Next up: Immigration reform (one more time)

[Chen019]

@GIGObuster

So, it seems that you are forgetting that VDARE still publishes unfounded prejudiced material? And that was not just coming from the SPLC, as it was shown before.

But just sticking to the article at hand, one of its points is that minority lending was the reason for the economic meltdown, I guess since the predatory lenders were usually not minorities that would not make for a good VDARE article.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/economic_meltdown/

Just for that one could dismiss the VDARE article.

But what made me say “what the heck?” was noticing that the writer moves from talking about illegal immigration to minority lending, the writer and the site makes the inference that most of the minorities getting those loans were also illegals.

IMHO the writers at VDARE have a fear of diversity and see the need to demonize it by claiming illegals were a big factor. Well, that still ignores the predatory lenders. The article, and most of the ones it links, disparages diversity by putting a lot of the blame of the meltdown on them illegals. Not a very effective way to hide the prejudice.

Which article are you referring to? My understanding was that it was government pressure to lend to underrepresented minorities that contributed substantially to the sub-prime market (and corruption of lending standards). The problem wasn’t illegals per se, but the pressure for racial egalitarianism which will only increase as underachieving minorities increase in number.

From his earliest days in office, Mr. Bush paired his belief that Americans do best when they own their own home with his conviction that markets do best when let alone.

He pushed hard to expand homeownership, especially among minorities, an initiative that dovetailed with his ambition to expand the Republican tent — and with the business interests of some of his biggest donors. But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards.

Mr. Bush did foresee the danger posed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage finance giants. The president spent years pushing a recalcitrant Congress to toughen regulation of the companies, but was unwilling to compromise when his former Treasury secretary wanted to cut a deal. And the regulator Mr. Bush chose to oversee them — an old prep school buddy — pronounced the companies sound even as they headed toward insolvency.

As early as 2006, top advisers to Mr. Bush dismissed warnings from people inside and outside the White House that housing prices were inflated and that a foreclosure crisis was looming. And when the economy deteriorated, Mr. Bush and his team misdiagnosed the reasons and scope of the downturn; as recently as February, for example, Mr. Bush was still calling it a “rough patch.” …

Park Place South is, in microcosm, the story of a well-intentioned policy gone awry. Advocating homeownership is hardly novel; the Clinton administration did it, too. For Mr. Bush, it was part of his vision of an “ownership society,” in which Americans would rely less on the government for health care, retirement and shelter. It was also good politics, a way to court black and Hispanic voters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

[BrainGlutton]

As for the theory that the Dems are scheming to loosen immigration controls so Latino immigrants will be the Dems’ new voter base, I’m sure the Dem leadership is savvy enough to see that could go either way. Working-class Latinos are Roman Catholic traditionalists, after all. They have a lot more in common culturally with conservative working-class white Americans than with the “liberal elites,” and the Pubs could cultivate them if they were smart about it, which, so far, they are not proving to be.

[Chen019]

@BrainGlutton

As for Latino immigrants being the Dems’ new voter base, I’m sure the Dem leadership is savvy enough to see that could go either way. Working-class Latinos are Roman Catholic traditionalists, after all. They have a lot more in common culturally with conservative working-class white Americans than with the “liberal elites,” and the Pubs could cultivate them if they were smart about it, which, so far, they are not proving to be.

There is no evidence for that based on their voting history. Also, they are no more conservative than blacks (who voted strongly against gay marriage) but who overwhelmingly vote Democrat. With their low average academic achievement they will continue to be overrepresented amongst lower earners. Accordingly, they will support affirmative action and income redistribution policies which the Democrats favour.

[GIGObuster]

@Chen019

Which article are you referring to? My understanding was that it was government pressure to lend to underrepresented minorities that contributed substantially to the sub-prime market (and corruption of lending standards). The problem wasn’t illegals per se, but the pressure for racial egalitarianism which will only increase as underachieving minorities increase in number.

