Talk:Community Reinvestment Act/Archive 2

Keeping article relevant to CRA and with decent sourcing

While it's tempting to start speculating on all the causes of subprime crisis, let's keep it to sources that mention CRA. For example,

• I'm still looking for something that specifically says CRA related to Bush 2003 proposed changes, otherwise info should be deleted.
• I'm having a lot of trouble sourcing just what really happened in 2005
• Some of the financial speculation in that section getting tentative or needs better sourcing like Bears Stern which I temporarily deleted.
• Please review WP:reliable sources. Even blogs from relative experts like Seidman can be iffy; the two I deleted not allowed. Hopefully registered users will abide by these, even if some ANON IPs have trouble doing so. Carol Moore 18:00, 28 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Well, I'm finished for today - except to check later for vandalism of reliably sourced material. Please note that the 2005 info I deleted probably was accurate, if rambling, but there was no source and I couldn't find a source with that exact info. So if you really do know source or want to find it, stick it in. Carol Moore 22:21, 28 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

I think we need to ask for semi-protection. Anonymous IPs are being used to add POV sometimes libelous stuff to this article. lk (talk) 09:09, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to ask for it for a month or so. By then things should cool down and there will be fewer Anon IP drive by snotty snipes or reversals of sourced material, or adding of unsourced opinionated material. Carol Moore 12:29, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

This article is being used as a source for a pro McCain Palin promotional clip on YouTube [1]

where's the link? people are still trying to improve it with WP:RS material. I haven't even had a chance to look for really substantive criticism of - or reliable statistics one way or another on it. Just properly sourcing raw facts hard enough. Carol Moore Carol Moore 13:22, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

I thought I saw someone comment on these two articles a third time, but can't find comment:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_2_102/ai_88582467

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2002_Oct_15/ai_92843805

Anyway, the problem is articles don't mention CRA and Bush could have been encouraging investment in minority neighborhoods through other means than CRA. Neither article is sufficiently explicit about the means.

Another example of relevance involves Fannie and Freddie. Obviously their buying CRA loans was a big issue, and should be covered to some extent as it is here, including their failure. But all the speculative brouhaha involving those loans once they were sold is only worth maybe a sentence or two, which isn't here yet. It's not our job to either blame or absolve CRA, only to be as accurate as possible with most reliable sources. Carol Moore 13:22, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

"Anyway, the problem is articles don't mention CRA." This approach certainly seems to contradict your own view on including ACORN statements “I think it's clear that he's talking about ACORN's CRA related activities, and it has been place in a section on just that topic.” By the same logic that it is "clear", you might also want to include this reference (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020617-2.html) where in the paragraphs 10th and 11th from the bottom, President Bush talks about his support for Fannie May and Freddie Mac increasing their commitment to the minority housing markets by more than $440 billion which is supposed to go in part to consumers with poor credit. The argument that CRA isn’t specifically mentioned would be a bit disingenuous, it is quite apparent that these loans would fit the criteria for CRA loans. Sidereal33 (talk) 22:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that it is "quite apparent that these loans would fit the criteria for CRA loans." While borrower demographics are required to be collected and disclosed under CRA, the Fair Housing and Equal Credit Opportunity acts bar discrimination on the personal characteristics of borrowers. The relevant CRA criteria is the relationship of the business geographies of the lending institution with the geography of its loans made. Furthermore, the relationship between poor credit scores, minority housing markets, and LMI isn't 1:1:1. While I would imagine there is some correlation, the union of poor credit scorers and LMI borrowers is going to leave huge numbers outside of that circle Bleacherdave (talk) 10:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

FYI I wrote this original post back before I understood how Fannie and CRA worked together and because the source (whatever it was) does not specifically mention CRA. I think the press release still might fail on the latter grounds. But I bet we could find other material explicitly linking them, starting with statutory and regulatory authorizations in the article or yet to be found. Feel free to help out!! :-) Carol Moore 14:49, 9 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

---

AFAIK, there is no reliable source that connects the problems of Fannie and Freddie to CRA. Their functions are distinctly different. CRA requires banks to spread out credit to all neighbourhoods. Fannie and Freddie buy prime mortgages from banks, package them into bonds and then sell them on the financial markets. The only source provided in the article that links them together is an editorial by Terry Jones for the Investors Business Daily that's essentially a right-wing hit piece. lk (talk) 16:46, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's the first one I found on top of google, from Fannie Mae itself. And I've just begun to search. Also, the economist DiLorenzo writing for free articles at Lewrockwell.com is less of a blog than either Seidman or Gordon's blog entries at their paid employers' sites. These are the best sources for now until others appear. But I'd say an independent economist is generally more reliable than a paid employee. :-) In fact I just found an even longer and more explanative earlier article from him. Carol Moore 17:32, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

You overstate the credibility of Mises Institute. They have essentially zero credibility in the mainstream economics community. An unpaid blog entry essentially self-published by a fringe group is not a reliable source, and is definitely less credible than a whitepaper published by a reputable Law firm. lk (talk) 18:17, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The writings of a professor of economics at Loyola College have to be more credible than a law firm employed by special interests (community groups and/or banks who have learned to game the system) who make millions or even billions of dollars from CRA. If any banks trying to get rid of CRA hired Traiger, I'm sure we would not see such a rosy report, would we?? (Did I mention I was a temp in big law firms in DC for 13 years? Who pays the bills counts.) As for fringe, maybe you haven't heard that Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek won a 1974 Nobel Prize in economics and that Austrian economics often are studied or referenced in many think tanks and in academia. Carol Moore 18:28, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

I disagree. Members of Mises Institute essentially self publish their own articles on their own website with essentially no review process. A white paper put out by a reputable law firm is at least as reliable. IMO both the Mises and law firm articles can appear, but only as sources for what they themselves say. Not as a basis for a statement in the encyclopedic voice. The same is true for editorials. Editorials are not reliable sources for facts. All statements in the encyclopedic voice must be sourced from high quality reliable sources: academic peer-reviewed papers, university books, or articles from highly-reputable mainstream magazines or newspapers. lk (talk) 18:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, City Journal is published by Manhattan Institute a right wing conservative think tank. Any article from City Journal is once again, essentially a self published source, and unreliable as a source for any statements of fact. They are only reliable as a source for what they themselves say. lk (talk) 18:47, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

You just stated yourself the relevance. By forcing banks to offer the same levels of credit to all neighborhoods or face stiff penalties, the changes to this bill in 1995 caused banks to become predatory. Banks are for-profit entities and the reason they didn't offer loans to the types of people who got subprime loans is because those people don't pay those loans back. Even Barack Obama, while an attorney for ACORN, sued banks that didn't give loans to people without the financial resources to pay it back. Without this law, subprime loans never would have existed and the financial meltdown never would have happened. The CRA is the root cause of the financial crisis we're experiencing today. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MrDestructo (talk • contribs) 08:58, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

[unindent]Lawrence is right. Austrian economists, Objectivists, and the Cato Institute have a reputation for poor fact-checking in their zeal for the free-market. You can find arguments that the Enron debacle was essentially just a conspiracy to lynch poor executives on their website. One of the major columnists at LewRockwell.com, "economist" Gary North, has written a 9000 page book explaining why the Christian Bible "mandates a free-market system".[2] In Austrian economists seem almost allergic to data, but couple that with major claims which need data. We see that in this article, with DiLorenzo admitting that he doesn't really know the facts because he cites no facts and admits that he is likely wrong with the words "even if Gordon is right". This is basically an issue that can be answered by looking at data and the law, and using common sense. It's a classic post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy to think CRA was a major factor when there were so many other obvious factors (documented by Barry Ritholtz recently in the WSJ, who calls the CRA thing a "wingnut" theory). The law firm looks to have done some data analysis informed by knowledge of the CRA law, and Seidman had direct experience with the legal details of the CRA. LewRockwell and the Mises Institute just don't much care whether they have their facts straight. They preach to a crowd which doesn't need facts. Anyway, I also II | (t - c) 18:50, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

You write: "All statements in the encyclopedic voice must be sourced from high quality reliable sources: academic peer-reviewed papers, university books, or articles from highly-reputable mainstream magazines or newspapers" Then we might as well blank 2/3 of the article now cause most of it is from advocacy groups which others will question. So make up your mind. Carol Moore 18:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

I'm not stating anything new. This is Wikipedia policy (see WP:V, WP:Reliable Sources). IMO large parts of this article should be edited to remove the encyclopedic voice, or if that's not feasible, removed completely. As Jimbo Wales has stated, better no information than incorrect information. lk (talk) 19:02, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Then you delete the 2/3 that you don't think is WP:RS and I'll delete anything I think you missed. Carol Moore 19:09, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Even if you were serious, I doubt if the other editors would agree. However, we must be careful with controversial statements of fact that advance a position. If they cannot be sourced to a high quality source, then they must be framed as the argument or opinion of the person who made the argument. If it does not fit the article if reframed in such a way, then they should be fact tagged if innocous, but removed otherwise. Especially, WP:BLP demands that any negative statement about a living person be adequately sourced or immediately removed. lk (talk) 19:23, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

My point remains that an article by an academic economist (DiLorenzo) is of higher quality than a blog entry by an employee of an advocacy group (Seidman and Gordon and others stuck in there). And it's certainly absurd to have to defend Howard Husock, formerly the director of case studies in public policy and management at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, just because he works for the Manhattan Institute. This is getting to be an absurdly liberally biased rejection of sources. I'm still catching up with minor mistakes before re-insert more DiLorenzo material I've gathered. Also, I don't think I've seen any BLP issues and a LAW is not a person. Carol Moore 19:31, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Please don't tell me that you are going to call these reliable sources than Husock and DeLorenzo, where ever they might be published? http://www.crooksandliars.com/tag/republican-deregulation and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hale-stewart/memo-to-republicans-cra-h_b_127599.html Here's a couple of Reliable source notice board discussions on HuffingtonPost.com: #1, #2. Both hold that Huffington post is just a bunch of blog opinions and not WP:RS. Hale Steward has enough credibility if he wrote an article at a site that has some editorial oversight. quote a full sentence from his opinions. But Crooksandliars?? Logan Murphy has her economics or law degree from where? OI! Carol Moore 20:10, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Look, enough name calling. Let's go with the guidelines at WP:SOURCES, WP:RS and WP:SELFPUB. I'm going to revise the article so that only statements that can be backed by the highest quality reliable sources are stated in the encyclopedic voice. Anything else has to be prefaced with 'XXX has argued that ...". lk (talk) 07:30, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

BTW, Hassock is a journalist who once held a job as director of case studies - essentially a head librarian - at KSG. He's now vice-president of a right wing think tank. His essentially self-published articles do not qualify as a reliable source. lk (talk) 07:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Just weighing in on one point. There are some fairly intriguing claims of a Senate Banking Committee finding on the matter that are sourced only to the Husock book (does not even provide the citation that the husock book provides for those reported senate banking committee findings). The supposed findings would be on Edgar if they exist. i can't find them, though am willing to be convinced that's because i don't know the title of the paper/hearing/etc... in question. But i don't see how such information can be included without a proper primary citation. the reader is essentially being asked to take an author's word for something, rather than being given the tools to check the facts for him or herself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bali ultimate (talk • contribs) 23:58, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Do not remove WP:RS relevant info just because you can't find the original source in a quick search. I see you've only been editing a couple days here and may not be aware of all policies. I am sure we could do that with 90% of the assertions in the article on just those grounds if we want to. (Does anyone know where some of these statistics come from??) I'll put it on my own list to look into. With constant changes and deletions and reversions, it's hard to keep on top of everything. IMHO, if Husock was lying these groups would have been all over it in his book and that would be on the web. Meanwhile I'm putting it back. . Carol Moore 00:15, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

That's just not correct -- and if you can find specific factual statements attributed to government institutions, individuals, corporations etc... but that aren't cited, i'm all for their removal too.

In this case, the claim of $9.5 billion to "these groups" and the breakdown of various relationships between them and commercial banks, are specific claims. It's not enough to say, in effect, "it's in some guys book" -- when asked for a citation for the primary information. Since you (I assume) have access to that book, the direct citation should be available to you. Let's toss that in there -- which makes this claim possible to track town and verify. If he makes that statement in his book without providing a cite to his research, it can't be used.

There are of course books with lots of original research and the cite might be something like "author communication, tktktk" but in this case the implication is that senate committee generated this info sometime in the year 2000. Let's track down the actual finding, if it exists.

This is simply the basics of sourcing. I have no idea what the truth is here. But I know we shouldn't ask anyone to take anyone's (however smart, credible, etc...) word in place of primary sourcing. I'm still looking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bali ultimate (talk • contribs) 00:31, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

First read Wikipedia:RS#Primary.2C_secondary.2C_and_tertiary_sources. Wikipedia articles should be based around reliable Secondary sources. This means that while primary or tertiary sources can be used to support specific statements, the bulk of the article should rely on secondary sources. I have found people being overly strict about not using primary sources! And the author is not some guy but someone who specializes in housing issues. But I'll look around some. Meanwhile, he gets sued, not wikipedia, so it's not a WP:BLP problem :-) Carol Moore 00:50, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

I've read that issue on sourcing. I'm all for articles that say, for instance "husock, an expert on housing, interprets the date blah blah blah" or "Husock says this led to consequences x, y, z." But this is an instance of, in effect, "Husock says the US government issued a document that said X." The US government puts everything like that on the internet. I'm also very familiar with misleading and inaccurate information in books with a political bent. I'm not saying that Husock is being deceptive, or mistinterprating, just that in this case, the facts of the matter are easy to ascertain, not as a matter of primary research but as a matter of confirming if they exist or not, with a link provided. That's why i shifted an earlier cite from a treasury dept press release summarizing a report to the report itself; i was confused by what was written, found the press release was equally confusing (because it was largely cut and pasted into the article) so went to the actual document, which is preferable. As an addendum to all this, for some reason i can't get senate.gov on banking.senate.gov to open tonight, though most other government sites are working. this may be computer specific for me. senate.banking.gov is the committees space; go there and put "COmmunity Reinvestment Act" into a search. It will pop up quickly if its there.

