Conservatives Race Bait the Economic Meltdown
As the US economy continues to crater, there's plenty of blame to go around. Apparently, way around.
Over at Fox news, punditator Neil Cavuto claimed the current crisis could be put on financial institutions "lending to minorities and other risky folks." While Neil is making this assertion there's B-roll of Barack Obama playing for no other reason than to make sure the Fox audience knows exactly what minorities and risky people look like.
Click here to view this delightful video.
Meanwhile, over on her blog, conservative pin-up girl Michelle Malkin has got an idea at whom we should wag our collective fingers:
"Illegal immigration, crime-enabling banks, and open-borders Bush policies fueled the mortgage crisis. Half of the mortgages to Hispanics are subprime (the accursed species of loan to borrowers with the shadiest credit histories). A quarter of all those subprime loans are in default and foreclosure."
Michelle, of course, does not substantiate or attribute those figures in any way, nor does she differentiate between legal and illegal Hispanic borrowers.
I'm sure in Michelle's mind they're all the same.
So, let's look at some facts. Over at the Heritage Foundation -- a conservative think tank -- Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D. wrote a prescient article in June of 2005 with the no-beating-around-the-bush title: Time to Reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Fannie and Freddie being two lenders at the heart of Wall Street's financial reckoning. In the piece, Dr. Utt notes that the government must act to "reduce financial market risk and taxpayer exposure."
Where is that risk coming from? According to Utt:
"Despite its claims to the contrary, Fannie Mae's basic operating procedures do not target any particular type of buyer/borrower....Nine percent of the conventional conforming loans made by the private mortgage market were to first-time minority homebuyers. By contrast, only 4.7 percent of Fannie Mae loans and 3.5 percent of Freddie Mac loans over the same period were to first-time minority homebuyers."
Bear in mind the minority population in America is 34 percent.
Again, for clarity: According to a conservative writing for a conservative Think Tank (I would add, using stats from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, "New Housing Goals for Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac in 2005-2008"), at the head of this crisis only nine percent of loans in the greater market place went to minorities. Four-point-seven and 3.5 percent of the "risky" Fannie and Freddie loans went to minorities.
In both cases more than ninety percent of available loans went to good, old-fashioned, non-minority white folks.
So, despite the claims of Neil and Michelle, if minorities are not the primary recipients of bad loans, from where did we hatch our Lex Luthorian scheme to bring down America? From the boardroom of Lehman Brothers? From the corporate headquarters of Bear Stearns? I think you'd be hard pressed to find anything like 34 percent representation of minorities at those or most other major financial institutions.
Were we somehow secretly manipulating John McCain when, in 1995, he screamed that banking regulations were "destroying the American family, the American dream" and voters "want these regulations stopped." Though he was pushing for a culture which bred risky loans, he is certainly by no means a minority (that I know of). And it would have been far more appropriate to run B-roll of McCain behind Neil's rant rather than Obama.
As I've noted previously, with Election Day drawing closer, the far right has dialed their race baiting up to eleven. Under ordinary circumstances it's to be expected.
These are not ordinary times.
Despite this fact, agents of intolerance seek to demonize for the sake of demonizing.
Or worse, merely to game an election.
If reactionary conservatives wish to play their exclusionary games, well, the Republican convention wasn't one of the least diverse in recent history for nothing. But to openly race bait when hard times are coming is not only irresponsible, it is deadly dangerous.
For more minority news and opinion, check out That Minority Thing.
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I should not have a black perspective yet they keep calling me black
I should not be hampered or damaged, what about that knife in my back
Victim mentality? -- People equate outrage and tears of pain with the lame banality of the blame game
Yet if I cry out in woe, if I talk about the pain in my toe, it is not to eclipse anyone else in their being
It is more a question to the world, how can we go on this way -- is anybody seeing what I am seeing
It is not say that anyone is guilty of what I am going through
It is more to say I hope this never happens to you
Yet people can only see what they want to see
Dissertations and proclamations will not erase this tendency
So I speak out but I do not freak out because some cannot here
My message stays the same because to me it is clear
Love is the key and if we start from there
Everything we face, will be what we share
It will also be what we solve and how we evolve as a nation
If we venture to love, we will soon say good-bye to the global economic situation
Martin left the word but it seems few heard
So I will say it again
The problem is not outside of us but within
It has to do with the failing of people -- both women and men
***Correction:So I speak out but I do not freak out because some cannot hear.
--I did not want my faux pas to detract from the message.
Suggestions on the bailout:
1) hire a thousand unemployed bookkeepers and have them tabulate and define the bad notes. It will make the "unknown" $700 billion? extent of the crisis clearer
2) charge back all the bonus money, salary and stock in excess of one million dollars
awarded to executives and management who authored the loans.
