JimV.com

Subprime Crisis Carter and Clinton's Fault

Leave it to a Hoover Institution fellow to figure out a way to blame both Carter and Clinton for the subprime mortgage crisis  (via Marginal Revolution).

The third federal contributor to the subprime crisis is the Community Reinvestment Act. This act, first passed in 1977  and beefed up in 1995, requires banks to lend to high-risk areas that they otherwise would avoid. Those banks that fail to comply pay fines and have more difficulty getting approval for mergers and branch expansions.

So what is the CRA and what evil did Carter (1977) and Clinton (1995) wreak upon us?  From a Washington Post opinion piece written by Lawrence K. Fish, the chairman of RBS America and Citizens Financial Group:

The act sought to address a practice common in the banking industry in the 1960s and 1970s known as redlining -- denying credit to people based on their neighborhood, race, marital status, last name and a lot of other indicators that served as false proxies for "too risky." Redlining was racist, sexist, deeply unfair and, as our industry would later learn, bad business.

The CRA ended this practice. By obligating banks to pursue lending opportunities within their local service areas, it prevented them from taking a community's deposits while ignoring its needs. In the 1990s, regulatory agencies strengthened the CRA by establishing strict compliance tests for a bank's lending, investment and service activities. Meeting those tests became a prerequisite for approval of mergers and acquisitions. As the merger market intensified, so too did banks' attention to the CRA.

Far from blaming the CRA for the subprime crisis, Fishman argues:

we need to broaden the number of financial service providers that the CRA covers and redefine "community reinvestment" as "community responsibility" -- the understanding that all financial institutions have an obligation to reinvest where they operate.

Twenty years from now, when the subprime mortgage crisis is studied, there's an excellent chance that it will be the Hoover Institution's view of history that will be taught.  The right's investment in it's think tanks isn't for charity.

Why Hillary Doesn't Quit

New York Times conservative-with-a-full-set-of-teeth columnist David Brooks constructs a compelling case as to why Hillary Clinton has no chance, then speculates as to why she remains in the race:

Why does she go on like this? Does Clinton privately believe that Obama is so incompetent that only she can deliver the policies they both support? Is she simply selfish, and willing to put her party through agony for the sake of her slender chance? Are leading Democrats so narcissistic that they would create bitter stagnation even if they were granted one-party rule?

The better answer is that Clinton’s long rear-guard action is the logical extension of her relentlessly political life.

For nearly 20 years, she has been encased in the apparatus of political celebrity. Look at her schedule as first lady and ever since. Think of the thousands of staged events, the tens of thousands of times she has pretended to be delighted to see someone she doesn’t know, the hundreds of thousands times she has recited empty clichés and exhortatory banalities, the millions of photos she has posed for in which she is supposed to appear empathetic or tough, the billions of politically opportune half-truths that have bounced around her head.

Brooks, a Republican, has no skin in game so he's somewhat objective.  He's also more intellectually honest than  his fellow Republican pundits.   That being said, there's a simpler explanation than Brook's pop psychology as to why Hillary remains in the race.  She thinks she can win. 

Hillary must have another barrel left after Wright.  She will likely win in Pennsylvania, after which Obama is decent bet to run the table.  My guess is that sometime between Pennsylvania and North Carolina there will be another revelation...let's call it the April surprise.

Personally, I reject the conventional wisdom that a long primary is all that bad. According to a recent Obama fund raising message, 94 percent of Obama February donations  have been in amounts less than $200.   I'd wager that most of those folks, myself included, can can and will pony up another $200 in the general election.  Money is no problem.  McCain's free ride will end soon enough.

My biggest concern about Obama prior to the Wright kerfuffle was that he was not battle tested (Vicki Iseman is no Seven of Nine.)  Yet Obama has survived one Clinton architected swiftboating, and if my theory is correct and Hillary does have that second barrel, he will need to survive another.  Better July than October.

MY Congressman

I can't recall a period in my adult life where I have felt this optimistic about politics.  I can't recall a time when I've been so proud of my congressman. 

Representative John Lewis, an elder statesman from the civil rights era and one of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most prominent black supporters, said Thursday night that he planned to cast his vote as a superdelegate for Senator Barack Obama in hopes of preventing a fight at the Democratic convention.

“In recent days, there is a sense of movement and a sense of spirit,” said Mr. Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who endorsed Mrs. Clinton last fall. “Something is happening in America, and people are prepared and ready to make that great leap.”

Mr. Lewis, who carries great influence among other members of Congress, disclosed his decision in an interview in which he said that as a superdelegate he could “never, ever do anything to reverse the action” of the voters of his district, who overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama.

You'll never get linked to in this city again...

There seems to be a correlation between the number of new media conferences a blogger participates in and how annoying I find that blogger.  There also appears to be a correlation (with one notable exception) between an Atlanta blogger's regard for Andisheh Nouraee and my regard for that blogger. 
Which explains why, to me, this is about as good as it gets:

[Spacey Gracey] is a discredit to the political viewpoints she allegedly espouses. She is the Colmes of Peach Pundit.

Yet it gets better.  Apparently, Mr. Colmes is uncomfortable with his role as a metaphor for lameness.  So much so that he emailed Nouraee. 

Sentence of the Day

From Meredith Ford:

If Pamela Anderson somehow morphed into a seafood restaurant (and she might...) she would look like Aquaknox, the latest addition to the Terminus Building in Buckhead.

Unfortunate Hepatitis C imagery aside, I'm a fan of Meredith Ford's work.  She introduced me to La Oaxaquena Taqueria, for which I'll always be grateful. 

Backhanded Compliment of the Day

From ATLMalcontent :

It speaks badly of Romney to have this fuckwad [Hugh Hewitt] as a surrogate. He makes Hillbot functionary Terry McAuliffe look like Daniel Patrick Moynihan in comparison.

ATLMalcontent has been annoying me a lot less lately.  Maybe it's because we agree on Obama, if not McCain.   Maybe I'm becoming more of an asshole.  Both are not mutually exclusive.

After reading what I just wrote, it occurred to me that  a reader might not be clear as to which backhanded compliment I'm referring to, comment or ATLMalcontent's regarding Terry McAuliffe.  That's ok.

Quote Conspiracy

The John Stuart Mill quote which accurate describes my attitude toward war has largely co-opted by many in the right. 

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse.

I have always felt that the right missed an important aspect of the quote, which is that war is, indeed, "an ugly thing." 

Usually, on the web, the quote is followed with:

The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

This part delights the right who are always looking for new ways to equate diplomacy with pacifism.  The funny thing is that a couple of sentences from Mill exist in between the two mentioned passages, that one only occasionally sees:

When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration.

Apparently, the idea that a war has the potential to be unjust undermines what many on the right take from from Mill's quote.  I tend to think the two lines make the quote more meaningful, but that's me.

Best Book Blurb I've Read Today

Tyler Cowen reviews chess champion / Russian opposition leader Garry Kasparov's book How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom :

This is a fun book, except that life mostly doesn't imitate chess. Chess is characteristic for its lack of self-deception; it is hard to avoid knowing where you stand in the hierarchy and excuses are few and far between.  That's why most chess players are depressed.  Kasparov seems to save his self-deception for politics; let's hope he is still alive a year from now.

The Next President

Today is the day that I went from wanting Barack Obama to win, to thinking he can win.

What do Perez Hilton and Paul Krugman Have In Common?

Both have recently blogged about Sonny Perdue's strategy to embarrass our state into producing rain.  Perez here.  Krugman here.