A question: Does his book provide a citation? If it doesn't, that calls into question his bona fides as a "reliable secondary source." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bali ultimate (talk • contribs) 01:01, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Senate web site down since last night. His book doesn't provide citations. We'll have to see if all the new opinions from govt employees that the CRA is great do. Will have to do a word count for balance :-) But my time limit on this one is running out since my job is supposed to be organizing secession from govt not nitpicking one of the tens of thousands of laws we're seceding from :-) Carol Moore 12:11, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

I complained to Senate banking web master so I can see site now. My guess is the info is in one of the 1998 - 1999 hearings on the Gramm-Bliley act. Remember Gramm hated it and doubtless had some staffer get that info and Hosock screwed up the timing. I just emailed Manhattan Institute and said it would be helpful to provide specific info on which hearing since their article is all over the internet. Of course, for a variety of reasons, the material probably is not on the web. Carol Moore 17:53, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Site is up for me now, too. Nothing in the 2000 or 1999 press releases on this. Gramm definitely had a bee in his bonnet about CRA and had critical things to say, tied to a Federal Reserve survey of lenders that found CRA loans were somewhat less profitable than standard loans (fed report here: http://www.federalreserve.gov/BoardDocs/Surveys/CRAloansurvey /summary2000.pdf ). Thought maybe Husock's information was misattributed and it might have been in the Fed report -- but nothing on fees to Acorn and the like there, either. There is this http://banking.senate.gov/prel99/0507fsm.htm from 1999, which hints in the direction Husock went in (an agreement between an unnamed "community group" and an unnamed bank to pay the community group 2.75% on CRA loans; no info beyond that and no follow up that i can find.)

The reason this caught my attention is $9.5 billion is a huge amount of money for lefty groups that provide advocacy and lending advice to poor/underpriveledged/dead-beats/pick your descriptor. Good luck fighting the man and all that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bali ultimate (talk • contribs) 19:20, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

My guess is it is 1998 Senate Hearings because that is the year that Gramm killed the "Financial Services Modernization Act" cause it didn't limit advocacy groups. Just haven't had a chance to look. Searching 9.5 billion at the [http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Trillion-Dollar-Housing-Mistake-American/dp/1566635314/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product book source] I can see that it is an "estimate" and my guess is they questimated a broker's fee (whatever it is 5%?) the groups got from some number of CRA loans either those groups generate or from some percent of all loans. I haven't had a chance to look through all the many refs to CRA in Marion Orr's [http://www.amazon.com/Transforming-City-Community-Organizing-Government/dp/0700615148/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223504674&sr=1-4 Acorn organizers book yet], but that should provide some interesting clues and info. As a 30 year street organizer myself, I've seen all sorts of shenanigans so nothing surprises me. Carol Moore 22:30, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Ok, so we're in agreement that the assertion of a 2000 senate "finding" to this effect by Husock was innacurate, at best. There was none. I didn't just seach documents on "9.5" i read every senate banking committee doco/press release that mentioned the CRA from 2000 and 1999. I also read other government docos on the CRA that the committee referenced those years (a couple from the Fed). One of the reasons i wanted to see this was because there was a lot of vagueness as to what groups were getting this money, for what purpose, over what kind of time period etc... it all just seemed very strange. As it happens, his unsourced and vague mention of this number is the only time it's popped up anywhere. To be honest, all this inclines me to think that a good fisking of Husock's work will turn up more problems with his data. At any rate, you've handled this exchange with honesty and cordiality. Thanks and best.~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bali ultimate (talk • contribs) 22:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

At this point his error was saying it was a 2000 hearing, or conflating some 2000 hearing with the other material and obviously this proves why footnotes help establish credibility. However, until I do my own search of 1998-1999 hearings, or find some other source of the findings, I will consider them potentially true. It's on my list. :-) Carol Moore 01:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

FYI I did find a New York Times article which I believe alluded to a listing of monies to community groups like the above, circulated by Senator Gramm during one of the several 1997-1998 hearings on the Community Reinvestment Act, among other topics. If Gramm made a statement, it doesn't seem to be in the member statements any more, but at least the NYT article info on the topic can be used in wiki article.

Husock obviously got idea for title of his book from Gramm alleging "shakedown" and the trillion dollars to low/moderate income housing that community groups were claiming around that time. But that hardly excuses Husock's poor sourcing on these factoids in his articles and book. And I do consider him a good source for opinion, if I find his opinions are the best to use, since obviously newer ones that show abuses since 2000 more relevant. Carol Moore 13:16, 21 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

I would like to add another source of information and opinion on the whole CRA topic: "The Nation" magazine's issue dated Nov. 10 2008 has a discussion that focuses initially on the role and history of ACORN - and recent negative statements about it - but which also includes a review of the history and impact of the CRA. [3]

"The Nation" as many readers will know, is a long-established and respected political journal. It is emphatically on the left-liberal side of the spectrum: it is therefore not surprising that its article is headed "The GOP's Blame-ACORN Game." However, I think that those who wish to hear all points of view will find this an interesting article. One point that impressed me was the note that from 1998 to 2995, "more than half of all subprime mortgages were for refinancing, while less than 10% of subprime loans went to first-time buyers." (Presumably the difference represents buyers who were buying a home, but not for the first time.) This is somewhat at variance with the stereotypical picture of the low-income person buying their first house, and seems to somewhat disengage the subprime loans issue from the CRA's sphere.

Hope this addition compiles with the page-editing rules. I took a look at some of the many linked pages about them and there was too much to digest in one sitting.....--JSB99 (talk) 14:38, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

First, I hope human race lasts till 2995 :-) Subprime info relevant only if banks did it to comply with CRA, either through own direct loans or buying up middlemen loans. Various sources have said that banks did a lot of the latter, one of which was deleted here earlier. The article was more contentious when people seemed to think it would keep Obama from getting elected. It's less contentious now, but info should be directly related to CRA anyway. ACORN stuff relevant to enforcement since it was heavily involved in that. The enforcement section may have more impact being first, but because of evolution of implementation of CRA, it also may belong later. It's not my top issue now, but have nice folder full WP:RS need to take some time to go through. Carol Moore 18:30, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

=Structuring "Controversies"

Assuming we don't gut 2/3 of the article per:"All statements in the encyclopedic voice must be sourced from high quality reliable sources: academic peer-reviewed papers, university books, or articles from highly-reputable mainstream magazines or newspapers"...at least let's agree to put criticisms first and responses second, without WP:original research or WP:synthesis of trying to make some sort of complicated criticism and response thing that will try to make one side or other look good. (Unless it is a case where one person, like economist DiLorenzo, replies to staffer Robert Gordon.) Carol Moore 19:34, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

"All statements in the encyclopedic voice must be sourced from high quality reliable sources: academic peer-reviewed papers, university books, or articles from highly-reputable mainstream magazines or newspapers"is Wikipedia policy. We must all follow it. Arguments should be grouped by issues, not a criticisms section followed by a defenders section. That would give criticisms a stronger position. lk (talk) 04:53, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Forgive me, but what the heck is the "encyclopedic voice?" Bleacherdave (talk) 19:44, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Janet Yellen's Claims need further investigation

She is correct that lending institutions not subject to the CRA are responsible roughly half of recent subprime originations. However, a substantial portion was originated under CRA. She also provides no evidence that subprime delinquencies are either uniformly distributed or more highly concentrated in the non-CRA lenders. If CRA loans accounted for as few as 15% of subprime loans, they could still be a significant proportion of those in default. She merely asserts that the loans were properly underwritten.

Janet Yellen is president of the SF Federal Reserve Bank, as such, her opinions about finance and banking carry weight. Husock is a former journalist who is now vice-president of a right wing think tank. And yet you don't suggest that his opinions bears further investigation? I have already investigated a claim he made about the Woodstock Institute and found that he substantially mis-stated their findings. lk (talk) 06:51, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

What specifically are you talking about on Husock? You aren't confusing the The Woodstock PDF article which is a survey of small business loans done in 1996 h his sentence in this article a survey of the lending policies of Chicago-area mortgage companies by a CRA-connected community group, the Woodstock Institute, found "a tendency to lend in a wide variety of neighborhoods"—even though the CRA doesn't apply to such lenders.when the regulations were still in process of implementation. These groups do lots of surveys. Carol Moore 00:55, 4 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

BTW the Woodstock Inst didn't carry out the surveys. They were analyzing survey data from the Federal reserve. And their main conclusion is that poor communities are still under served. Husock's statement is misleading at best. it's like the UN stating that 90% of the food in Burma is consumed by the military and only 10% is shared among the peasants; and the military junta citing this and stating "UN report shows that all the people in Burma have access to food." lk (talk) 06:57, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Which survey are you talking about when you criticize Husock? The small business one that you previously linked which Husock is not talking about or some other survey that you have not provided any info on, the mortgage one that Husock was referring to? Please don't accuse him of misstating if you are getting confused about two different surveys.

FYI rereading the Woodstock PDF I saw that it was about CRA banks. It's just more implied than outright stated, and further down in the document. Carol Moore 13:15, 4 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

You say that Husock's statement is based on another survey, but have you been able to find any other survey that backs him up? I've looked at can't find anything. He doesn't provide a cite to the document he supposedly refers to. My point is, Husock comes from a partisan institute, and partisan institutes are well known for pulling shenanigans like that, which is why their statements can't be taken on face value per se. lk (talk) 15:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Just because you can't find a survey they had done on Mortgages, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. In fact, I'd be surprised to hear they had NOT done a survey on it since it is their main interest. Since I'm not going to bother to use the quote, I don't have to prove it.

Having written an ebook on the black bloc from close personal experience in the peace movement, let's not even get started on activist "shenanigans." Carol Moore 16:25, 4 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

We should refocus on facts

Half of this article is made up of summaries of people's criticisms of CRA and others responses to them. We must be breaking some guideline somewhere, if only WP:TOPIC. We need to refocus on facts – what is CRA, and what specific impact did it have. We need to severely cut down on the commentary, unless it's made by someone very notable, eg. Chair of Federal Reserve, US Senator, and even then, we should keep it short. lk (talk) 10:05, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

First, it would be useful to explain why you remove sourced material when you do so. I explain whatever factual tweaking is necessary when I put it back.

Second, while the length of the current criticism section isn't bad, we should try to only add new ones that are either more informative and/or from much more weighty sources. The editing of the Roberts quote seems appropriate to me - just try not to remove the wiki links, especially to people, another bad habit you have. Carol Moore 14:16, 4 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Carol, try checking the histories before accusing me like that. The only wikilink I've removed on purpose is your wikilink from market-oriented to free markets which seems a bit of a stretch, and quite frankly, POV. lk (talk) 15:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually it originally was something more general like "market economy" but after it you deleted it the first time by you, I couldn't find or remember what is was so put in free market, which is what it is, but I don't have problem with market economy. Another example? I assume you took off the Russell Roberts wiki link since you shortened the quote which otherwise was ok. And I see Ken Blackwell's wikilink fell out too and you are only person editing in that area. Carol Moore 16:36, 4 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Once again, I didn't delete wikilinks. If you're going to make a personal accusation like that, at least back it up with some page diffs showing the edits. lk (talk) 08:00, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Striking reference to wikilinks cause I don't have time to go through 200 edits to find out if I am correct about who is deleting these links. (To be clearer, as I have complained about at technical pump, not all edits have been shown in the Diffs. So the deletion of wikilinks by whoever made them may not show up anyway.) Plus the fact you too rarely use edit summaries makes it hard to figure out where you edited something others might want to go back and check. It's just good and cooperative editing to do so so I'd appreciate it if you would start doing it on all your edits, even if just one word like "punct" or "wikilink". 14:52, 5 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Renaming sections to avoid partisan squabbles

I do think sourced info about Clinton admin role in Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (Financial Services Modernization Act) should remain. As Wash Post source explicitly states "it will be one of the most significant pieces of legislation to be written by the White House and the 106th Congress." (deleting this is violation of WP:NPOV. Unless you can find a source that say Clinton Admin. had no role in writing it and it was foisted on him in some way, please stop reverting accurate sourced info) However the issue of presidential vs. congressional "blame" applies to all the headings, since the White House usually has involvement in all of these. To avoid blame game back and forth we should retitle the sections by year and only mentioning presidents when there is a source that says they were involved, like the one above. Please wait before doing so until I finish Fannie/Freddie info since I have direct correlations of the two from WP:RS sources. Once that's inserted it will be clear how to label years, ie by decades or clusters of laws and regulations. Carol MooreCarolmooredc

I think it bears pointing out that the titles I changed were prima facie inconsistent and POV. Changes under Bush Sr were labeled congressional changes, whereas changes under Clinton were labelled Clinton Administration changes. I think the changes should just be labeled by year. They are far enough apart so that there would be no confusion. lk (talk) 16:05, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

It is important to note which changes are congressional and which are administrative. As you no doubt know, these are different. Administrative changes are made to the Code of Federal Regulations. It would be best if we could identify and link to each of these changes. I believe the 1995 changes were administrative, as I couldn't find a CRA bill in 1995-1996. II | (t - c) 18:50, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I should have been clearer. I was referring to the information on the 1999 bill, which I had moved to another section labeled Congressional Changes 1999, but which was being continually reinserted into the the section on Clinton's administrative changes in 1995. lk (talk) 19:10, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Stick to the topic

Just because a person or group is mentioned does not mean that any controversies about that person or group should be inserted. It would be inappropriate, for example, to include a diatribe about the failures of GW Bush.

