it was meant to be said with that twinge of disgust that she is so good at displaying.

I hate her with a fiery passion but she is a genius for making all of this money for saying outlandish shit.

....Ditto

Truth.