3) convert all the usurious adjustable rate mortgages to 8% fixed rate 30yr
notes and prevent the foreclosures on homeowners. It will help offset the flood
of unsold homes, though it will reduce banking profits.
4) stop mailing free credit card offers and 105% LTV mortgage refinance offers
to every US citizen. The savings of future bankruptcies, paper and postage
should help.
5) have credit card interest rates reduced to 10% across the board. Explain to
the credit card banking cartels that one of the reasons people can't make their
mortgage payments is that consumers have been turned into indentured servants through
rate increases and late fees. In a 70% consumer driven GDP scenario. It will increase disposable income and provide more liquidity to the market.
6) Charge $10,000 per year of service to each US Senator, Representative, Cabinet member and President, who voted in favor of financial market deregulation since 1974. Use the
money for the bail out. After all, they were supposed to be looking out for the rest of us, who kept our heads down and tried to make a better life for our children and grandchildren.
Amen, every loan official (most all loyal Republicans) made a bundle on this. Once the Republicans and the Clinton Administration, to be fair, removed the risk factor, what did anyone expect to happen? Also homes in the inner city that these minorities were purchasing had their values inflated by these same mortgage brokers (again I'd bet a $ to a donut that they are 99% loyal Republicans; why not that's where their bread is being buttered). Any property assessor that didn't go along didn't get the business. Loans from brokers with no downside and valuations pushed without oversight made this meltdown' not a push to loan to any group. In fact I imagine that there is far greater increase in defaults and foreclosures for suburban whites (and minorities) than any other group.
The minority loan push by Carter and other Democrats had to do with "redlining" and using FHA finance guarantees for what they were intended to be since the 1930s. The purpose was to make middle and lower middle class Americans property owners and help mitigate the push for socialism that was occurring in Europe. (Give'em a stake in the game!) Removing the risk was the Republican slight of hand.
thanks john. most of the work is being done on talk radio. limbaugh and hannity lead the pack and the talk radio monopoly on 1000 stations is spreading this crap to 50MIL or more. all day long. over and over and over. the talk radio monopoly and the false bushian reality it can create has gotten us into this mess and until progressives call complain boycott and picket their local RW talk radio stations (20 avg per state) and their sponsors when they lie about the issues and threaten their candidates and representatives it will continue to have a big effect on the elections and help enable any rove/bush election thieving moves.
I'm sure when all the dust settles you will find that ILLEGAL ALIENS are in the mix. It doesn't matter how many - just the fact that ILLEGALS come to our country and not only get a free education and health care they are also getting loans that they can't pay for.......
Most illegals are here trying to feed and cloth their families. What would any of us do? That said, the solution is the creation of a middle class in Mexico. That was the failure of Clinton's NAFTA. He did not use NAFTA as a vehicle to provide workers, not US corporations moving to Mexico, with the means to help raise the standard of living of workers in Mexico. For the citizens of this country to believe that they can have prosperity while 100 million people across an arbitrary line are living in poverty is ludicrous.
Whom do you think will pick your fruits and vegetables? Or fix your roofs? Or do a lot of other unpleasant and dangerous jobs. These are people who wish to buy into the U.S. American dream. The vast majority of them are law abiding and only want the best for their children. I have lived in Arizona, Texas, and now live in California. Their employers often treat them as subhuman, with little concern for their safety. To deny them health care and to deny their children education is extremely short-sighted. The long term costs of not providing them with basic human services is astronomical. And a lot of them pay taxes, too afraid to claim benefits based on paying taxes.
You seem to be promoting class warfare. I do not know if you are a genuine xenophobe,
but you are certainly promoting hatred.
The problem is not so much with the immigrant laborers, but with the employers who do not wish to provide basic safety, a decent salary and benefits to their employees.
I am not a latina.
I spent years in the industry, illegal immigrants could not get loans because they do not have a social security number. The only company that would give those immigrants with jobs, PAYING TAXES, with 2 years of TAX RETURNS, and an ITIN number was Banco Popular, http://www
18 million Americans, BOYCOTT...
Even liberals have stated that these subprime mortgages are predatory to minorities and exploit them
Yes, minorities were disproportionately affected.
However, the way the conservatives frame the argument, they make it seem as if mortgage foreclosures among minority homeowners are what led to the bank failures.
It is the same tactics used when conservatives talk edabout welfare, crime or teenage pregnancy.
They are using these tactics to distract and to exacerbate racial resentment among hardworking whites in the swing states.
You hit the nail on the head, it is designed to distract from the extrodinary record of failure the Republcans have accumulated over the last 30 years.
I'd like to add a little more to your observation John. Bare with me thru this, a piece of this housing bubble has to do with White Flight. FHA loans had ceilings I believe they were some where in the 400k range in New York.