This whole paragraph does not refer to CRA at all, not even incidentally. It's got nothing to do with CRA. It's just playing guilt by association. Continually reinserting it demonstrates POV pushing. lk (talk) 17:41, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

During the fall 2008 congressional debate over the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, conservative politician Ken Blackwell wrote about “repeated rumors” that Democrats in Congress wanted to fund voting and housing activist groups like ACORN through a “Housing Trust Fund” provision. He charged that an organization that through its activities in influencing bank loans (described above) “possibly contributed” to the economic crisis might profit from it. In response a such a rumor spread by a Senator, an ACORN representative replied the group did not get any money from the government and was not sure if it would seek any funding provided under the Act.

I think it's clear that he's talking about ACORN's CRA related activities, and it has been place in a section on just that topic. However, will let it lay for the moment and after I have most of info I need in may ask for 3rd parties opinions on several issues. Carol Moore 17:45, 4 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

In case you didn't know, CRA is not a housing trust fund. A housing trust fund channels monies to rebuild houses or refinance mortagages. CRA doesn't provide subsidies. lk (talk) 18:06, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

"Housing trust fund" was a phrase used by a source - not me - about a prospective program, not about an existing program.

CRA starts as a government enforced private bank defacto subsidy. But once the banks sell the loans to fannie mae and freddie mac it becomes a defacto govt subsidy, partially to home buyers and partially to the fat cats who profited off the securities until they crashed. Carol Moore 19:12, 4 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Please do a google on 'Housing trust fund', it's something completely different from CRA. The article doesn't even mention CRA. You are essentially arguing that in the future, CRA may become a 'Housing trust fund', and so the article on housing trust funds is related. (WP is not a crystal ball WP:CRYSTAL) If I may interject a personal note, please stop and reflect. You should recognize that your bias on this issue is leading you to make unreasonable arguments. lk (talk) 05:44, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

You are not correct about what I am "arguing." I am assuming he's referring to ACORN's CRA-related activities. But now I can see there may be other behavior they're engaged in, like alleged voter fraud, he may be referring to, so therefore the quote is not relevant. Carol Moore 13:58, 5 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmoore

Carol, please don't try to use quotes from Ken Blackwell. He was the Secretary of State in Ohio, responsible for making sure that elections were free and fair, and at the same time, head of the Bush 2004 campaign in Ohio. His ethics are questionable and his statements are not reliable. Tom Robinson 19:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC) Tomrobinson

Sub-section headings

How about we just arrange by changes and the years that they occurred in:

1. 1989 Legislative Changes
2. 1994 Legislative Changes
3. 1995 Administrative Changes
4. 1999 Legislative Changes
5. 2005 Administrative Changes

LK (talk) 17:59, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

With suggested changes and as long as there is flexibility as in leaving info on Fannie Mae loans after 1992 legislative changes left right after the law change. If found, other new admin or Fannie/Freddie CRA-related material should can be inserted in 1999 section cause I'm sure a bunch happened just has not been ref'd in part because Fannie Mae was cooking the books during that time. Plus probably more stuff after 2005 besides what I put in there today.

1. 1989-1992 Legislative Changes (there are three laws in there)
2. 1995 Administrative Changes
3. 1999 Legislative Changes
4. 2005 Administrative Changes

(note spelling correction) Carol Moore 19:23, 4 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Proper WP:Weight in the article

I'm moving this to it's own subsection, as the main argument here is about weight to be given to certain arguments and the information that buttresses those arguments: LK (talk) 18:31, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

That looks fine, but keep in mind that this article is about CRA not about Fannie, Freddie, Sallie; the two are not the same. We should try to stay on topic and not conflate them; there is only a tenuous connection between them. Information presented on Fannie, Freddie, Sallie should be short, to the point, and only if there is a specific established relationship to CRA. LK (talk) 05:37, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe it is POV WP:edit warring to delete well sourced information explicitly about the relation of CRA and Fannie Mae. Full deletions like this are for poorly sourced or totally irrelevant info only. And one must always use edit summaries when one is making such big deletions, which you do irregularly. Using them for all edits would be very helpful and cooperative editing.

My right to revert it back is stronger than your right to delete it. If you want to put a relevance tag on or discuss it in talk, fine. FYI I am working on more info that will tie it together even more explicitly.

Two of WP's most important guidelines are: 1. that properly cited text from WP:RS reliable sources should not be deleted without a very good reason, and 2. that full reverts of other editors' work should not be done lightly. I strongly suggest you read the wp:verifiability and wp:revert pages to better understand these WP policies. Carol Moore 15:05, 5 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Just because something is sourced, doesn't mean it should be in the article. Firstly, the source must associate the material with the article topic, and the source must fully support your argument. Also, the insertion must pass WP:NOR and WP:NPV. You should be able to establish the relevance of the material to the article topic. This article is fast becoming a coatrack for the fringe theory that the current financial crisis is caused by wrongheaded government regulations. The creation of an Attack Page is specifically prohibited by Wikipedia policy.

It's POV edit warring to reinsert material that has no direct connection to the article topic to assert guilt by association or to push a particular synthetic argument. Information not directly about the article topic should not be inserted, unless the source associates the information with the article topic in the same way as you are presenting it in the article, otherwise you are guilty of synthesis. BTW, about your accusation of edit warring, it's like the pot calling the kettle black, I suggest counting the number of times you have reverted to a version that you last edited. LK (talk) 15:42, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it is obvious we need a third opinion listing specific issues on the talk page. Why notlet me make the couple changes I need to make and then we can get it. Carol Moore 17:20, 5 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

If the sources don't connect Fannie/Freddie with the CRA, then it is synthesis and cannot be included. That's the policy. II | (t - c) 17:46, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I am not contesting whether synthesis is the policy, but whether one person's interpretation of it is correct. And I don't use sources that don't make a direct connection. Just look at them. There are several other issues of POV, Weight, etc. where it really depends on view points and a truly unbiased eye is needed. Carol Moore 17:54, 5 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

My internet connection is too terrible to really follow your exchange closely, Carol, but if you don't think there's synthesis and Lawrence does, the onus is on you to quote the spot where the sources connect Fannie/Freddie and the CRA, Carol. The only way for Lawrence to show that they do not connect is to quote the entire article. Proving a negative is often more difficult than proving a positive. Also, there are plenty of decently-informed, basically unbiased people. I'm one of them. We should not be giving undue weight to fringe theorists with a poor reputation for fact-checking, who show a general lack of knowledge of the data. Your userpage indicates an affiliation with the anarcho-capitalist movement. The reality is that anarcho-capitalist economic policy led to this crisis. The government did not hold a gun to the banks' and mortgage brokers' heads and force them to do no-doc loans. Nor did they force the investment banks to leverage their capital to ratio 40-to-1 when the usual regulation was 11-to-1. Also, Barry Ritholtz had a pretty good article on the CRA yesterday. II | (t - c) 20:28, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

My main concern is this. This article should not become a coatrack for the fringe theory that the current financial crisis is mainly caused by wrongheaded government regulations. Sourced or not, statements should be removed if their main purpose for inclusion is to buttress that particular fringe theory. The article should stick to providing sourced factual information about the CRA, and it's direct effects on the housing markets. It should not speculate on whether or how the CRA weakened the financial system and contributed to the crisis, apart from briefly noting the arguments for and against this position. It should particularly not devolve into an attack article that contains mainly criticisms of government regulations and evidence for those criticisms. The article is barely acceptable as it now stands, but Carol has been continually pushing it in a direction that worries me. A case in point is the repeated reinsertion of this edit

During the fall 2008 congressional debate over the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, conservative politician Ken Blackwell wrote about “repeated rumors” that Democrats wanted to fund voting and housing activist groups like ACORN through a “Housing Trust Fund” provision. He charged that an organization that through its activities in influencing bank loans “possibly contributed” to the economic crisis might profit from it. In response to such criticisms, an ACORN representative replied the group did not get any money from the government and was not sure if it would seek any funding provided under the Act.

(NOTE: Edited to quote the relevant paragraph.) This paragraph does not provide any factual information about the CRA and only serves to disparage government regulation in general. The source does not even mention the CRA. LK (talk) 18:31, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Carol, if you could state your position, we can ask for third parties to arbitrate a solution. LK (talk) 18:33, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

To answer several different posts in order of points made:

• [User:Lawrencekhoo|LK] says twice above: "This article should not become a coatrack for the fringe theory that the current financial crisis is mainly caused by wrongheaded government regulationsLK coatrack for the fringe theory that the current financial crisis is caused by wrongheaded government regulations."

Response: Both liberal and conservative and libertarian sources in this article infer that the current financial crisis is mainly caused by wrongheaded government regulations - either too many or too few, or a combination of both. So that sentence doesn't even make sense. Please try again to formulate your complaint since anyone providing a third opinion also would see that flaw in your argument.

• Response to [User:ImperfectlyInformed|II]'s question about whether CRA and FM/FM connection is synthesis see new section below.
• Re: [User:ImperfectlyInformed|II]'s statement "Your userpage indicates an affiliation with the anarcho-capitalist movement."an affiliation with the anarcho-capitalist movement." FYI, my home page doesn't mention the phrase, only libertarian, and I do not identify myself as one. However, I do not hide my libertarian sympathies, as many editors hide their sympathies - or even WP:COI paid jobs - on a variety of topics through anonymity. I certainly hope your diatribe after that wasn't a WP:Attack.
• [User:ImperfectlyInformed|II]'s statement: "It should particularly not devolve into an attack article that contains mainly criticisms of government regulations and evidence for those criticisms, since your opinions of regulations that didn't cause a problem doesn't answer the WP:RS opinions of those who think it does." We go where the facts lead us, don't we? Are you saying an article about US torture of suspects should be balanced even if criticisms far outweigh defenses? It's a "law" enforced inevitably by jackbooted thugs, just like the laws against smashing windows at anti-globalization protests ;-) (little joke)
• You'll be glad to know that I'm adding a section on the 2008 CRA hearing that had mostly pro-CRA regulators and only a couple people opposed. I'm sure the new hearings will lead to even more comments one way or the other.
• Ritholtz blog entry mostly quotes sources already in this article.
• [User:Lawrencekhoo|LK] asks about this edit where I removed redundant wikilink and moved relevant descriptive info up to front of article, changing this language "advocacy groups" to language more in line with what [User:Lawrencekhoo|LK] had used "This gave housing advocacy community groups." explaining that the fact it was "twice mentioned above" in the edit summary.
• Fringe theory is defined as: A fringe theory can be considered notable if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory. References that debunk or disparage the fringe theory can also be adequate, as they establish the notability of the theory outside of its group of adherents. Even if the idea that CRA somehow contributed to the current financial crisis WAS fringe, it has been covered by so many WP:RS sources that it is still notable.
• Finally, please do not assume an either/or attitude. Either that there is some theory that ONLY the CRA caused ALL the problems, which no one is advancing vs. the idea that CRA is a totally benign law corrupted by evil Republicans. As is so often the case, the truth lies in between. Think about that the next time you want to delete WP:RS info.

Carol Moore 13:11, 6 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

At least rewrite the CRA/connection to 2008 financial crisis

This section could very much do with being rewritten to have an introductory section putting forward both points (neutrally if possible) and split into separate points. At the moment it's just a collection of quotes, with no organisation beyond that. I would attempt now but would prefer to a) wait until it calms down a bit and b) sleep. ;)

In its current form, it gives undue weight to the criticism by burying the rebuttals (even in simplistic form, i.e. "other commentators say the accusation is horse hockey") several paras down.--Gregalton (talk) 21:06, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Patience. Still working on the factual section with a big shift of material to happen up to section on 2008 hearings. Then we'll see what's left. Carol Moore 13:13, 6 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

You speak as if you have the primary responsibility to shape this page's vision – WP:OWN. I usually don't have a problem with that, but I don't like the vision you're pushing; ie. a coatrack for anti-government regulation arguments. LK (talk) 13:40, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Obviously such a section is in tune with what else is in the article. But I brought it up to tell people what I am up to, knowing they'll comment if they have a problem. If I was into WP:OWN I'd be deleting stuff I didn't like without explaining why :-)

Feel free to put it together. I am just assuming from past experience no one else wants to do that big a job of putting together a variety of sources with different opinions reflecting the variety of views on this topic.

If WP:RS sources add up to more new, non-redundant negative arguments against CRA, and you feel they don't reflect reality, then do some research and add other material. Carol Moore 13:50, 6 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Forgive me - I'm new here, and won't get the terminology and WP references right, but the first 3 quotes in this section should be deleted. They use quotes to introduce a POV, and counter-factual information. Liebowitz says banks are "allowed" to make bad loand - banks can make whatever loans they wish. Both Paul and WSJ assert that banks are "forced" or "compelled" to make bad loans under the CRA. The CRA does not address underwriting standards, it only provided for evaluation of lending practices. If banks were forced to make bad loans, all big banks would be in trouble. They are not. WFB is an example of a bank that achieved a passing CRA grade, but does not have bad loans on its balance sheet. Is there a reason they shouldn't be deleted —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bleacherdave (talk • contribs) 20:02, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

First of all, when in doubt look at the original source and see if language reflects what they said. I'll fix it since it's a bit nuanced.

What has not been addressed adequately in the article is that the banks started selling crappy loans to Fannie Mae so they themselves would not get hurt. They even would buy crappy loans issued by crappy mortgage companies to comply with CRA and then sell to Fannie Mae - which is why so many CRA supporters carefully claim that they banks CRA loans did not go bad. Of course they didn't, they didn't own them any more. The problem is either WP:RS sources don't always say as things as explicitly as they should, while TV commentators, sources deemed not wiki reliable, letters to editor, etc say it straight out.

