patrick.net

tatupu70 says

Which is why the vast majority of foreclosures are in those areas, and not in the inner cities. That is a key point. Think about that one!

On this I disagree. Most foreclosures that have already hit were sub-prime loans and in lower-income areas (at least in California). The next wave will move to better areas due to those that used their homes as ATM's and those that sold high and bought REALLY high using some exotic poop .. amd lastly those that just zaooed all the equity and now want to stop playing the game. I am sure there is about 9,000 hits if you google Merced County and forclosures ... we lead the way and we be a poor area.

Yes, BofA may have not given loans due to race .... trouble with that is, how would a loan officer know the race of an applicant? .... I don't think loan docs have race boxes. And if the do, they shouldn't. Having a race box to check on any aplication is racisit in my opinion.

Back to the #1 item. The point you mention about timing is important. Some suggest that re-grouping of mortgages to make WallStreet love them was a 2000 era deal. And the Changes to the CRA that I think made the loose lending posible is 1995 or so. Maybe we need to find those two dates? That may help.

anyways ... I gaurentee that you will enjoy reading both pages of this link .. and the comments that follow ... It is very informative. I posted this link before, but you may have only read the first page and missed the comments after the article. Enjoy

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/02/06/the-true-origins-of-this-finan

Bap33 says

Yes, BofA may have not given loans due to race …. trouble with that is, how would a loan officer know the race of an applicant?

Actually, there is a separate form that you fill out for race.

Bap33 says

On this I disagree. Most foreclosures that have already hit were sub-prime loans and in lower-income areas (at least in California). The next wave will move to better areas due to those that used their homes as ATM’s and those that sold high and bought REALLY high using some exotic poop

Agreed, but I think you are confusing sub-prime with inner city. Sub-prime loans can be made anywhere--suburbs, rural areas, high end neighborhoods, etc. Whereas CRA loans required that they be made in the inner cities.

Bap33 says

I am sure there is about 9,000 hits if you google Merced County and forclosures

Interesting. Is Merced county a designated CRA area? My guess would be no, but I haven't looked it up.

@BAP

On this I disagree. Most foreclosures that have already hit were sub-prime loans and in lower-income areas (at least in California). The next wave will move to better areas due to those that used their homes as ATM’s and those that sold high and bought REALLY high using some exotic poop

I am praying for this to happen, we shouldnt have to pay these people to stay in homes because of their own poor business decisions. Not our fault that they chose to take out ARMs in attempt to hussle the system. I am against doing away totally with these programs as we need to extend some good faith out to the poor, however, we shouldnt put them in neighborhoods that they cannot afford either. CRA qualifications need to be drastically raised, no way someone working at McDonalds should have the aspiration to own a home yet. Their dream should be to get into a college to start building a career.

Good points.

@tatupu,
There is a seperate form that gets filled out for race on home loans? How is it policed to ensure honest applicants? And what is the information used for? Honest questions, not baiting you in any way.
And when you say CRA only applies to certian markets, who draws those lines? Is there a link to a map you can share with me?
And my final question .. are race and property locatation (CRA qualifications) tied together in the loan process by a CRA mandate or did the banks want to do this as part of the profit hunting? What if the applicant qualifies but the property don't, or vise versa? Thanks.

RE: Merced County. I'm, not sure. The population is well over 25% non-American hispanics, and well over 50% hispanics as a whole, and has a 20% unemployed legal worker rate (not including illegals here not working), had a top ten in the nation rate for teen mothers (hispanic), and for STD's for people 15 to 25 (something like 1 in 3). Please don't ask me to rsearch and share all of these links ... I did it a long while ago and I am just going from memory. If any point rubs anyone the wrong way, please ignore what I wrote and move along. lol

4X,

I agree. That is why I feel Section 8 welfare renters should not be allowed to rent in SFH areas. #1, it results in tax payers paying the home note for weathly landlords. #2, it puts folks in an area that they would not be on their own effort. #3, Section 8 renters drive down property values in the area due to personal choices and life style that are common in the welfare community. #4, if artifically raises the rental market -- juat like any other areas with direct flow from gov dollars.
I do not mind helping poor people have a safe warm home ... in a publicly owned housing complex with strict behavior rules, with a high mark for personal responsibility.

