[ExI] more on the CRA Program

[Lee Corbin]

The simplest summary of the CRAP:

http://www.federalreserve.gov/dcca/cra/

The whole sorry history, at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act

although it has bias problems if you ask me. For example
the paragraph at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act#Clinton_Administration_Changes_of_1995

begins with the sentence "In 1995, as a result of interest from President Clinton's administration, the implementing regulations for 
the CRA were strengthened by focusing the financial regulators' attention on institutions' performance in helping to meet community 
credit needs." which someone on first reading might think *strengthened* restrictions on lending, but, as the second sentence then 
clarifies "These revisions with an effective starting date of January 31, 1995 were credited with substantially increasing the 
number and aggregate amount of loans to small businesses and to low- and moderate-income borrowers for home loans."

So before people start pointing the finger at
human greed---which, on a conservative estimate
has probably been with us about two million years
---it would be nice they first tried to understand
deficiencies in the human cultural created part.

The government should be backing out of, not
becoming more involved with regulating the
economy. And moral considerations aside,
people need to be prosecuted to the full extent
of the law, although "the law" does not come up
too much in this (actually very) fine article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/business/23skeptics.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Lee