The banks that went south were not ones that held a lot of bad mortgages but the ones that held all sorts of Fannie Mae and other securities that were partially crappy CRA and other bad mortgage loans and partially good securities, but the good ones get paid off first. So no one really knows how much they are worth. People/companies figure out the bank's in trouble and they take their money out of the bank.

Anyway, one of the hair pulling problems with wikipedia. But eventually some WP:Reliable source says just the right thing and then you edit it into the article. Carol Moore 20:17, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Your assertion about that banks started selling "crappy loans..so they themselves would not get hurt" is unverifiable, and, I'd say, incorrect. They did it to make money - heck, everyone else in the industry was doing it. Banks sell loans, to the GSE's, investment banks, and other secondary market buyers, in order to get the money to originate more loans. To say they did it not to get hurt is both speculative and incorrect. As we have seen, they WERE, in fact, hurt by these crappy loans - many of the purchasers of these loans had the right to put them back to the originators if they turned sour. And they did so.

Contrary to your assertion, I haven't seen any references to banks that bought crappy loans from mortgage companies. Countrywide had subprime CRA loans for sale, but apparently no CRA subject institutions bought them. Matter of fact, the Inner City Press article states that only one CRA subject institution ever bought loans on the secondary market that they then certified towards CRA compliance. However, that particular claim in the article is not well documented, so I left it out of the main page. In fact, NO SOURCE has ever documented that EVEN ONE secondary mortgage purchaser EVER used purchased mortgages to satisfy their CRA obligations. Hopefully, ACORN and the other groups would have been all over that - it certainly meets the letter of the CRA, but definitely not its spirit. Bottom line is that you cannot support your assertion that CRA subject institutions 1) bought crappy CRA loans, and 2) if they did, did so to comply with CRA.

Your description of why banks fell isn't quite accurate. The banks that fell didn't do so because of an old-fashioned run on deposits, but did so because they couldn't meet their capital, counterparty and reserve requirements. This was due to the write-down in the value of their assets, and the assets pledged as collateral to other parties. In any event, the value of ALT-A loans (liar loans) are a multiple of sub-prime loans value. Alt-A loans were those used by "house flippers" - primarily us middle-class and up folk. Most sub-prime loans, and the value of sub-prime loans are a fraction of Alt-A loans, also went to middle class and up borrowers. And CRA loans are yet a fraction of that. The goal of CRA loans are to find and prepare prime borrower prospects. That is the whole origninal intent of the CRA - to find prime borrowers in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods that are being ignored by credit institutions, and lend to them on the SAME TERMS as other borrowers.

Finally, look at the RealtyTrac's mortgage foreclosure map. California is a HUGE problem. Property values in California were so high, that most loans were non-conforming (> the Fannie/Freddie threshold), and couldn't be bought by the GSE's. Remember CRA only applies to a relatively small fraction of geographies. Do you agree those 3 quotes should come out?Bleacherdave (talk) 22:25, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

This is how you set up the Liebowitz quote, "...CRA requirements allowed banks to loan to consumers..." This is not correct, the CRA does not authorize and lending. It implies that the CRA addresses underwriting standards. This is misleading, it does not. The CRA only requires reporting on the economic and demographic characteristics of lending areas and borrowers.Bleacherdave (talk) 22:41, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

What I argue personally doesn't matter, so I should control myself (and only write for money, ho ho ho). Anyway, in wikipedia, all that matters is what the source's say. See WP:V. It doesn't matter what an editor thinks is true - or ten editors - unless they find it on a WP:Reliable source web site. If you really want to get into all the ins and outs of the Subprime_mortgage_crisis you should edit that page :-) This is just for facts and notable opinions about CRA. However, I did rewrite liebowitz tightly to the source because that does matter in wikipedia. Carol Moore 23:35, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

You make a valid point. The entire 2008 financial crisis section should be removed, and referred to Subprime_mortgage_crisis. Bleacherdave (talk) 02:50, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

There already is a section on govt regs which needs to be rewritten, but this section is related specifically to CRA and the crisis. Each relevant article probably needs such a section and in near future I may go through a few of them and insert stuff, hoping they won't be as contentious as this one :-) (By the way, as a temp secretary in DC I average $18-20 an hours; guess what the only job I was up for that paid $32 - Fannie Mae!! Didn't get it so I'm not a co-conspirator to looting the trough :-) Oops. Just checked my resume. I did have a job for six months in mid-90s at Sallie Mae branch that paid going rate - of course they only gave me an hour of work a day and I wrote a book the rest of the time. :-) Carol Moore 16:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

$32/hr is hardly looting the trough in a high cost area like DC. Getcha money, girl! Bleacherdave (talk) 20:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Full Quotes Connecting Fannie and Freddie & CRA

Someone wrote if "sources don't connect Fannie/Freddie with the CRA, then it is synthesis."

• First, I just changed Bernanke Speech on CRA article to show that in his Speech on CRA he was discussing important financial issues affecting CRA financial environment. In that paragraph (Third one in "Evolution of CRA" section) there are four. Two others mentioned elsewhere in the article. The other one was usury. I took material I had researched and stuck in usury section --which some might call WP:SYN background - and it in as a footnote to where it is directly relevant, i.e., Bernanke mentioning usury laws as impacting CRA. The problem is I'm not really sure yet what laws or regulations repealed which mortgage usury laws and when. Anyone else want to volunteer to find out?? The last influence is Fannie and Freddie. Now I can run around and find more refs if Bernanke isn't good enough for you.
• Bear Stearns whole relevant quote is:

"First Union Capital Markets Corp. and Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. have priced a $384.6 million offering of securities backed by Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) loans - marking the industry's first public securitization of CRA loans."

• Roberts Wall Street Journal full quote is:

"Fannie and Freddie were part of the CRA story, too. In 1997, Bear Stearns did the first securitization of CRA loans, a $384 million offering guaranteed by Freddie Mac. Over the next 10 months, Bear Stearns issued $1.9 billion of CRA mortgages backed by Fannie or Freddie. Between 2000 and 2002 Fannie Mae securitized $394 billion in CRA loans with $20 billion going to securitized mortgages."

• CSR Newswire relevant quotes are:

To expand the secondary market for affordable community-based mortgages nationwide, Fannie Mae (FNM/NYSE), the nation's largest source of financing for home mortgages, today announced a commitment to purchase $2 billion of "MyCommunityMortgage" loans through a suite of flexible mortgage options for low- and moderate-income borrowers purchasing one-to-four unit homes. . . "We want to work with lenders who are willing to tackle the toughest housing problems in America, which is the focus of our American Dream Commitment," said Dan Mudd, Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of Fannie Mae. "By teaming with lenders, Fannie Mae can not only help increase lending to minorities and other underserved market segments, but we also can assist depository institutions in meeting their own community investment goals and objectives. We look forward to working with our customers to create increased liquidity for Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) -eligible loans."

• Fannie Mae MyCommunityMortgage page just shows this program still exists. If THAT ref is WP:synthesis, it can be deleted.

Carol Moore 13:44, 6 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Here I complied with the request for exact quotes from [User:ImperfectlyInformed|II]. But instead of discussion I get from [User:Lawrencekhoo|LK] only deletion without explanation. As I put in my reverting edit summary: put back specific relevant information which was deleted without edit summary and without specific criticism ("in talk")' (I accidently deleted word in talk. I only hear vague criticisms of things [User:Lawrencekhoo|LK] doesnt like in talk and then he just deletes whole sections without even being cooperative enough to put in an edit summary. Please try to edit more coopartively. Thanks.

Carol Moore 16:29, 6 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Regarding Bernanke speech - he has two seperate threads: 1) changes to the CRA, and 2) changes to the general financial environment. The Community Reinvestment Act is a very specific and limited regulation. All it does is require that subject lending institutions be evaluated on a set of specific practices. It is not appropriate to describe changes in the general mortgage market as changes in the CRA environment; it would be appropriate to describe changes in specific CRA criteria as changes in the CRA market. Neither usury laws nor affordable housing credits fall under CRA, nor does Bernanke say that they do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bleacherdave (talk • contribs) 04:29, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Bernanke quote: "Even as these [CRA] developments were occurring, extensive change was taking place in the financial services sector. During the 1980s and 1990s, technological progress significantly improved data collection and information processing, which led to the development and widespread use of credit-scoring models and the availability of generic credit history scores. Deregulation also contributed to the changes in the marketplace. Notably, the lifting of prohibitions against interstate banking was followed by an increased pace of industry consolidation. Also, the preemption of usury laws on home loans created more scope for risk-based pricing of mortgages. Securitization of affordable housing loans expanded, as did the secondary market for those loans, in part reflecting a 1992 law that required the government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to devote a percentage of their activities to meeting affordable housing goals (HUD, 2006). A generally strong economy and lower interest rates also helped improved access to credit by lower-income households." Bernanke clearly sets these changes apart from CRA developments. These are general changes in the financial services sector, not changes to the CRA. CRA is not an "affordable housing law"; the goal of CRA is to encourage access to credit. A significant beneficiary of the CRA has been middle class owners of property in low and moderate income neighborhoods. Very few neighborhoods would have been gentrified if lenders had not begun lending in them. Bleacherdave (talk) 04:37, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Confusing, inaccurate POV of New "enforcement" section

• Enforcement evolved through time, influenced by admin and legist moves, including the role of community groups in putting more and more pressure on banks to comply. So putting current enforcement up front is just inaccurate, with the POV to have people pay less attention to the evolution.
• This misuse of quote this quote shows the problem. It was part of the "Original Act" section and originally said "groups slowly organized". "Over time, community groups have slowly organized to take advantage of their right under the Act to complain about law enforcement of the regulations. This has lead to increased compliance with CRA regulations.[5][9][10]
• The Bernanke material is in part redundant advocacy material and in the wrong section.
• Note we don't give "advice" links to people in the text. It is valid to mention Clinton set up the web site and then put the site in the reference, next to the actual reference.
• If you can defend the changes, do so here soon." Thanks. Carol Moore 19:36, 6 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

The Enforcement section should reflect all current enforcement efforts - the laws & regulations as they now stand - and a little history if relevant (I'm not wedded to this). I'm happy to see it fleshed out more, and edited to make things clearer, but do not remove cited relevant information just because you don't like what it says. BTW, how can a section about enforcement and history be POV? Do try to be WP:civil, this talk page is filled with you're incivility. The 'if you can' is just gratuitous. LK (talk) 20:06, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

POV can be unconscious and one tries to make others aware of them. See you did make changes dealing with my concerns.

Also, don't you realize what this sentence sounds like: Discussing the reasons for the Clinton administration's proposal to strengthen the CRA, Lloyd Bentsen, Secretary of the Treasury at that time, said, "The only thing that ought to matter on a loan application is whether or not you can pay it back, not where you live."

It's sounds like he's saying, if you live in an upper-middle class or upper-class neighborhood, you too can get loans, as long as you can pay." Is that what you want people to think it means???

I'm always willing to admit when I make a mistake, as I have a couple times above. Carol Moore 23:06, 6 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

--There was an historical context to this act: some urban areas were considered disaster relief neighbourhoods (eg, the South Bronx) around 1977. It would be interesting to know who specifically benefited: were any wikipedia commentators recipients of this service. If so, did they benefit or not. It seems to me to be a worthwhile legislation that was misused/abused by some, but might have helped some truly deserving.~~humble opinion~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.156.43.8 (talk) 13:43, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I haven't taken the train past the south bronx in 25 years so don't know how it is faring. Most of the govt regulators made a salary and hope to get a pension from their govt jobs. Lots of real estate brokers, home flippers and high flying investors did too, if they got out of the market in time. I don't think too many bankers are editing here. Govt employees or community activists making a $100 -200,000 a year or financial consultants trying to tell their investors their CRA-related investments really were good in order to avoid beheading may be :-). Hopefully they'd share any such POV. ;-) Carol Moore 14:49, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

But were some of the disadvantaged people this act was ostensibly passed for actually benefit from the CRA? Being a homeowner can help restore community spirit and revitalize or slow a neighbourhood from decaying. It was passed three decades ago (and modified later)and must have helped a few people. Or did it not help anyone at all? I don't mean financial or enforcement agents or community activists (the latter of whom I believe don't make much money anyway). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.156.43.8 (talk) 14:05, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Why all the fluff and redundancy?

• I mean outlining enforcement in the sentence before the enforcement section?

Then I dealt with these 3 problems with very clear edit summaries and then you reverted my fixes.

• A whole paragraph on three agencies that are adequately described in one sentence which was reverted? Remember all Fannie Mae was in a speech about CRA or policies influencing CRA or were other refs directly related to CRA. Mentioning all those agencies borderline WP:OR; going on and on about them even more so.
• Mentioning redlining twice in same paragraph. You reverted my fix; one mention was adequate.
• "Speaking in 2007, the 30th anniversary of the CRA, Ben Bernanke," is pure POV. Mentioning name of speech would be acceptable.

These don't seem to have any point but they do make editing very frustrating for others and I hope that is not the intent! Once I put in a couple more things we can get third opinions on specific issues, but I don't think you really want the 4 issues above to be them. So feel free to save me the time and hassle and aggravation of doing it yourself. Carol Moore 15:31, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

The lead should summarize the whole article - including the section following the lead. It seems to me that you consider anything that doesn't paint the CRA in a bad light as fluff and redundancy. The information you have been removing is about why the CRA was passed, and how it works. It is information basic to the topic of the article, and it deserves more space than any speculations about connections to the GSEs (Fannie, Freddie, Sallie). Esssentially, the GSEs took the loans that happened to be from lower income neighbourhoods and packaged them. They also took loan from higher income neighbourhoods as well. There was no material distinction in how they treated those loans. What the GSEs did or did not to loans and securities has no direct connection with enforcement of the CRA, and hence is largely irrelevant. LK (talk) 18:13, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Obviously I disagree about whether there is need for info for reasons I've stated above. In fact I realized that the Fannie/Freddie/Usury stuff probably was fluff and after someone deleted it, I just adjusted the relevant section to make sure people could find out what it is about. So that info now IS directly related to CRA.

