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blue bits. red rocks.
Tuesday 3 March 2009

Santelli’s screed is part of a continuing effort to blame the poor and minority communities for the economic meltdown. There are millions of people who think the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was responsible for bad mortgages, when most of these mortgages were either made by institutions that were not covered by the CRA or were loans that would not have been covered by the Act even if the institution was covered. Of course, the idea that government bureaucrats were forcing banks to make loans that were hugely profitable at the time is laughable on its face. At some point Santelli and his followers are going to have to deal with reality. The problem is not poor and moderate-income homeowners or African-Americans or Latinos. The perps in this case where rich bankers, the vast majority of whom were white males. Their enablers in policy circles were not the bleeding hearts trying to help the poor, but the Wall Street envoys from both political parties; people like Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin and, of course, Alan Greenspan. The people who sank the economy were the rich and powerful, not the poor and minorities. Dean Baker

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