State Of The Union

[steelish]

I'll agree that the federal banking acts tend to be terrible, and that the links to those reports blame bankers for discrimination. This of course begs the question, if the bankers aren't actually fixing the discrimination problem by issuing bad loans, how did this cause the crisis? You can't both have your cake and eat it to. Your reports indicated that bankers are still denying loans to blacks at a disproportionately high rate, which means they are not making the high risk loans the ridiculous law would suggest. Ergo, this did not cause the financial crisis.

????????

Because issuing bad loans IS the cause of the crisis. It doesn't matter whether or not it "fixed" discrimination. The fact remains that the banks were coerced into making loans that they well knew the recipients would default on.

Just because the government's ambitious goal of eliminating discrimination may or may not have worked has no bearing on the end result.