@BAP

I agree. That is why I feel Section 8 welfare renters should not be allowed to rent in SFH areas. #1, it results in tax payers paying the home note for weathly landlords. #2, it puts folks in an area that they would not be on their own effort. #3, Section 8 renters drive down property values in the area due to personal choices and life style that are common in the welfare community. #4, if artifically raises the rental market — juat like any other areas with direct flow from gov dollars. I do not mind helping poor people have a safe warm home … in a publicly owned housing complex with strict behavior rules, with a high mark for personal responsibility.

I agree, and then more. I knew someone who was on section 8 from 1987 through 2004. That to me just shows they were not trying to better themselves and had no pride. The poor need education more than they do home ownership. If SFH means wealthy neighborhoods then I agree with that statement too, we should not infiltrate neighborhoods with high pride in ownership with people that do no have the income to understand the concepts. This may come off as elitist, so for clarification I had to work my way out of poverty cycle through education and building my career. I left poverty behind 15 years ago when I worked 3 jobs to get through a full load at school and never needed section 8. I had a different job after each class, so there was no need for welfare or section 8...just hard work. Now, i did get a Sallie Mae loan that i am paying back...LOL.

Bap33 says

@tatupu,
There is a seperate form that gets filled out for race on home loans? How is it policed to ensure honest applicants? And what is the information used for? Honest questions, not baiting you in any way.

I'm not sure. I just remember filling it out on my last loan application.

And when you say CRA only applies to certian markets, who draws those lines? Is there a link to a map you can share with me?

I can do some research, but I imagine the Feds do. I have tried to find a link with a map in the past without success, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just that my detective skills aren't up to the task.

And my final question .. are race and property locatation (CRA qualifications) tied together in the loan process by a CRA mandate or did the banks want to do this as part of the profit hunting? What if the applicant qualifies but the property don’t, or vise versa? Thanks.

I'm not sure I understand this question. CRA doesn't mandate anything with regards to lending standards. That is left completely up to the bank. CRA just looks at % of loans made to CRA designated areas. The banks, of course, have the final say whether or not to make any individual loan.

SFH = Single Family Homes ... just regular old houses. Section 8 should be public owned housing so no personal wealth through apprieciation can be made on the tax-payer dime. Just my humble opinion.

On the Cal scale I am well below poverty with a wife and three kids all on my income. But, in my little world, I'm cool. No handouts wanted or accepted. Do work for food. No higher education, just a blue collar bitter clinger.

@BAP

Yep, I have a friend who bought a multifamily home in 2005 for 700K only to rent out to section 8. He financed the place in his sisters name and it is now in default...and only worth 200K. He was taking the rents and vacationing for the past 6 mos. Now, he is attempting do a short sale and to create a silent partnership with the new buyer in order to turn a profit on the Section 8 rents he is receiving. He also drives a Toyota and works at a Non-Profit faith based initiative church...I say that to paint a picture of the non-profit mindset he has when it comes to the American Worker.

We lost 500,000 and he continues to earn a profit...I am started to see why so many conservatives scream at the fiscal irresponsibility of the bailouts.

...and why so many are against socialist programs like FHA, FANNIE, FREDDIE. I say we reform them with stricter requirements as many have benefitted from them.

Banks and mortgage lenders made bad loans because there was very little incentive for them not to and very big incentives for them to do so. They 'passed the buck' to FANNIE and FREDDIE and the secondary market and collected their money up front. They didn't really care if the loans got paid back because they no longer owned them.

iggyman says

Banks and mortgage lenders made bad loans because there was very little incentive for them not to and very big incentives for them to do so. They ‘passed the buck’ to FANNIE and FREDDIE and the secondary market and collected their money up front. They didn’t really care if the loans got paid back because they no longer owned them

I agree with that to a point, but if that were the case then why did we have to bailout Wells Fargo, BofA, Citi, etc. along with Countrywide, National City, etc. It's not as if the bankers and mortgage brokers were any smarter.... They owned and continue to own a LOT of them.

@TATUPU

...maybe they thought they would benefit by keeping a certain % on hand. Maybe the ones kept were considered safe. I am starting to realize that in no way should any bank owned loans be insured by our tax dollars but on the opposing end...that would freeze up credit markets that are financing growth of our GDP right?

4X says

…maybe they thought they would benefit by keeping a certain % on hand.

Yes, I'm certain they did--because they didn't understand the risk of those loans. And they thought RE only went up...