VDARE still goes to disparage diversity. And no, blaming that government pressure is not accurate when it was not even the main cause for the meltdown.

http://www.delawareliberal.net/2008/09/28/republican-talking-point-smackdown-freddie-mac-and-fannie-mae-are-not-responsible-for-the-meltdown/

The required reading of the issues of Fannie and Freddie comes from Calculated Risk in a post that responds to a July column of Paul Krugman’s, but provides the best unintentional rebuttal of the McCain talking point (and I encourage you to read the whole thing):

I think we can give Fannie and Freddie their due share of responsibility for the mess we’re in, while acknowledging that they were nowhere near the biggest culprits in the recent credit bubble. They may finance most of the home loans in America, but most of the home loans in America aren’t the problem; the problem is that very substantial slice of home loans that went outside the Fannie and Freddie box. But Krugman is right to focus on the fact that it was the regulatory and charter constraints of the GSEs that kept that box closed. In the schizoid reality of the GSEs, when they had their “shareholder-owned private company” hats on they did plenty of envelope-pushing. When they had their “affordable housing” hats on, they rationalized dubious theories of credit quality–like the fervent belief that low or no down payment can be fully offset by a pretty FICO score–to beef up their affordable housing goals, often at the expense not of the poor put-upon “private sector” but of FHA, whose traditional borrower pool they pretty thoroughly cherry-picked. Nonetheless, the immovable objects of the conforming loan limits and the charter limitation of taking only loans with a maximum LTV of 80% unless a well-capitalized mortgage insurer took the first loss position, plus all their other regulatory strictures, managed fairly well against the irresistible force of “innovation.” If there has ever been an argument for serious regulation of the mortgage markets, the GSEs are it.

Fannie and Freddie certainly followed the market into higher risk loans, but were stopped from going full-bore into the subprime paper business by their charter and conforming loan limits. They were allowed, by the Government, to keep less capital on hand to offset risk. And they were woefully under supervised by their government regulators. And they (acting like an investment fund) acquired lots of private label MBS’ backed by toxic mortgages. Sound like any other banks in the news recently? In addition, they were found to be overstating their capital in the last round of accounting scandals. And while everyone knew that Freddie and Fannie were drowning, Bush and the Congress decided to just pile on:

Congress and the administration both fell all over themselves to push the GSEs into jumbo markets they had at least managed to stay out of during the worst of the boom, cheerfully lifting their portfolio caps at the same time. How do you go on a stock-selling binge at the same time you have just become the official lender of last resort (along with FHA), handed the mandate to take out all those toxic ARMs with too-large loan balances into “safe” 30-year fixed that the borrowers in question still can’t afford?

With me so far?

The source of the claim that Fannie and Freddie were blown up by helping “poor people” may have come from their fired CEO, Richard Syron :the GSEs have been hit by a “100-year storm” in the housing market, accentuated by some higher-risk mortgages that they were forced to buy to meet government affordable-housing targets. But wrong. From the same Barron’s article:

The latter contention is more than disingenuous. A substantial portion of Fannie’s and Freddie’s credit losses comes from $337 billion and $237 billion, respectively, of Alt-A mortgages that the agencies imprudently bought or guaranteed in recent years to boost their market share. These are mortgages for which little or no attempt was made to verify the borrowers’ income or net worth. The principal balances were much higher than those of mortgages typically made to low-income borrowers. In short, Alt-A mortgages were a hallmark of real-estate speculation in the ex-urbs of Las Vegas or Los Angeles, not predatory lending to low-income folks in the inner cities.

Fannie and Freddie got caught by the many of the same issues that caught Lehman, Bear Stearns and the others queued up to fail — inadequate capitalization, lack of Federal oversight, mismanagement and a crashing housing market. Add to Fannie and Freddie’s story the mismanagement of funds and accounting fraud in an agency that helped launder overseas money into the US capital markets and you have an investment bank (it certainly acted like one) that the Fed made the case for bailing out.

