Monday, September 29, 2008
"Where our misery began"
The politicians behind this mess probably can't even balance a checkbook...
Mike Masterson explains on the Northwest Arkansas Times website:
"I believe a former investigative reporter for Atlanta’s daily newspaper likely pitched the snowball that grew into the avalanche and buried our leading mortgage institutions. Bill Dedman in 1989 produced a series called “The Color of Money” that exposed the practice of redlining by banks that routinely declined risky home loans in low-income neighborhoods. Dedman wound up with a Pulitzer Prize and supporters for his cause within the federal bureaucracy. Sadly, most who initially benefited from his story have wound up with foreclosure notices. To understand what transpired following Dedman’s series, everyone should read two important commentaries. One was published on Feb. 5 in the New York Post and the other on Sept. 15 in Investor’s Business Daily. They reached similar conclusions: We are paying today for policies and practices born and pushed early in the Bill Clinton administration that forced lending institutions to make housing loans to otherwise unqualified buyers."