Maybe this thread would have been shorter if the heading was "CRA helped cause the housing crash" .. and left open the chance for some blame sharing? lol

Bap33 says

Maybe this thread would have been shorter if the heading was “CRA helped cause the housing crash” .. and left open the chance for some blame sharing? lol

Yeah, Bap33, as a renter, my view is that many factors contributed to the crash. The CRA was just one, and not the only one, of many factors, which include:

homeowner (seller) greed
homeowner (neighborhood "comps") greed
realtor greed
mortgage loan officer (commission) greed
lending institution greed
investment firm greed
hedge fund greed

As a renter, the deck was stacked against me by all the players listed above.

Even though we are considered "high-income" renters, we were taken advantage of just like my renter brethren in the mobile home parks.

Each and every time we earned a raise, the rents went up more. The whole thing was designed to keep us from saving anything so that the "bleed factor" that the realtors set was maintained at maximum strength so that the landlords would be able to keep us as "perma-renters" (remember that term?).

Several times we seriously considered renting a MH just to save for a downpayment. (We didn't because we needed a garage, at least a 1-car).

We also considered living in a tent at a State Park just to get away from the real estate greed.

Unfortunately, "real estate only goes up" was on our dime.

So, I cannot in any conscience lay blame on the subprimers (CRA). That wasn't the only factor in creating this mess.

~Misstrial

Misstrial,
Sounds like the housing bubble was keeping pace with you as you were coming into your stride professionally. Same story here!

We were living in an apartment complex in those years. The rent was high, but on the reasonable end because it was an old mid-40's building with zero amenities. I took advantage of it, always scrounging and saving - not so much for a house at first (2003), but for other interests - while most of the other tenants in the building went out drinking, shopping, buying new cars, special breed dogs or designer sushi. Everytime the rent went up twenty or thirty bucks, a wave of tenants would move out, and I'd invariably hear "yeah, he or she bought a house up the street because of the increase..." and I would wonder to myself - how's that? These were clearly folks of modest means -- and I do not say that pejoratively. I'd already done the math and resigned myself to being priced-out of an insane market a couple years before, but all of a sudden, here's the X-Ray tech and the hostess at the Olive Garden, buying 1000 sq ft tract house for over a 300K and then putting in a bunch of oak and stainless and granite. Dumpsters in driveways were the norm. I put it down to everyone having rich parents, and kept on saving.

We all know how that went. It's hard to feel much compassion for those buyers today, even though the media paints them as hapless victims of a rope-a-dope scheme. Everyone, including the banks, got swept up in groupthink and didn't want to feel left out of the buzz. What's weird is that I'm seeing almost the same buzz and groupthink going on again, including with friends of mine and even in some of the posts here. I should probably copy and save those posts for posterity. The short term memory of the American public is really something to behold. Just look at the fact that a quarter million dollar home is now considered low end. Wow. That is a recent phenomena, gang. A dozen years earlier, that would have afforded you a nice spread.

Meanwhile, I still haven't bought anything because the noise floor is still much too high. In fact, I suspect we are headed for housing crash redux in the next two to three years. I will happily eat my words if and when everything works out fine. However, my appetite wasn't spoiled from having to eat my words from the bubble years and something tells me I'll starve before the chips fall with these new schemes (FHA/low interest rates/tax rebates, etc.)

the media never tells about the "poor hapless buyers" that bought and flipped to the tune of $150K cash in hand after 3 years. My good friend now owns his tire shop outright, and his rental homes outright, and he took all the equity out of his soon-to-walk-away McMansion to buy his landing house outright. There were winners, but only tax payers get to be loosers in Barryville.

My good friend now owns his tire shop outright, and his rental homes outright, and he took all the equity out of his soon-to-walk-away McMansion to buy his landing house outright.

Just wait; these are the same mothers who'll be the first to grouse about higher taxes in the future!

LOL thunderlips11 - Thank*You for that stroll down Memory Lane. :)

Yeah, Austin - I hear ya....I think many tenants simply gave up and gave in to the whole real estate game for varied reasons. Some to get away from lousy landlords and ever-increasing rents and others because the banks were paying them to buy. And others because they got the warm fuzzies as new members of Club Homeowner.

I remember being shunned by the neighbors because I was a renter (God forbid!) even though I was younger, better educated and a highly trained professional - made NO difference to these people. Their WHOLE IDENTITY was in being a known as homeowner: having people wave as they washed their cars in the driveway and honk out in the supermarket parking lot, local fame....the whole deal :/

Now its all different of course....