The GSE's were instructed to buy up CRA loans. See article: "In 2000, in order to expand the secondary market for affordable community-based mortgages and to increase liquidity for CRA-eligible loans, Fannie Mae committed to purchase and securitize $2 billion of "MyCommunityMortgage" loans." There is a material distinction. They bundled bad loans and good loans together and sold them off, not telling people just how bad the bad ones were. What it is relevant to is the controversy and accusations that surround the bill in the news - therefore it is NOTABLE and worthy of coverage here. In the fact or opinion section, depending on source and direct relevance. Carol Moore 21:50, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Well, I disagree. I think it's as in the same spirit as noting on the page about Domino's pizza, that the unabomber liked to order Domino's. Unless, theres something about Dominos that makes people want to blow up colleges, such information is trivia. I don't see anything in the laws or enforcement mechanism of CRA that makes the GSEs want to securitize loans, they did it themselves (in fact that was what they were set up to do - their raison d'etre). Anyway, even if relevant, it shouldn't be in the section about 1989-1994 congressional changes. (Is there a tag for irrelevant info, should be moved or deleted?) LK (talk) 03:54, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Do consider the "MyCommunityMortgage" loans in the "good loans" or "bad loans" bucket? Why or why not? Your opinions do matter - they're evidenced by the tortured way you've horned in some speeches (opinion pieces). Thanks for the link to the Reliable Source page - I've just barely scanned it. But based on that quick read - are those speeches a reliable source? After all speeches aren't fact checked before publication. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bleacherdave (talk • contribs) 14:46, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Err, sorry, are you addressing Carol or me (Lawrence)? In general, speeches, blogs, and other essentially self-published sources are considered reliable for describing themselves, and what they say. So a speech by Bernanke is a reliable source for what Bernanke says. Whether the quote should be in the article depends on how much weight and standing the person has on the topic. For example, the statement of the chair of the Federal Reserve about banking regulations has more standing than that of a Professor of Biology, however, the situation would be reversed, were they talking about evolution. BTW, don't forget to sign your comments by putting four tildes after them, like so: ~~~~

LK (talk) 15:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I was addressing Carol. But this one is addressed to you, LK - is a politician's area of expertise the subject matter of his speech, or is it just politics? I'd suggest politics are the highest priority for an pre-retired politician, and subject matter comments are subservient to the political goal. Bleacherdave (talk) 20:46, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

BleacherDave [User:Lawrencekhoo|LK] says: "I don't see anything in the laws or enforcement mechanism of CRA that makes the GSEs want to securitize loans." This article doesn't include every relevant regulation or admin. decision, so the causes of some things from the CRA/FDIC/Treasury side may remain mysterious until further info is forthcoming. And I've got a google alert on the act. Also, that info was been put in by other editors earlier in the process so I'm not the only one thinking it is relevant. We might not mention the Unibomber eating pizza, but we might mention that his favorite book was about bombing scientiests and he bombed a bunch of scientists, or whatever obvious cause or effect, just to use the same metaphor or analogy. Carol Moore 16:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)'Carolmooredc

Carol, did I say that? I can't find that quote. To expand the analogy, if Bin Laden's doing the bombing, the Unabomber's reading habits are irrelevant.

Ok, the analogy has become so tortured I've lost it :-) Better stick to facts. Carol Moore 22:34, 8 October 2008 (UTC)'Carolmooredc

Do CRA Regulations Make Banks Pay Groups Pay Actual "Fees"?

This was mentioned in a couple articles which I haven't or haven't finished defending as not WP:RS. And "Fee". seems to have stayed in the article even though neither of the sources attached to it mention such fees. I'm beginning to suspect that what they meant by "fees" was more an economic than a practical term, ie the activity of challenging and hanging up opening of new "deposit facilities" (bank branches?) and mergers and acquisitions. This has lead banks to not only make more loans available BUT contribute to groups. What they call fees, others call rent seeking. And that's what will come out in any Senate material eventually found. Any ideas? Carol Moore 23:52, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

The CRA doesn't "make" banks do anything. The CRA is merely a ranking and data dissemination tool. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. --Bleacherdave

It seems clear from the description by the federal agencies that CRA doesn't require any fees to be paid to anyone. However, community groups can collect fees when they arrange mortgages, the same as any other mortgage broker does. Also, if set up as a non-profit, community groups can accept donations from banks. However, we shouldn't charge community groups with extortion and banks with bribery, unless there is strong documentation that it actually took place (ie. an opinion piece in a newspaper is not enough.) LK (talk) 03:59, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'd read or figured it was brokerage fees earlier and then forgotten. We should find a source that makes that more explicit. And for "forcing" banks, obviously if they will not allow them to open a new branch or buy a new bank or merge with another bank unless they do 15% of mortgages in a certain class or 500 mortgages or whatever the numerical is, they are being forced because other wise they are prohibited from doing what they want. That's right up there at the top of the article. Carol Moore 16:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Carol, that's my point. THERE IS NO NUMERICAL THRESHOLD. Obviously. No quota, obviously. Many (most?) of the bank mergers were approved over the protests of community organizations that the banks were not adequately living up to the CRA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bleacherdave (talk • contribs) 20:53, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Braunstein describes how they judgeunder "implementation." But I'll have to study when tomorrow when it doesn't look like gobbly gook. I know it's something more specific than previously, just not clear what. Carol Moore 22:51, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Carol, thanks for putting that link here. That was very helpful. Check it out - I think your concerns will be allayed. There is no formula - it's a case by case basis. There are many people and organizations who haven't found the Fed to be very responsive in blocking mergers as a result of perceived CRA inadequacies. Here's a snippet on merger numbers from Braunstein, "Since 1988, there have been more than 13,500 applications for the formation, acquisition, or merger of bank holding companies or state-member banks reviewed by the Federal Reserve Board. Over this time, twenty-five applications have been denied, with eight of those failing to obtain Board approval involving unsatisfactory consumer protection or community reinvestment issues." The merger hearings are a matter of public record - maybe someone wants to dig further into the eight. Bleacherdave (talk) 02:37, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

And where is the statistic on ________ branches/mergers/acquisitons held up by community group protests for _____ months at a cost of $___ million dollars is lost opportunity, plus $____________ dollars in money paid in brokers fees or outright contributions to community groups?? Carol Moore 14:24, 9 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Source suggestion

I've taken this page off my watchlist, but Daniel Gross from Slate/Newsweek has a column on this issue here. Slate is a (arguably) center-left magazine, but it is no The Nation. Gross is a good economic journalist insofar as he seeks to understand economics before weighing in on things. This can be included in the article to contextualize some of the criticism. Protonk (talk) 05:24, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Gross makes the obvious point, the one so obvious that it hardly bears repeating: there's nothing in the CRA encouraging lax standards or linking it to the housing bubble. Unfortunately, conservatives aren't interested in the truth. In fact, we might just solidify misinformation through a "backfire" effect! [4]07:47, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, anyone who isn't looking at all the negative effects is being biased. But as one of the first laws that, once sufficiently manipulated by partisans, pretty much forced banks to lend to people who should not have been encouraged to take on debt they couldn't handle, it started a negative downward trend. And I think it is immoral because it was a law that, esp. after 1995, ensured community groups and/or brokers and/or banks and/or Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac or Wall Street could fulfill quotas and/or make a bundle. And they did it by pushing a lot of people who were hanging in with marginal but at least NOT negative credit ratings into buying homes they eventually defaulted on. Now they have seen their credit trashed and lost their homes, and any money they put into it. And now with a lousy credit rating they can't rent any place half as decent as where they lived before they owned a home and it probably costs more!

Home ownership is expensive. There's big bills every time you turn around; a lot of poorer people would rather see the landlord pay them. Pushing people into housing who can't afford it is not doing them a favor.

That is not a "conservative" or even a "libertarian" issue. That is an issue for anyone with any common sense!! I've come across several such opinions in a few sources and have to go back and collect some at some point and list. Carol Moore 16:21, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Carol, why do you believe that? Most mainstream economists (including all the presidents of the Fed banks, and the Fed system chair) think that the CRA loans were as safe and profitable as other 'prime' loans. (They blame sub-prime & Alt-A loans for the housing bubble - those 'non-conforming' loans were mainly non-CRA loans.) The people who actually did empirical studies (slogging through the data) came to the same conclusion. The only people who think other wise are i) obviously partisan (eg. Austrian economists) and ii) did not actually crunch any data. You (I'm guessing here) probably did not work in a bank's CRA compliance office, or in a federal regulatory agency, or did empirical (number crunching) research on the matter. And yet you are very sure of your position. Is it just a gut feeling? A philosophical position that regulations are bad, and so they must have damaged the economy? LK (talk) 17:54, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the key difference here is this line above: "...pretty much forced banks to lend to people who should not have been encouraged to take on debt they couldn't handle." and "...because it was a law that, esp. after 1995, ensured community groups and/or brokers and/or banks and/or Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac or Wall Street could fulfill quotas and/or make a bundle." There was no such mechanism to 'force' banks to make bad loans (and in fact some far more serious, even if also ineffective, regulations to punish banks writing bad loans, not to mention losing money on them), and there was certainly no way that CRA created a mechanism to allow banks (or anyone) to "make a bundle." There had to be a purchaser for anyone to make money, which - it is abundantly clear - held true for _any_ mortgage-related asset, not just those that had any connection, however remote, with CRA. Far more money was lost on lending to people with larger mortgages, which does not coincide with smaller loan balances/the poor/the CRA targets.--Gregalton (talk) 19:11, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

"Like I said, anyone who isn't looking at all the negative effects is being biased. But as one of the first laws that, once sufficiently manipulated by partisans, pretty much forced banks to lend to people who should not have been encouraged to take on debt they couldn't handle, it started a negative downward trend." This is somewhat laughable, one can look at all the negatives effects and still be skeptical of how much the CRA had to do with any of the current debacle. I think there are certainly a great many liberties taken in the view that "Democrats and the CRA are responsible for all of this" argument. It's not to say that there aren't Democrats without blood on their hands, but lets be realistic. This whole sub-prime meltdown is far more complex than the "they did it" mentality that comments like the above indicate. Certainly one can argue that some LMI individuals receiving CRA loans have contributed to the problem, but that hardly explains this whole mess. Check out this Wall Street Journal article from December 2007 (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119662974358911035.html) and try to tell me there aren't a significant number of people out there who took on risky subprime loans and who had the ability to pay and qualify for a prime mortgage loan. Why? because they were tricked? Because they were greedy and wanted a lower interest rate and thought they would just refinance later? Can you tell me how many of these borrowers who did not need the subprime loans are now in default or foreclosed on? Probably not, available data does not really break down delinquency of sub-prime loans by those who could have qualified for a prime loan but chose not to. It is far easier to simply indicate that the CRA forced banks to give loans to people who couldn't afford it and ignore all the other intangibles here. Sidereal33 (talk) 20:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

And finally, there are homes for LMI budgets. There are some surprisingly inexpensive homes in the hood - not even counting those infamous $10K Detroit fixer-uppers - there are urban and rural areas with homes in the <$30K, <$50K, and less than $100K price ranges. Of course, banks aren't going to make as much money on these loans, yet the paperwork volume isn't much different. CRA is to encourage borrowers for these homes to get evaluated on the same criteria - LTV, DTI, etc, as borrowers in more upscale areas. Another important element of the CRA mechanism is educational - teaching people about the process, what it takes to qualify, and how to get there - so that in 2-5 years time, a potential borrower becomes a borrower. That's a big part of what the community advocacy groups do. Bleacherdave (talk) 21:07, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

<--backdent General reply to couple comments above:

• Are there any govt numbers on how many loans bank bought from middlemen and used to fulfill CRA obligations? That sure would help clarify a lot of things wouldn't it?? (I haven't even gotten around to reading the numbers in Barr etc once I realized I should.)
• Considering the Fannie Mae scandal with cooking the books, and that paid economists are yelling about CRA, pardon me if I tend to believe they could be correct. And don't tell educated citizens don't have a right to try to figure out what effect their laws have had on problems in the economy - without govt economists and bureaucrats telling us to shut up :-)
• Citizens have a right to expect the worse of the govt, esp when it's officials go back and forth between various entities (advocacy groups or big banks and investment houses) that profit from the laws. I guess this is the beachfront I've staked out to do it, though that hardly was my original intent. :-)
• As I said before, there's a difference between blaming CRA for "everything" and pointing out that CRA was the first law that effectively mandated private sector banks to make (clarifying material added later) loans that were at the very least less profitable than other loans - and that worse is charged by academic economists.