The bottom line here is that the repubs who have decided to push the notion that Fannie and Freddie are the culprit behind the meltdown are the financially ignorant of the wingnut class, speaking to the financially ignorant — expecting that their target audience will buy that somehow it is Democrats (see the grapgh above for the timeline) who wanted to get poor people into houses (which isn’t Fannie or Freddie’s mission) that is to blame for the current financial crisis. That, of course isn’t true, but Fannie and Freddie are special cases, for it is quite certain that both parties had been quite bought by Fannie and Freddie and both helped it to delay the inevitable. But take Fannie and Freddie off of the board and this meltdown still happens.

Once again one should not even give the time of the day to VDARE, not just for not being accurate, but also for misrepresenting most of the minorities in America.

[BrainGlutton]

@Chen019

With their low average academic achievement they will continue to be overrepresented amongst lower earners.

You could have said that of the Irish in America once, before they became white, but it’s no longer true, is it?

[Chen019]

**GIGObuster **wrote

Once again one should not even give the time of the day to VDARE, not just for not being accurate, but also for misrepresenting most of the minorities in America.

I’m still not sure what article you’re referring to that is inaccurate?

BrainGlutton Quote:
Originally Posted by Chen019
With their low average academic achievement they will continue to be overrepresented amongst lower earners.

You could have said that of the Irish in America once, before they became white, but it’s no longer true, is it?

That’s a common analogy, but Jason Richwine shows it doesn’t hold up.

They’re not just like the Irish — or the Italians or the Poles, for that matter. The large influx of Hispanic immigrants after 1965 represents a unique assimilation challenge for the United States. Many optimistic observers have assumed — incorrectly, it turns out — that Hispanic immigrants will follow the same economic trajectory European immigrants did in the early part of the last century. Many of those Europeans came to America with no money and few skills, but their status steadily improved. Their children outperformed them, and their children’s children were often indistinguishable from the “founding stock.” The speed of economic assimilation varied somewhat by ethnic group, but three generations were typically enough to turn “ethnics” into plain old Americans.

This would be the preferred outcome for the tens of millions of Hispanic Americans, who are significantly poorer and less educated on average than native whites. When immigration skeptics question the wisdom of importing so many unskilled people into our nation at one time, the most common response cites the remarkable progress of Europeans a century ago. “People used to say the Irish or the Poles would always be poor, but look at them today!” For Hispanics, we are led to believe, the same thing will happen.

But that claim isn’t true. Though about three-quarters of Hispanics living in the U.S. today are either immigrants or the children of immigrants, a significant number have roots here going back many generations. We have several ways to measure their intergenerational progress, and the results leave little room for optimism about their prospects for assimilation…

http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=YjQ4N2EyMTQ4NzZjZmNlOWQwN2RiNTZjMWZiZDY4YzQ=

[magellan01]

@BrainGlutton

Perhaps that was a typo and you meant "illegally. But this:

Yes, it was a typo. Seems obvious.

@BrainGlutton

is harder to explain away.

No it’s not. I was describing two groups: 1) those that ARE here illegally and 2) those that could be shown to HAVE BEEN here after that date.

[toofs]

America is Mexico’s pressure relief valve. The wave of immigration from our neighbor has no end in site, and as Mexico continues in it’s deadly battles with the drug cartels, the pressure to head north will only increase.

The exodus of hard working people from Mexico to the USA has probably kept Mexico from civil war. Too bad for Mexico that so many of their most capable people leave.

[GIGObuster]

@Chen019

I’m still not sure what article you’re referring to that is inaccurate?

The VDARE one you linked to in post 79. The article also does mention that canard of minority lending being the reason for the meltdown, with a pinch of illegals and condemnation of diversity to boot. So there are already several reasons why one should ignore them, and I have not even touched the more credible points from the SPLC.

[magellan01]

@BrainGlutton

VDARE is anti-non-white immigration and you know it.

