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Mainstreamest of the MSM admits: Yes, minority loans stoked the
economic crisis

Christopher Donovan

December 22, 2008

"For weeks, writers like Steve Sailer and Ann Coulter have been pointing out that the economic crisis was likely caused, in large part, by the massive drive to give mortgage loans to blacks and Hispanics.

The reaction was easy to predict: Loony right-wingers and racists want
to "scapegoat" minorities for economic problems that are really the
fault of greedy whites.

But those critics are going to find it harder to dismiss the latest
outlet for that observation: The New York Times. In a lengthy and
wide-ranging Sunday piece, the paper puts the minority-loan angle up
high, with a front-page photo and the caption, "In June 2002,
President Bush spoke in Atlanta to unveil a plan to increase minority
homeownership."

An inside photo shows a proud Bush touring a new development in
heavily-black Atlanta, presumably staged to show what a Great White
Father he is. One sentence in the story began, "He pushed hard to
expand homeownership, especially among minorities, an initiative that
dovetailed with his ambition to expand the Republican tent — and with
the business interests of some of his biggest donors."

I can overlook the NYT for wanting to append "greedy whites" to that
sentence, given how surprised I am that it was written at all. In my
modest role as a pro-white media critic, I sometimes wonder, "How much
racial reality needs to be breaking down our doors before the media
will acknowledge it?" Well, you might say this economic crisis has
broken down the door — and the media leader, the NYT, felt compelled
to at least mention it.

The problem with the story is that the minority-loan angle is
mentioned early, but dropped. The rest of the story takes the
traditional MSM tack of blaming the evil and incompetent whites in
government, from Bush on down.

Still, it's a good sign. When the mortgage meltdown began, the
media's coverage was expectedly misdirected: The narrative was one of
greedy white bankers, brokers and other finance characters who were
aided and abetted by incompetent white Republicans who were derelict
in their regulatory duties. But the only "regulation" or "oversight" I
can think of that would have prevented mortgage defaults is one that
said, "Don't make that loan. It's too risky." Of course, that would
have gone squarely against Bush's goal of more loans for minorities.

Bundled mortgages and derivatives aside, an individual mortgage is not
a complex transaction. A bank extends a loan for the purchase of a
house, and the purchaser agrees to pay back the loan, with interest,
at certain amounts and on certain intervals. However complex the
apportionment of interest (I did not realize, until the purchase of my
own house, that the interest in usually heavily front-loaded), the
lender will make it simple for you: Pay this amount by the first of
the month, or we'll take back the house and kick you out.

It does not take a PhD-holding economist to figure this out. So, when
mortgages are defaulting, there's usually a devastatingly simple
reason: The homeowner isn't paying the mortgage. Who are these
people? Why aren't they paying the mortgage? Yet for all the media's
manpower, nobody asked that question. Nobody said, well, let's look
at all the defaulters, and go out and talk to a few.

This is partly because of one media rule that applies to the
controversies they cover, even beyond the context of political
correctness on race: Problems are never the result of everyday
people. Problems are always the fault of a big bad business, or
government, or something institutional. For instance, when the topic
of bankruptcy is covered, the media will focus most of its attention
on "predatory lenders" who dangle credit cards in front of college
kids, evil banks and their pushy lobbyists, etc. They'll never hone
in on Wanda Sanchez, who, while unemployed, went on a weekly shopping
spree at Saks, and now has to file for Chapter 7.

The media thinks of itself as protecting "the little guy" against
bigger and more powerful forces, which doesn't strike me as a too-
terrible approach. (I long ago dropped my mainstream conservative
reflexive defense of "big business", and I sure as hell haven't ever
felt an instinct to defend government.) But the problem with this
approach is that it overlooks a fundamental truth: Some people (of
all races) are problematic. They tend not to be reliable. They'll
sneak a little extra where they can, and they'll free-load when
nobody's looking.

With minorities, of course, this reality is magnified: Blacks do, in
fact, tend to be less intelligent and less conscientious, which in
turn makes them even less reliable when it comes to paying off loans.
I am confident that same holds true for Hispanics, though I am not as
familiar with data on the Hispanic IQ.

The lower creditworthiness of blacks in general is significant. Early
on, before racial consciousness, I was motivated to concern over what
was presented to me as the problem of "racism in lending," i.e., bank
refusals to lend blacks money. I had started to dismiss other forms
of "racism" as the explanation for black failure, but this one seemed
legitimate to me, if all that were needed for black success was a
loan.

But the statistics didn't bear out the concern. As Peter Brimelow has
shown: They were going by the credit ratings, and, as you can imagine,
it did so happen that blacks had absolutely terrible credit. I've
seen plenty of anecdotal examples of this as an attorney. But never
mind: Today, financial institutions face a damned-if-they-do, damned-
if-they-don't quandary: If they loan to blacks, they're accused of
"predatory lending," and if they don't, they're accused of
"redlining."

And when it comes to Hispanics, many of whom are not here legally to
begin with, the responsibility of paying off a mortgage is surely even
more compromised.

Needless to say, none of these realities were contemplated by the
forces that decided to gamble with America's economy in the name of
racial equality. And while I don't expect the NYT's mention of this
angle to shift the debate entirely, it's a welcome crack in the
ice."


http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net...-Meltdown.html