The claim the CRA was "the first law...." isn't factual. I'm speaking in broad strokes here, but the agency that became the FHA was set-up during the depression to provide home loans to struggling Americans. That was its mandate, and those loans were certainly less profitable than the lending that the private sector was doing. Unfortunately, in carrying out this mandate the FHA literally ended up red-lining minority, white ethnic and some urban LMI areas. No loans were made in these areas. This redlining practice became institutionalized and was adopted by private sector lending institutions. Bernstein points out that the 1956 FDIC? act contains the same language as the CRA - lending institutions are required to serve the convenience and needs of their communities, consistent with safe and sound principles. Unfortunately, redlining practices continued and the CRA was codified as a mechanism to encourage the flow of credit to urban AND rural communities. Bleacherdave (talk) 02:57, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• In the end it's a matter of what the sources say. And it may take the sources outside the govt a long time to get data together. Meanwhile I see "govt sources" (even under Bush!!) get more respect than non govt here and that's an issue that should be brought to WP:RS.
• Obviously the Republicans made some attempt to do that in 2005, but Bush et al were too busy fighting wars to clean up the govt caused economic distortions they knew damn well eventually would lead to where we are today. So that's just one more evil things Republicans did when they had full power.
• By the way, if people are concerned this article will lose Obama the election, I wouldn't worry about it. Not with John "bomb iran" M. running against him :-)
• And if someone has a conflict of interest like working for an advocacy group - or its attorneys - or a broker who wants to keep getting those big CRA fees, or working for the govt as a CRA enforcer or analyst, or needing to reassure investors they gave them good advice on CRA loans, or making their socialist professor happy by smashing academic Austrian economists, etc etc. they should a) read WP:conflict of interest and b) realize, as it says, that while we editors can't "out" people, reporters and other third parties have been known to come by and do it, including in major publications.
• I don't know who was who - and this return is more than a year old - so certainly not outing anyone, but type in the name of this article at wikiscanner.virgil.gr/. Amazing how many bank employees had something to say. Assume it can be updated at the owner's discretion though that's not clear from the article. WikiScanner

Carol Moore 23:38, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Relation to 2008 financial crisis section

I think the sythesis of the critical section deletes some important issues, but a bit burnt out on it today so will fix it up in next couple days. Also waiting to see what fun WP:RS articles google sends me. Carol Moore 17:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Looks like there has been a strong effort to shift the blame away from the CRA recently, most of this stuff wasnte here just a few days ago. I've seen tons of stuff from Wall Street Journal, Von Mises Institute, Reason Magazine, Cato and Heritage going back to 1995 criticizing the CRA but most of the sources here mysteriously claim its no problem? Who added all this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.0.216.246 (talk) 22:28, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your support. Will be dealing with it tomorrow. Carol Moore 22:51, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

"Looks like there has been a strong effort to shift the blame away from the CRA recently" Mine is not so much about shifting the blame away from the CRA as asking for an "unbiased" look at how much, if any, the CRA is deserving of blame. I certainly am not one to suggest that either Democrat or Republican is innocent in this whole mess, but neither am I one to point a finger solely at the CRA. It is not to say that loans made by banks complying with CRA requirements may not be in default - perhaps even at a higher proportion that non CRA loans - but there is no smoking gun here. CRA's relation to the financial crisis can not be accurately or authoritatively discerned. There is no evidence that banks were somehow "forced" to make bad loans to consumers. There is no evidence showing how much of the financial meltdown is attributable to CRA, or to greedy borrowers who made bad decisions, or to greedy loan originators who saw a way to make easy money by "duping" gullible consumers into high risk loans, or ... I could go on.

CRA has been in place for over 30 years, it was revised 13 years ago, and now suddenly it has gone bad? If you look at this article from Investopedia (http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/subprime-blame.asp) there is a chart on page two from Credit Suisse (admittedly it has not been independently verified - but there is little reason to believe either Investopedia or Credit Suisse is deliberately misrepresenting the data) that shows Subprime mortgage originations in billions of dollars dating back to 1994. Viewing the chart it is easy to see that yes, subprime lending increased in 1996, 1997, and 1998 after Bill Clinton's revisions to the Act, but then subprime activity remained relatively steady until 2001 (There is also this article from Standard & Poor's - http://www2.standardandpoors.com/portal/site/sp/en/us/page.article/3,1,1,0,1148444105578.html - which talks about how many of the subprime underwriting standards popular today did not even exist in 2001). And then came the dot.com crash, 9/11, and the fed lowering interest rates to historic lows, and then the floodgates really opened on subprime borrowing as cheap money drove housing prices upward and out of control. Greed ruled the day. Is there any proof that CRA and/or subprime lending would have grown as exponentially as they did if those events had not occurred? I think it is fair to ask questions. I think it is fair to doubt government. I think it is fair to doubt propaganda from the left and from the right. And I remain a skeptic and ask for proof. I do not want unsubstantiated rhetoric from an economist with biased political leanings. I do not want questionable studies from a law firm paid by the industry, I want real answers here, and we simply do not have them. So in fairness, either keep the discussion open to both sides, or take it out entirely (I vote the latter). Until you can show an actual causal connection that can not be attributed to other factors, it simply is conjecture to suggest that CRA has culpability in this mess. Carol - I do not envy you as I know your job must be difficult, so I wish you luck in sorting this all out. Sidereal33 (talk) 04:54, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

This crisis of course was started by many things. The CRA is obviously ONE of them. A law that told banks to give out subprime loans which later defaulted obviously contributed somehow. Right now we have to figure out how much it contributed to this and what caused this once helpful act (before 1993 at least) to turn into this. Memeligutsa (talk) 05:03, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

"CRA has been in place for over 30 years, it was revised 13 years ago, and now suddenly it has gone bad?" The average loan that defaults, will default after 8 years. Add the fact that the average CRA-based loan was issued YEARS after the 1995 CRA revisions (most such as Cato don't blame the base CRA, they blame the revisions and I think especially the 1995 revision, right?). This is also as more homes were bought in a housing market that kept growing thru the mid-2000's, so we'd probably need to get a "weighted average"...but since I don't have the data handy on how CRA loans grew/shrank in that 1995-2007 period, even if we assume it neither shark nor grew 1995-2007, that's 12 years, so add half that (6 years) to 1995, to get ROUGH estimate of when the average post-1995 loan was issued...then add the 8 years it takes for an average defaulter to default). So basically yes, 13 years isn't that far of a stretch; the negative-effects could be delayed for 13 years...even if the systemic collapse was going to be reached when only the average defaulter defaulted, rather than until all defaulters defaulted. (of course, this could go the other way: it could be a system prone to collapsing before the average defaulter goes under, in which case then the CRA's 1995 revisions wouldn't match the timeline.) However I generally agree with the rest of what you said about economics & too many other things in the fiscal/housing picture were occurring to say CRA was definitely at fault; it was only one law in an overall trend of loosened legislation & regulations.

Food for thought. All of the banks in the free market were affected by the CRA. Non-CRA banks had to compete with CRA banks, the CRA changed the market place by lowering the qualifications for loans. This changed the whole dynamic of the industry. When you force a change to the market to make risky loans and require the GSEs to buy those risky loans and sell them to the rest of the market. You have effectively infected the entire credit market with a time bomb. Since credit begets credit, when the foundation crumbles everything built on that foundation falls. Look at the products that were offered, no interest loans, 100% loans and no income verification loans ect. Very risky loans indeed.66.225.33.225 (talk) 21:16, 13 November 2008 (UTC)REC

You are correct and some WP:RS said something similar though there was some gutting of their comments a month or so ago and I've been distracted and haven't fixed up that section. There's so much that has to be fixed wanted to do all at once, but today decided to start piecemeal. Carol Moore 22:19, 13 November 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

In my opinion the opening statement of this section is misleading. The opening statement - The connection between economic policy and actual economic results is a matter of research and opinion, but rarely does it involve empirical (observable) phenomena. E.g., despite all of the research and argument about the Great Depression and FDR's actions related to it, there are many economists who argue that FDR's policies helped, and many that argue that his policies hurt. There is research to support these opinions, but it is not "empirical" research because this is economics - not astronomy or physics. I think the opening statement should simply say that there are economists on with opinions on both sides of this issue (which is, in fact, the case). Neither side would ever be able to claim "empirical" support that could link a given policy to a given result.

As for this stuff about 50% of loans being made by non-regulated companies, this is a red herring. Consider the following hypothetical: If I had solid evidence showing that former Secty of Def. Rumsfeld relaxed the torture standards at 50% of U.S. military prisons (and publicized that fact), would anyone seriously argue that this disclosed lowering of standards would have no impact on the other 50% of military prisons? I realize this is my opinion (and not appropriate for publication) but I wish to note that I have worked with small mortgage companies for 25 years and these small companies survive by getting loans to the people that the bigger banks will NOT lend to. If the bigger lenders are forced to relax their lending standards, the little lenders (not covered DIRECTLY by the Community Reinvestment Act) have to also lower their standards.

Nicholas007 (talk) 17:39, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your comments but have been too focused on other things to deal with the strong POV's of some editors, which I've complained about here. CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:43, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

REF: "that 'empirical research has not validated these claims' is misleading". ~Nicholas007

I also agreed, so (as Gregalton also recommended on this 'talk' page), I tried to balance that paragraph. GENERAL DESCRIPTION: making the arguments of both sides stronger (pro-Fed and anti-Fed, "stronger" as I described on the history-page dated 1-13-09), and to more accurately reflect what each side is saying, and keep the introductory paragraph from being a one-sided argument with NPOV issues, as described in my next 3 paragraphs. Also keeping it so the "flow" is: intro-paragraph showing the contentiousness of the issue (both sides represented in an OVERVIEW), one side's paragraph, the other side's paragraph, then a paragraph for Raines+another Fed governor expressing uncertainty. REASONS for my first-paragraph revisions:

1. addressed Nicholas' observations, hopefully. (SEE ALSO NEXT PARAGRAPH re: "encyclopedic voice".) NOTE: LK's edit tonight doesn't address Nicholas' concerns...nor any of the others in this paragraph...but TY for trying LK. 2. As I wrote this to Lawrence earlier today: As this paragraph existed before my edit, it "presents info in a POV way, as a one-sided argument (see [5]); I'm trying to balance that POV. I gave the opposing POV (NOT my own POV), of Professor Stan Liebowitz [and others]." 3. very important: Obviously the "How much did CRA influence the recession" issue is not as simple as "but empirical research has not validated these claims" and even Kroszner (the Fed member being cited) doesn't represent it that way, yet the article (mis)represented Kroszner's work that way, until I edited it and gave actual quotes of Kroszner stating his position in his own words. 4a. I'm calling-out in the article that this cite (ref-tag) is non-peer-reviewed research which "advances a position"), and therefore shouldn't be presented in the "encyclopedic voice" (SEE ALSO NEXT PARAGRAPH re: "encyclopedic voice"). 4b. the "emical" evidence is also sourced from an agency whose conflict-of-interest, in plain English, is a desire to "cover their own ass"...or as I described it to LK: "The Fed, being one of the parties accused (again, NOT by me) of financial incompetence (allowing the subprime crisis to occur), has its own POV and an incentive (conflict-of-interest) to skew the numbers to "prove" the CRA was of minimal or no importance (many others cited on this page also have such conflicts-of-interest); they are therefore a partisan to the issue on the Wikipedia page, and should be cited as such (whilst citing the partisans on the other side...and citing them as such), instead of citing either partisan side's "evidence" as an authoritative, NEUTRAL (encyclopedic) source, when it is not.". 4c. And, the source is accused by a professional (putting his own rep on the line, but belonging to the other biased party and I've made BOTH their biases clear to encyclopedia readers) of methodological flaws. Because of all those things, this citation of Kroszner is similar to some of the other non-published (not for open peer-review) 'research' by lawyers who have a financial interest in the CRA (as already discussed on this 'talk' webpage). 5. I think this citation of Kroszner's "empiricism" is related to the topic "unencyclopedic," sources, further down on this 'talk' page...and I've posted separate comments there (you can ctrl+F for "Firstly, I agree there's no credible quantitative proof to show the CRA had a MAJOR impact on the subprime mess..." ...and I said that for reasons similar to what Nicholas gave: you aren't GOING TO get quantitative results showing a CRA-recession link unless you have god-like powers to remove every potential for ad hoc logical fallacies in such a complex financial/housing market). Another important thing:

EVERYONE please take note: The "empirical" evidence from The Fed that I'm making edits on is not "peer-reviewed" and 'LK (Lawrence) himself acknowledged that "peer-reviewed" should be a requirement for "all statements in the encyclopedic voice". I'm changing that Fed citation to not be in an encyclopedic voice for the very same reason LK agreed it shouldn't be stated in such an authoritative voice. So oddly, LK has agreed with me (when it suits his POV, anyway ;-) ), yet LK still deleted my edit. ;-) I've re-posted it tonight... Feel free to modify my additions (as is reasonable+truthful), but I think deleting them wholesale (as LawrenceKhoon did, user "LK" on this 'talk' page) would take it back to that non-NPOV that Nicholas007 and Carol saw (and ?Gregalton?, and I saw it too of course!) -- which I can see now from reading this 'talk' page in the last couple of hours, is a non-NPOV LK holds personally. (e.g. his zeal to include bloggers who aren't economic experts, but simultaneously wants to remove a REAL economist, hand-picked as a leading student of a REAL Nobel Laureate for being "fringe": how shameful! Whether it's the hand-picked students of Krugman or Hayek (who disagree greatly with each other) or any other Nobel/economics Laureate (or even Husock, of Harvard's Kennedy School), I have a respect for real experts and real science, whether they disagree with me or not, unlike some of the Poison the Well fallacies used by LK & others against the Austrians on this 'talk' page (which I should remind LK, that his own bias is just as transparent as the biases he accuses the Austrians of; but unlike you LK, I won't be illogical enough to suggest that means "anything you or they say on this topic automatically nulled"; they should be cited, but their potentials for bias should be noted just as Koszner's or anyone's potentials for bias should be noted). (e.g. Newsweek has a Rabbi Gellman who applies religion to political issues; that doesn't mean Newsweek as a whole, nor even everything Gellman says, is credible only to religious ideologues... That would be a "poison the well" It DOES mean you can suspect [using inductive logic] Gellman --or Austrians or LK or The Fed or whoever-- of letting their bias affect their judgment, but it can't be proven and applied to everything they say [using the stronger form of logic, deductive]). But I agree with LK on how to cite City Journal for example -- right alongside the incredibility of most of the sources LK was trying to promote as credible & authoritative, rather than opinionated partisans as Carol convinces me they are.)

