Financial Affirmative Action

by Matthew Vadum - September 29th, 2008 - The American Spectator

When the history of the Great Economic Meltdown of 2008 is written, in-your-face shakedown groups like the Greenlining Institute will be held to account.

Greenlining, headquartered in Berkeley, California (where else?), is a left-wing pressure group that threatens nasty public relations campaigns against lenders that refuse to kneel before its radical economic agenda. Its principal goal is to push politicians and the business community to facilitate "community reinvestment" in low-income and minority neighborhoods.

The Greenlining name is a play on the unlawful practice of "redlining." That's when financial institutions designate areas, typically those with a high concentration of racial minorities, as bad risks for home and commercial loans. The Institute wants banks to give a green light to loans in these areas instead.

Recently profiled by John Gizzi, Greenlining uses carrot-and-stick tactics to blackmail public agencies, banks, and philanthropists to achieve its objectives. The Institute brags it has threatened banks into making more than $2.4 trillion in loans in low-income communities.

Was this a good idea?

Good question. Even better question is what party is leading this effort? Actually everyone knows the answer to that question. It is the Democrat Party that has led this effort. Democrats own this crisis, though you will not find a single member of the MSM or the Democrat party who will acknowledge this. To the contrary, every single statement they make starts with the amazing accusation that Wall Street and its greed is to blame for the crisis. They are not willing to delve in to the logic of how giving bad loans to people who could not pay for them, under blackmail threats from a socialist government and its supporters, benefits Wall Street. The reason is simple. There is not a single iota of logic to the idea that this crisis benefits Wall Street. There is not a single iota of logic to the idea that this is a crisis created by free enterprise. There is not a single iota of logic to the idea Democrat laws and Democrat officials should walk away from this Democrat created crisis with no blame.

Yet that is starting to become the general theme of the reporting on this crisis. It is all the fault of Wall Street. If you believe that, you are part of the problem, and will never have a clue why your nation is rapidly becoming a socialist tyranny.

The truly sad part is that the socialized system of issuing stupid loans to people who cannot repay has not been shut down. That is right. Nothing has been done to stop the stupidity. Under current laws, the issuance of loans to people who cannot possibly repay them will start again as soon as this "bailout" is approved.

The next time the crisis hits, it will be taxpayer's money, not foreign investors money, that will get wiped out in the crisis.