I know no such thing. They are anti-illegal immigration—of any color. They also think immigration should be curtailed, and that we should have immigration policies that do not change the country overnight; that we shouldn’t allow ANY group in in numbers that can’t quickly be absorbed an assimilated. You may not agree with that position, but it is a sound academic position. Similar to Pat Buchanan’s, and my, position. You remember Pat, don’t you. The presidential candidate who chose a black woman to run as his VP.

[tomndebb]

@magellan01

SHE then accuses ME of weaseling. I respond pointing out that she is the one doing the weaseling, and call her (get ready for it…) a WEASEL. :eek: Then YOU come and warn ME!!! Citing capitalization no less. :rolleyes:

WHAT THE FUCK? Do you not see a little problem with unfairness, here?

Unfairness? I see two posters warming up for a pissing match and one of them deciding to go so far as to repeatedly hurl direct insults at the other.

Post 15, you use a belligerent phrase, not aimed at a particular poster.
Post 30, your phrase is echoed back at you in the exact manner that you employed it, even using quotation marks to indicate that it was a borrowed phrase. Nothing in that post is directed at you except that one may reasonably infer that the poster is not pleased that you are raising the “anchor baby” argument that she believes is nonsense.
Post 31, you reply with namecalling and direct personal attacks, for which you are told to dial it back, not Warned.

Having already been told to dial it back, you then choose to make multiple posts employing name calling. I have also told the other party to dial back on the rhetoric, but you are the first poster to resort to namecalling and you then did it multiple times after being told to stop.

[ /Modding ]

[GIGObuster]

@toofs

America is Mexico’s pressure relief valve.

Totally agree, what I do think is that if the hardliner anti-immigrants on the USA have their way, the most likely end would be mass deportation. With many of those deported finally doing something about the inequities that are in Mexico.

What anti-immigrants guys forget is that unrest in Mexico is likely to follow… leading to many refugees… of the political kind now. The kind that would be harder for the US to refuse.

[magellan01]

@tomndebb

Unfairness? I see two posters warming up for a pissing match and one of them deciding to go so far as to repeatedly hurl direct insults at the other.

Post 15, you use a belligerent phrase, not aimed at a particular poster.
Post 30, your phrase is echoed back at you in the exact manner that you employed it, even using quotation marks to indicate that it was a borrowed phrase. Nothing in that post is directed at you except that one may reasonably infer that the poster is not pleased that you are raising the “anchor baby” argument that she believes is nonsense.
Post 31, you reply with namecalling and direct personal attacks, for which you are told to dial it back, not Warned.

Having already been told to dial it back, you then choose to make multiple posts employing name calling. I have also told the other party to dial back on the rhetoric, but you are the first poster to resort to namecalling and you then did it multiple times after being told to stop.

[ /Modding ]

Wrong. She is the one who directed the language at me (your lame handwaving aside). Her subsequent posts support my take on this , not yours. I then returned the favor and used the same language in responding to her. She then accused me of weaseling. I then showed that SHE was the one weaseling, which would make her a weasel.

And your claim that I continued name calling after I was told to stop in plainly incorrect. Please show where I was told to stop with name calling prior to your post. The first time I called her a name, “Weasel” was Post 76—in response to Post 75, when she accused me of it. Marley’s post was #33, and name calling was not the issue. So, you’re assessment above is incorrect.

The poor judgement in this is textbook mod unfairness. Maybe it started out inadvertent, maybe it didn’t. I don’t really care. But now that I’ve explained it, I’ll wait for you to apologize and retract the Warning. Or, issue a Warning to her, as well. Feel free to get Marley23 to sign on to the apology, in the interest of saving the hamsters the work of an extra post.

[Chen019]

@GIGObuster

The VDARE one you linked to in post 79. The article also does mention that canard of minority lending being the reason for the meltdown, with a pinch of illegals and condemnation of diversity to boot. So there are already several reasons why one should ignore them, and I have not even touched the more credible points from the SPLC.

I don’t see why though. What in the article is incorrect?