My own agnosticism (NPOV) on the CRA-recession link is detailed in what I posted to this 'talk' page about 10 hours ago. I've seen other people on this 'talk' page say the first paragraph is non-NPOV, and LK alone trying to keep me from changing the NPOV one-sided argument in that first paragraph, but then LK actually accuses Carol of WP:OWN rather than vice-versa: enough is enough LK. Let BOTH sides be presented (preferably with equal-time, i.e. not UNDUE for one vs the other), rather than trying to coatrack for pro-government regulations, as you've an admitted bias for; yet you then ironically accuse that Carol is trying to coatrack it in the opposing direction (by merely presenting BOTH sides??), despite that if anything, the pro-CRA side has more UNDUE: a WHOLE PARAGRAPH longer than the anti-CRA side, the whole paragraph being citations of non-experts (?unneeded since a whole paragraph of pro-CRA EXPERTS are there? See my next paragraph).

[<--backdent, and adding an issue separate from my last, indented stuff.] Other issues with the section I'm editing:

1. I agree with GoodDamon (on this 'talk' page) that non-experts should be excluded because to quote Wikipedia policy (WP:Pro_and_con_lists): "For any given viewpoint, there is generally a large number of arguments that can be marshalled for it." We already have SUBSTANTIAL arguments from all sides that ARE sourced to experts. I won't delete the non-experts w/o discussion though (because I'm not a WP:OWN kinda guy).

2. I'm also allowing The Fed to defend itself first to avoid: A "criticisms & defenses" list is a backwards pro & con list. The opposing side is presented first, followed by the responses of the defending side.

3. HOWEVER...

Unless experts get more credible methodologies AND submit it for peer-review to support either side, the CRA's effects on recession is one such controversy which is described as follows: "There are many issues where describing a dispute or controversy is an important part of an article. There is no way to discuss certain subjects adequately without discussing the massive controversies on these issues. Pro & con lists seem to be a way to describe the views of the different sides on a controversy." It doesn't say these lists are banned, but offers advice (such as I noted above) on how to improve them, or where possible (in cases unlike this article, IMHO), eliminate them.

I think the summary of the paper of Emre Ergungor (reference 71) is misleading: in his paper Erungor does not say that there was no statistical difference in foreclosure rates between regulated and less-regulated lenders. That is only true for non-local lenders. The regulation actually seems to work for local lenders. Regrettably, the paper does not make any distinction among less-regulated lenders (if they are local or not). I propose to change it to something like this (which is more in line with the spirit of the paper): "Emre Ergungor of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found that there was a lower foreclosure rate in local regulated-lenders compared with less-regulated and non-local regulated ones. Also he found no statistical difference between the last two types of lenders". Alx-cl (talk) 07:16, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

When to use blogs/opinion pieces

The way I read WP:RS, blogs/opinion pieces are not reliable sources for encyclopedic statements of fact. However, they are similar to other WP:QS, in that they may be used to source what they themselves say.

Whether a blog/opinion piece should be included depends on the standing of the person writing, concerning the issue being written about. According to WP:V self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article. The blog/opinion piece of a professor of economics at a major university may be considered a reliable source.

I think that blog/opinion pieces are appropriate in the controversies section, but are very suspect elsewhere.

LK (talk) 03:22, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually looking at WP:RS/noticeboard discussions listed here by specific source and general topic, I don't see a discussion saying that an Opinion piece article (which is what Roberts is, not blog entry) by an economist in the Wall Street Journal would not be usable for a fact, except regarding WP:BLP. This is something that I think needs clarification as a general policy.

In the meantime I have found such an abundance of facts about what Sallie Mae admits it was up to in that period from a WP:RS business source that generally confirms the number he names and in fact shows it was much larger. In fact it's getting to the point where we need a separate CRA/SALLIE MAE section.

Please tell me if you are going to challenge this source's news story so I can bring that to WP:RS too. And once I have a reliable source essentially backing up Roberts I could use him if I chose, but wouldn't bother to avoid confusion in most readers' minds and because Fannie Mae numbers more dramatic. Carol Moore 14:37, 9 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Business Wire seems like a perfectly legit source. Not as reliable as a major newspaper perhaps, but still perfectly acceptable. BTW, if you're going to state how many billions of CRA loans Fannie Mae securitized, it'd be nice to know how many hundreds of billions of mortgages Fannie processed in total, so that we have some perspective on the size of CRA related loans. LK (talk) 15:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to find such info if it doesn't show up in edit :-) Carol Moore 15:52, 9 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

How are these paragrpahs relevant to 1989-1994 legislative changes?

Why are these paragraphs in the section about 1989-1994 legislative changes? As far as I can tell they have nothing to do with the two laws mentioned. Also, I want to emphasize this, GSEs are not CRA, news about GSEs don't have an automatic pass into an article about the CRA.

In 1997, the Federal National Mortgage Association, "Fannie Mae," a government sponsored enterprise which purchases and securitizes mortgages, helped First Union Capital Markets and Bear, Stearns & Co launch the first publicly available securitization of CRA loans, issuing $384.6 million of such securities. All carried a Fannie Mae guarantee as to timely interest and principal. These public offerings were several times oversubscribed, predominantly by money managers and insurance companies who were not buying them for CRA credit.

In October 2000, in order to expand the secondary market for affordable community-based mortgages and to increase liquidity for CRA-eligible loans, Fannie Mae committed to purchase and securitize $2 billion of "MyCommunityMortgage" loans. In November 2000 Fannie Mae announced that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) would soon require it to dedicate 50% of its business to low- and moderate-income families." It stated that since 1997 Fannie Mae had done nearly $7 billion in CRA business with depository institutions, but its goal was $20 billion. In 2001 Fannie Mae announced that it had acquired $10 billion in specially-targeted Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) loans more than one and a half years ahead of schedule. It announced that its goal was to finance over $500 billion in CRA business by 2010, about one third of loans anticipated to be financed by Fannie Mae during that period. In 2007 Ben Bernanke suggested further increasing the presence of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation which increases secondary markets) in the affordable housing market to help banks fulfill their CRA obligations by providing them with more opportunities to securitize CRA-related loans.

LK (talk) 03:13, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

• As I mentioned I would, I just put under "Relation to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac" - though just Fannie Mae probably is sufficient, so I'll change when tweak a few things;
• I think I've proved relevance from many WP:RS; this is not to say CRA is to BLAME for failure of SM/FM, only to note the relation (though I've come to see CRA like the little hole in the dike that seems innocuous but undermines whole structure - along with a bunch of other negative laws, regulations and greedy wall street jerks)
• Lets not hear any complaints about the relevance of the 2 sentence intro. After all I found out the relevance of one of the laws I complained about you listing to enforcement of CRA, with several WP:RS. Carol Moore 04:42, 10 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Just so you know, Sallie Mae does student loans, Fannie Mae does mortgages. Fannie & Freddie do essentially the same thing, Congress set Freddie up so that Fannie would have some competition. LK (talk) 08:19, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Since I corrected all those incidents of getting it wrong above, I know, but when one is a bit tired one can err.. Meanwhile, I'll be working on changing several inaccurate or POV changes in that section - which should be renamed to what it was since it was not technically a law about CRA - and still going to make the criticisms of CRA relation to subprime more reflective of what critics say. Just was working on other projects last couple days. Plus show how credit discrimination laws were/still used to force banks to expand CRA loans. Carol Moore 14:31, 10 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

I thought it bore pointing out, as your edits evidence a continued confusion about the roles of the GSEs. The GSEs repackage loans into securities - that is their function. Like other prime loans, the CRA loans were re-packaged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into securities. However, this is not license to talk about whether or how Fannie and Freddie increased risk, and contributed to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Such speculations should be restricted to the pages on the GSEs themselves. LK (talk) 08:30, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone done that except in opinion? Listing what was done directly between them just makes the point that selling through Fannie and Freddie increased ability to loan. I think some points could be made clearer either by existing or to be found sources. I haven't had a chance to get through the 30 "CRA" google alerts sitting on my computer to see how many of use. And it is a subject of interest to many readers, pro and con, so the facts - like that CRA NOT responsible for 100% of Fannie/Freddie loans, which at this point probably a lot of misinformed people think, always helpful. Bush admin just pushing them to buy up subprimes to help his faith based groups can't be let off the hook, after all, even if that is a subject for other articles. Carol Moore 13:24, 11 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Effectiveness Section problems

The effectiveness section should be listed from either most effective to most negatively effective, or vice versa. Have WP:RS negative effects info will add. Meanwhile quotes of opinion that it is effective currently in the text should be moved down. Just Fyi, in case someone else wants to do it before I get around to all the changes I need to make in next couple days. ALSO, some Fannie/Freddie material removed as not being in the source either were there or were in one of two references and I'll just have to make sure I keep references specifically to the point. So have to go through three paragraphs and make any warranted noted changes. Just to register comments here in advance so no surprises :-) Carol Moore 17:10, 10 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Barney Frank & John Boehner comments

Should this paragraph be in the page? After all, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a newspaper. LK (talk) 08:07, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Barney Frank, a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives, called Republican criticism of the Act in light of the nation's housing crisis a veiled attack on the poor that's racially motivated. House Minority Leader John Boehner called Frank's remarks "a lame, desperate attempt to divert Americans' attention away from the Democratic party's obstruction of reforms that would have reined in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac". [69]

I don't think this is the place for political smears or their retorts, unless they rise to level of great and widespread public controversy, which I believe they have not. Or unless a few editors insist they have. However, of course, when one side is presented and another is clearly a reply, both must be included :-) Carol Moore 12:05, 18 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

It's relevant given that Frank isn't just any member of the House, but is the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and has been a focus of the media criticism for his, and by extension the Democratic Party's, support of this bill. It would seem an interest of balance to allow his position on this to be stated. -- Kendrick7^talk 23:08, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

It would seem a more encyclopedic comment than his yelling racist could be found. Plus some connection between that and his questionable support for Freddie/Fannie Mae - and I have found more sources of that close connection but have work project to complete and a cold so way behind on making this article a bit closer to reality. Meanwhile, if an additional reply to Frank is found, I think two would be adequate balance for the smear he intends. Preferably from someone pointing out the racism of making a fast buck pushing subprime mortgages on low and middle income people under guise of helping them. Carol Moore 13:11, 21 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Unencyclopedic

This article is one more casualty in the recent Presidential election. No economist worth a hill of beans thinks the CRA had diddly to do with the current housing-related crisis, because most of the bad loans in question aren't event tangentially related to the CRA. CRA-regulated loans are the ones that are doing fine. Nevertheless, this article has been turned into a coatrack for attacks on its subject because of the election.

I propose the hammer approach. We revert to a version prior to the 2008 election cycle, then see what can be added back in minus the political news. Thoughts? --GoodDamon 19:18, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, even though election is over there is lots of WP:RS info (some of it reverted by those evidently supporting Obama, some of it I was waiting til after the election to put in) that CRA a) helped loosen lending standards; b) was opposed on those grounds; c) has been criticized for helping create the crisis); d) was a big part of Fannie/Freddie expansion of bad loans; e) was a reason for banks expanding loans (but may be harder to prove since 2005 reporting requirements changed); d) still has opponents who want to repeal it. So this article at this point is probably a relative puff piece on the law. It is not wikipedia's job to white was the negative consequence of this or any other law, any more than it is to white wash Bush's Enhanced interrogation techniques or the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (aka "Bailout"). Carol Moore 19:52, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

There is lots of well-sourced information out there about pundits opinionating on each of the above, yes, and perhaps some of that belongs in the article. But as for actual news articles covering the economic crisis, they mostly point out exactly the opposite of what the pundits imply about the CRA. The current version of the article relies heavily on opinion pieces by professional pundits playing amateur economists, but is remarkably lacking on news stories tying the CRA to the economic crisis. The opinion pieces go to great lengths to support a), d), e), and using those to support b) and c), certainly. But if I may make a couple of points:

• The CRA regulates the behavior of commercial banks and the mortgage lending they do. It does not regulate the mortgage companies that produced all these bad loans. Those mortgage companies did not benefit from any loosening of restrictions caused by the CRA, because they don't have anything to do with the CRA.
• The mortgages that are covered by the CRA are doing just fine. Their failure rate is more akin to that of regular loans, not the subprime ARMs generated by mortgage companies.

Now to Wikipedia policy:

• Per WP:RS: "Opinion pieces are only reliable for statements as to the opinion of their authors, not for statements of fact." How much weight should we give the opinions of a bunch of non-economist pundits? Not very much. Certainly, not enough to turn this article into a hit-piece on its subject.
• How much weight should we give the scholarly work of real economists, the overwhelmingly vast majority of which say the CRA doesn't have anything to do with the housing crisis, for exactly the reasons I've outlined above? Per Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable_sources, considerably more.

This is not a case of whitewashing, or of censorship, or anything else. This is a case of recentism. Please try to remember that there is no deadline for inclusion of material in Wikipedia. If in six months, criticism of the CRA has had a lasting effect on it, or if the CRA is demonstrated by news and economic scholarly research to have been responsible for the economic crisis, it will definitely be suitable to add that information here. But right now, the article is a mess of opinion pieces and back-and-forth between pundits. That is unencyclopedic, and should be fixed. --GoodDamon 23:21, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

1) Let's discuss what WP:RS sources and WP policies say, not personal opinions

2) It's not clear what sections you are talking about. But very strict Obama supporter task masters kept out any facts from enforcement or history sections that weren't from news, govt, academic or top notch think tank sources. And the "Controversies and Criticism" section, which includes facts and opinions, including on the financial crisis, is standard for all sorts of articles on wikipedia. It could be improved. But is it your intention to just delete that section? Please clarify explicitly.