Basically any home priced over the FHA loan ceiling would pretty much be out of the reach of the avg minority that good hardworking white folks would tolerate living next too. As a consequence you started to see home values increase to prices above the FHA ceiling thusly excluding the avg non working minority from the pool of potential buyers.
Now we all know the unsaid thing in America is that if you live next door to black folk your property value will go down, because racist white folk have more money than honest decent hardworking black folk. So as more and more black folk started getting loans for homes, good hardworking white folks started to look for more exclusionary place to live.
Mind you I in no way mean all white folks I have worked with lived with and befriended many decent white folk.
__________
I think you may be on to something. Certainly, it is a well-documented phenomenon, not just in US but in Canada too, that white folks try to move into more expensive neighbourhoods when minorities move into their areas. How long is this idiotic problem of racism going to carry on? It's just too stupid for words. And how ironic that they should court financial problems because of their racism!
It is not only Fox. Neil Boortz, Limbaugh Krauthammer and some of the other talking heads/ columnists are also parroting these talking points. Everyday they claimed community activists ( I guess that is code word for Obama) and the Carter's Community Reinvestment Act forced banks to loan money to minorities and that this is what led to the financial crisis.
Unfortunately these racialized politics will activate and resonate in the reptilian brains of many low information voters. The neocons have resorted to outright lies and the rewriting of history. And the MSM remains mute. It is so sad when our nation needs to be working in a bipartisan manner to solve tangible threats, the necons resort to identity and racial politics. No wonder Repub convention was the most homogenous (from an ethnic standpoint) convention since the 1950s
It is called the Noise Machine if the country falls for it, then we will get more of what we have right now. Collapse
Welcome to the United States of American Zimbabwe
Amen
They say that, if you live long enough, eventually you'll see everything.
I'm glad that Mr. Ridley provided a link to the video of Cavuto....
Of course, no-one EXPECTS anything better of Ms. Malkin....
Cavuto is another thing altogether
I just saw NOT a guest....b
of a news analysis program on a major American network
posit that the current crisis is because of lending to people of color....
AND (and Ridley is correct here, the only logical take being...) all the while rolling tape of Obama to show his audience what one of "THEM" looks like!!
OUTRAGEOUS!
This is what CORPORATE racism looks like!
As recently as ten years ago, Cavuto and his producer would have been summarily FIRED for such behaviour.
Here in the new BUSHMellin
I expect better than THIS....an
Disgusting
tm
I really wanted to know where the cupability was in this financial meltdown, so I began looking. Of course, the ultra-conservative right-wing is enormously embarrassed and/or in denial and immediately starting pulling bills out of their butts dating back to Carter in which to blame the entire mess on Democrats. No surprise. The bills passed in the last thirty years or so to improve lending practices to minorities and women were just that, attempts to outlaw the racism that existed when even a qualified minority or women walked into a bank asking for any kind of loan. Clinton attempted to also eradicate the same financial racism in the lending community. There was never a mandate that created or suported predatory lending practices until this current administration. That is why the current debauchery occurred. It was entirely at the hands of the self-interested parties ruling this current administration. It's the same reason we lost all environmental protection oversight in this country under Bush. it is why we're in Iraq, so on and so forth.
I don't think they are embarrassed or in denial. I think they are trying to shift blame for policies that they knew were morally bankrupt and didn't care were morally bankrupt. A lot of banks are part owners of payday lending companies, and more and more predatory lending companies are placing infomercials on tv for car and home purchases.
This gives a whole new meaning to the term, "whitewash". I am white, altho the people in Sarah Palin's various churches would deny that.
This entire bailout is a joke. We are relying on banks to give loans when the banks are just as incline to take the money and sit on in. Especially if in this bill there is a clause making it harder for people to get said loans. This is ridiculous.
Giving $700B (which is the amount they came to because "we wanted a really large number". No mathematics were used to calculate exactly just how many mortgages were in trouble and how much tax payer money would be used.
This all seems a little convenient for a corrupt administration with 2 months left in office.
congress passed a meager $18B bill helping solar companies
The U.S. Senate on Tuesday [Sept. 23] approved about $18 billion of renewable-energy tax credits after repeated failed attempts to do so this year.
They have failed to do that until now and $18B is meager is comparison. Investing more in alternative energy would create jobs and a new industry. This bailout is a last hurrah from a fear-mon gering administration and this bill has "greed" written all over it.
What else would you expect Fox to do? Blame the neocons?..
I promise to call a spade a spade if you promise to call a conservative a conservative.
These are neo-cons, not conservatives.
We live in a plutocracy. We The People may have our political differences, but those at the top do not.
Please keep in mind who is really trying to divide us. They cross party lines and races.
People. Don't let fox news or any news organization or any person try to blame the current USA financial problems on minorities (people of color). Only the people in power (power means money) are responsible for the so-called crisis.
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