1. The GOP is basically screwed due to changing demographics as the majority of new low skill migrants vote Democrat. This point was made again here in an recent article by Pat Buchanan Immigration's killing the GOP

2. The govt pressue by Clinton and Bush for increased minority lending wasn’t the only factor, but it was one of several significant factors. See the New York Times article I linked above ‘The Reckoning’ series. Similar points about how the CRA nudged mortgage companies to lower lending standards were made by John Carney here.

Pressuring nonbank lenders to make more loans to poor minorities didn’t stop with Sears. If it didn’t happen, Clinton officials warned, they’d seek to extend CRA regulations to all mortgage makers. In Congress, Representative Maxine Waters called financial firms not covered by the CRA “among the most egregious redliners.” To rebuff the criticism, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) shocked the financial world by signing a 1994 agreement with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), pledging to increase lending to minorities and join in new efforts to rewrite lending standards. The first MBA member to sign up: Countrywide Financial, the mortgage firm that would be at the core of the subprime meltdown.

3. The CRA Distorted the Mortgage Market. With banks offering mortgages with high loan to value, delayed payment schedules and other enticing features, the mortgage companies would have quickly found themselves unable to compete if they didn’t offer similar loans. The requirement to offer risky loans from banks created a situation where other lenders found they had to offer similar products if they wanted to expand their business.

Three Ways The CRA Pushed Countrywide To Lower Lending Standards

[E-Sabbath]

Chen, I’m still waiting for you to tell us how you pick citizens once you get rid of birthright citizenship. Are we all gonna have to leave the country, or is it granted by lottery among all the people in the world?

[Marley23]

@magellan01

Marley’s post was #33, and name calling was not the issue. So, you’re assessment above is incorrect.

His assessment is correct. Yours is legalistic and a bit ridiculous: I said to stop making snide personal remarks, and “weasel” definitely counts.

Feel free to get Marley23 to sign on to the apology, in the interest of saving the hamsters the work of an extra post.

If you want to discuss this further take it to ATMB instead of hijacking this thread.

[joebuck20]

@Chen019

There is no evidence for that based on their voting history. Also, they are no more conservative than blacks (who voted strongly against gay marriage) but who overwhelmingly vote Democrat. With their low average academic achievement they will continue to be overrepresented amongst lower earners. Accordingly, they will support affirmative action and income redistribution policies which the Democrats favour.

You sir are a fucking idiot.
Anyway in 2004, 44 percent of Latinos voted for Bush. Cite.

[CBEscapee]

@toofs

America is Mexico’s pressure relief valve. The wave of immigration from our neighbor has no end in site, and as Mexico continues in it’s deadly battles with the drug cartels, the pressure to head north will only increase.

The exodus of hard working people from Mexico to the USA has probably kept Mexico from civil war. Too bad for Mexico that so many of their most capable people leave.

So many people on this board offer opinions on México without having the slightest idea of the realties of this country. They get their information from biased or erroneous news sources which seem to dominate coverage on México in the US.

Starting a little over a year ago many migrants have been returning home voluntarily due to the decrease in employment opportunities in the US. Some think the number of people going north is less than those returning. As far as people fleeing the “drug war” violence, those cases will be limited to middle and upper class families that can afford relocating and will do it legally. But most cannot afford or are unwilling to leave their assets, their businesses and homes and property, unattended.

[villa]

Kearsen, I’m still confused as to the way your mind is working on this.

You seem to think that people here illegally should not be allowed to participate in political advocacy, and suggest that the Green Cards of those in the immigration reform protest should have been checked before they were allowed to come to DC.

Do you also think the tea-baggers should have had their Green Cards checked before coming to DC to protest? Or is there some difference in the hue of the protestors that makes you think one should have to provide papers at checkpoints and one shouldn’t?

[Marley23]

@joebuck20

You sir are a fucking idiot.

Save this kind of stuff for the Pit. It’s not allowed in any other forum here. This is a formal warning, so please don’t do this again.