Squaring the Culture

I plucked this video off of Hot Air, and I’ll post it here with some caveats.

The reason I want to display it is that it provides some detail concerning why we think the current housing crisis is tied to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1978. The part I was particularly interested in occurs between 3:15 and 3:45; it shows that housing prices started to rise faster than inflation after the Clinton administration’s acceleration of the CRA in 1995. I’ve actually provided some of this evidence before, in this blog article from February. The video gives more complete information, albeit without solid citations, so take the actual numbers with a grain of salt.

Also worth noting is the contrast between the goal of the CRA — “affordable housing” — and the resultant housing bubble, during which time home prices soared far above the average citizen’s ability to pay. It’s a classic case of liberal floundering; the changes they force on us hoping to make things better invariably make things worse for the very people they claim to be helping.

Ed Morrissey provides some other worthwhile comments, noting in particular that while certain Republicans did attempt to draw attention to the problem during the last decade, the Republican Congress failed to pass these measures — and the Democrats could not have stopped them if support had been unified. Some Republicans are to blame in this mess as well. Morrissey adds that we had plenty of warning that things were out of control, but didn’t really take note because we were all so thrilled at how much our houses were worth. All of us share some of the blame. But the root cause was the CRA.

Here’s the video. It’s 10 minutes long. Not all of it is worth as much as the parts I mentioned; there are a few individual statements I disagree with. Also, it goes by pretty quickly, so I recommend watching with your cursor poised over the “pause” button. Enjoy.