3) If you had read talk above you would have seen that I've been getting google alerts and when get a chance will have a whole lot of higher quality and/or more up to date facts and opinions, for any entries that might be dated. You will have to identify which ones you mean.

4) I've seen enough articles to know there are a variety of academic economist opinions on a variety of aspects of CRA, so I can't blindly swallow any assertions that a great majority have any one opinion on anything. To finish after "LiveUpdate" interruption, this article was put together through long process by number of editors so WP:RS should not be capriciously deleted, even if they don't all show up again for this round. Carol Moore 00:13, 17 November 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Given the magnitude of the crisis, I doubt that attempts to blame it on the CRA (and implicitly, the Democratic Party) are going to go away now that the election is over. So, I think they have to be covered. At this stage, it's pretty clear that the weight of evidence runs heavily against this claim, and that's reflected in the article. The economists cited as supporting the claim are not exactly prominent, and many of them have an openly-stated ideological axe to grind. But until there's more published and peer-reviewed research, I think it's premature to claim a consensus on this. JQ (talk) 07:58, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

(Resetting indent) This is in response to Carol Moore:

1. I agree. I'm simply saying that per Wikipedia policy, many of the sources -- especially in the Controversies and Criticism section -- are only reliable for statements describing the opinions of their authors, not for statements of fact.
2. Controversies and Criticism is the section I'm most concerned about. Ideally, criticism from notable economists and housing experts would be sprinkled through the article; sections devoted specifically to criticism too easily become coatracks for attacks on the subject. And I just don't see the need for any criticism -- or praise, for that matter -- for the CRA from anyone lacking a professional association with the CRA, housing, or economics.
3. I'm not sure any of them are dated. Some of them simply don't belong in this article, though. Take a look at reference #56, for instance. It is a WP:OR synthesis, and references laws that govern other types of loans that the CRA has nothing to do with. This is in support of this sentence in the Predatory lending section: "Starting in the 1980s, judicial decisions and federal law had preempted usury laws limiting interest rates." The very next sentence, entirely lacking in references, says this: "By the late 1990s, predatory lending – exploitative high-cost loans to gullible borrowers – had become a serious problem in lower-income neighborhoods." There is no citation for this whatsoever.
   The next paragraph concerns the work of Kathleen C. Engel and Patricia A. McCoy, who are two experts in the field, and thus are perfectly appropriate for the article, although it has a sentence that also requires a citation in it. But the paragraph leading up to it improperly lends the notion that there is a big problem with predatory loans directly associated with the CRA, which is not backed up by Engel and McCoy's work, which finds some indirect links. That first paragraph should be completely struck from the article, and the second paragraph expanded upon to give it proper context. And the rest of that section is rife with similar problems.
4. Agree completely. Nothing should be done capriciously. I'd much rather it be done systematically. And make no mistake, I'm not saying that the CRA is immune to criticism, I'm just saying that it's demonstrably not one of the causes of the current economic crisis. To its credit, there are currently references in the article that make this abundantly clear, but those references are not currently being given more weight than references that try to tie the two together, and that's something that needs to be corrected. --GoodDamon 14:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Note that most of the problems you mention were made after I temporarily gave up on the article because I got sick of dealing with people who seemed to me to be more Election 2008 motivated that wiki motivated or I would have fixed them at the time. See how specificity can end the appearance of conflicts that don't exist? As for the details of some problems, I'll look at later today myself, but obviously feel free to change in the mean time and the worst that will happen is upon review someone might change them to something they think is more accurate :-) Carol Moore 15:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been more specific right up front. I just took one look at the section and went, "Oh my god, it's a complete mess of recentism, WP:NPOV violations, WP:SYNTH violations, and WP:NOTNEWS violations. It ought to be removed completely." Call it a gut reaction. On closer inspection, I no longer think it should be reverted outright. --GoodDamon 15:57, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, I agree there's no credible quantitative proof to show the CRA had a MAJOR impact on the subprime mess, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (Also, most of them seem to be using qualitative (logical-theoretical) arguments.), so until then, I agree (with Carol's response to Good Damon) that pundits on both sides --but especially ECONOMISTS or pol's getting advice from them-- should have their criticisms covered, just like in any other WP article. Secondly, there's not credible* proof of the opposite, either. (*NOTES on "credible": 1. peer-reviewed-and-(generally)-uncriticized methodology (preferably from sources w/o financial bias). 2. Comparisons to "non-CRA mortgages," which have attempted to "prove" the CRA played little or no role, suffer from the potential for an Ad Hoc fallacy of logic: namely that [[in a time-and-place [recent American history] where the lending practices, and regulations BESIDES the CRA, were changing the nature and riskiness of ALL loans [not only CRA loans], to observe that "but CRA loans didn't suffer defaults as badly" doesn't mean CRA loans weren't part of the subprime problems]]; such a conclusion is not logically valid nor credible, and if these were published (peer-reviewed) studies, that is just one issue that needs to be broached. That is why non-peer-reviewed studies hold less weight. A statement by The Fed [see "Kroszner" below] cited in this article seems to recognize this & other uncertainties in the data; but some of the lawyers etc profiting from the CRA seem not to acknowledge these uncertainties; the reason I made some edits is for readers to understand that The Fed isn't taking an absolutist position, but I didn't put into the article all the pedantic details that I'm including on the 'talk' page; these pedantic details aren't suitable for an encyclopedia, or for laypeople generally, but this Wikipedia article [without my edits] isn't fully disclosing what The Fed says in that weblink (citation)...let alone disclosing that The Fed is a partisan party in this imbroglio). Thirdly, I think it's not up to Good Damon to decide which economists are "worth a hill of beans" (and let's think this thru: which economists got the world into this mess again? certainly not the "worthless" ones GoodDamon is criticizing, but not everyone at The Fed is to blame,either.) and his unproven statements like "the overwhelmingly vast majority [of economists]" would be an argumentum ad populum even if GoodDamon proved that to be true. ;-) Fourthly, when The Fed's Kroszner was cited in this article, Kroszner did not try to unequivocably say what Good Damian says in his last statement: GoodDamon says "it's demonstrably not one of the causes of the current economic crisis"; but see my edit to the article quoting what The Fed DID say; it's important to include those nuances, which differ from the absolutist position GoodDamon just took: The Fed surely went to the trouble of including those nuances in its own language for a reason.

...and I agree with GoodDamon (or Carol?) wholeheartedly against this guy (205.166.66.2) LOL: —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.155.196.211 (talk) 04:13, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

This is rediculous, of course the subprime meltdown was caused in large part by the CRA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.166.66.2 (talk) 20:43, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

No, it really wasn't. The majority of CRA-regulated loans are actually doing fine. The subprime mortgages that aren't doing fine largely originate with specialized mortgage companies, not commercial banks. You can find all sorts of commentators and pundits trying to tie the two together, but not much in the way of reliable sources on economics and the housing industry. --GoodDamon 23:42, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

There are two issues, one is to what extent CRA started the psychological process of undermining lending standards, and academic economists and other good WP:RS who opine it does can be quoted in the relevant Criticism section. The other issue is whether there are statistics on banks fulfilling CRA obligations by buying mortgages from independent brokers; various WP:RS claim they did it, the question is to what extent. I haven't had a chance to go through CRA National Aggregate Reports to see if they do. No one credible is saying that CRA is the single biggest factor, but it is an integral part of government policies to increase home ownership by overriding economic fundamentals and every one and their brother taking advantage of that to make a fast buck. Carol Moore 03:38, 21 November 2008 (UTC)Damon

Using words and phrases like "the majority" and things like that are misleading. The bottom line is the CRA odered bank to loan money to people with a credit rating of 500 or lower which they would have never done without the regulations. You take these loans and multiply it by the fall in housing prices and you get what we have today. The government should stay out, period. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.166.66.2 (talk) 16:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Sources on ECOA used to enforce CRA

In regards to this addition to article on ECOA being used to enforce CRA: Despite my request that a couple users deleting this material with insufficient explanations explain on talk, none have done so. I think the sources make it clear that federal agencies and activist groups use ECOA to enforce CRA. If language needs tweaking because it's imprecise, do so or suggest how to, don't just delete the material. I'll show exact relevant quotes from relevant articles in the near future and seek outside opinions. Meanwhile the relevant articles for anyone who wants to do their own looking are:

• Kavous Ardalan, Community Reinvestment Act: Review of Empirical Evidence, Academy of Banking Studies Journal, 2006.
• Vern McKinely, Community Reinvestment Act: Ensuring Credit Adequacy or Enforcing Credit Allocation?, Cato Institute, "Regulation," 1994 Number 4.
• Example of ECOA/CRA connection: Treasury Department Performance Evaluation of The Hannibal National Bank, December 9, 1997. (I have another similar example did not list.) CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't one of the editors who deleted the comments, but looking over the disputed paragraph, it strikes me that the claims are 1) overly broad, and 2) the citations are not specific enough for another editor to be able to verify the claims. The paragraph thus looks like a case of synthesis.

The paragraph in question is: CRA regulations give community groups the right to comment on or protest about banks' non-compliance with CRA.[7] Such comments could help or hinder banks' planned expansions. Groups at first only slowly took advantage of these rights.[15] Regulatory changes during the Clinton administration allowed these community groups better access to CRA information and enabled them to increase their activities.

Which community groups are you referring to? You say the regulations give community groups rights, that they were slow to take advantage of them, but you do not give a timeframe. The groups increased their activities, but you don't say what kind of activities, or how or if they were related to the changes (again, needs timeframe -- Clinton was in office for 8 years).

What is the relevance of this paragraph, especially in the opening section of the article? Isn't this (or couldn't it be) covered adequately in the corresponding sections later in the article? Notmyrealname (talk) 20:16, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Pro and con lists are not appropriate

Recently, there has been a small revert war over these paragraphs:

Assistant professor of law Alan M. White[69] notes that some abuses blamed on the CRA actually occurred because the Housing and Urban Development and Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight under the Bush administration allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to fulfill their affordable housing goals by buying subprime mortgage-backed securities. These affordable housing goals were motivated by similar aims, but not part of the CRA.[70]

It was under the Clinton administration that Housing and Urban Development allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to fulfill their affordable housing goals by buying subprime mortgage-backed securities.[71]

The Bush administration warned as early as April 2001 that Fannie and Freddie were overleveraged and that their failure "could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting federally insured entities and economic activity" well beyond housing. President Bush repeatedly called for the reform of housing-related government sponsored enterprises such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac [72]

Efforts to control GSE were thrawted by intense lobbying by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. [73] A 2005 Republican led effort for comprehensive GSE reform was threatened with filibuster by Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT). [74]

I have 3 misgivings about this addition. 1st, the addition is in the form of POV argument-counter argument. As outlined in Wikipedia:Pro and con lists, having a list of argument and counter argument is not appropriate for an encyclopedia article. 2nd, it reads to me like original research or synthesis. 3rd, IMO, the issue is trivial and should not have such a large space devoted to it in the article. I have removed all of the paragraphs for now.

A more general concern is that the entire section on 'Controversies and criticisms' is getting overlong, and resembles Pro and con lists. The whole section needs to be trimmed back, cutting out irrelevant and tangentially relevant material, and edited to read more like an encyclopedia article, rather than a list of POV for and against - he said, she said - arguments.

LK (talk) 04:55, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I had just provided a factual rebuttal to an absolute lie. And that is in accordance WP:NPOV policy. You never had any problem with Prof. White's lies, and it was left intact for months. But when I tried to straighten the facts your deletion happy fingers started to itch. There was no justification for including Prof. White's comments, I should have deleted it but I am more considerate than you in deleting things. First of all blogs are not reliable sources. A blog that is relevant to the subject and written by an expert on the subject could be included, but it was neither. Second it was an absolute lie. It was Clinton administration decision not Bush's.

All my additions were from impeccable sources. And contrary to what you might think such additions are not forbidden by no original research poilicy. It just means "that Wikipedia is not the place to publish your own opinions, experiences, or argument" however "Research that consists of collecting and organizing material from existing sources within the provisions of this and other content policies is encouraged: this is source-based research, and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia"

Yes argument-counter argument is frowned upon, but my additions were hardly in the format cited in Wikipedia:Pro and con lists. What you really want me to do? turn a blind eye to falsehood. My additions were NOT MY OPINION but hard facts you just found inconvenient. The edit war would not have happened but for your selected editing. You let the lie remain but removed the facts.

I agree the whole issue is tangential and should not have been included in the first place. But it is funny that it became so only after actual facts were included otherwise neither you or nor anyone else had any issues with it for all those months.

I agree to rest of your comments the whole thing was trivial and should be left out of an encyclopedia article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.161.156.59 (talk) 13:25, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

A few points: 1) Personal attacks are frowned on. 2) Wikipedia is based on what can be verified and is not synthesis (please read the page on WP:OR about what is synthesis), not on what is a LIE and what is TRUE. 3) I did not add the White paragraph and am not particularly interested about whether it is there or not. 4) I am mainly motivated by wanting this article to read like an encyclopedia article, I'll delete anything that doesn't belong in an encylopedia. 5) Register an account if you want people to take you seriously. LK (talk) 06:37, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Anonymous IP editors, please register an account.

Since this page is still highly controversial, with many people weighing in on both sides, it would be helpful if IP editors who wish to participate register an account. This would facilitate communications, and also clarify who is making what arguments. Not doing so would also incline people to suspect that the anonymous IP is actually an IP sock being used to create the appearance of multiple voices. LK (talk) 12:28, 24 January 2009 (UTC)