~Misstrial

tatupu70 says

iggyman says

Banks and mortgage lenders made bad loans because there was very little incentive for them not to and very big incentives for them to do so. They ‘passed the buck’ to FANNIE and FREDDIE and the secondary market and collected their money up front. They didn’t really care if the loans got paid back because they no longer owned them

I agree with that to a point, but if that were the case then why did we have to bailout Wells Fargo, BofA, Citi, etc. along with Countrywide, National City, etc. It’s not as if the bankers and mortgage brokers were any smarter…. They owned and continue to own a LOT of them.

They got caught up in their own game. They aren't any smarter than the rest of us. But when lending was lending - they earned their money from collecting interest on money they lent out rather then selling the loans - their incentives didn't conflict. It was "make good loans or go broke. With securitzation it became 'make all the loans you can find an excuse for and pocket the cash - or some other lender will. And I don't want to explain to the board of directors why the competition is blowing us out of the water.'

Bap33 says

Well .. lets try this another way to avoid traveling the same path redundantly. I will try to list the facts of the bubble the we all might agree on. Then add what you see I missed that is shared fact and point out any fact I list that you disagree with .. just to give us a point of referencs. Lets just try this way, please.

1) The lending standards were reduced from 20% down, to NINJA loans all around between 1995ish and 2005ish. Would you agree? If not, please pin-point the time frame for the reduction in lending standards and why.
2) Before the lending standards were reduced there were fewer possible buyers in the housing pool. Would you agree? If you disagree please share why the buyer pool increased.
3) The increase in pretend “entry level” buyers thanks to the new lower standards created higher demand and accelerated building/flipping/speculation. Would you agree? If you disagree, please explain where the increase in demand came from.
4) A push upwards in all markets due to the upwards push from the bottom was the next step in the bubble. Would you agree? If you feel the bubble was not expanded bottom-first, please give some detail.
Those are just 4 steps of the bubble reduced to very common terms in an effort to find where we do agree. I am not trying to load up on you or put words in your mouth. Would you please share your position on these 4 areas and add any detail that you feel would express your view better. Thank you.

If anyone is interested, I've laid out the major changes in lending guidelines and loan products since 1998 at http://valusage.com/housing-crisis-causes that led to values increasing so much in relation to incomes. (It's a new site - still working out the bugs). I purposefully stayed away from getting into why those changes were made - that leads to too many drawn out debates like this one!

Bap33 says

but only tax payers get to be loosers in Barryville

You do realize that TARP was enacted before Obama, right?

@iggy,
great grouping of info. You avoided the blame game very well and just left info. Can't argue with info. Good job.

@tatupu,
Sure, I knew that. I'm pretty sure you know what I was getting at with my post, and for the record, Bush was a spend-a-holic. TARP, schmarp, it's all poop. lol

You know, one area we skipped in placing blame was the need of a buyer demografic that would not be able to place a proper value on homes and dollars ... while buying the stucco-wrapped crap that was pumped into the "entry level" market of 2002-2006. Did you ever catch the loacal paper's putting out their cheerleader crap about how the minorities were doing so well by tracking "sir names of owners'? What a crock. Do they track sir (or is it sur?) names of forclosed loan-liars now? THat would be good info. Do you feel a buyer demografic that lacked some home value/dollar value ability was part of the needed mix? Or do you think they were all greed driven? Or what? Thanks.

The data is clear. Government initiatives in 1994 which included revisions to the CRA and HUD's directing Fannie/Freddie to allocate massive sums of money to subprime loans distorted Homeownership in the US. In a matter of months Homeownership exceeded the historical record high and continued to rise rapidly. Rising homeownership caused prices to begin to rise unsustainably in 1997.

@tatupu,
do you agree with the data in the graph?

whitneyross says

The data is clear. Government initiatives in 1994 which included revisions to the CRA and HUD’s directing Fannie/Freddie to allocate massive sums of money to subprime loans distorted Homeownership in the US. In a matter of months Homeownership exceeded the historical record high and continued to rise rapidly. Rising homeownership caused prices to begin to rise unsustainably in 1997.

Yes, the data is probably right. Home ownership definitely increased. The logic is flawed though. I'll give you an example to try to illustrate it for you and whitney.

I went to the local Qick-E-Mart to buy a soda because it was hot and I was thirsty. While I was there I decided to try a diet mountain dew. Never had one before. While I was walking up to the counter to buy it, a guy bought a scratch off ticket and won $100K. Hooray!

So, now when I tell the story he won because I was there buying a diet mountain dew. The data is clear. Noone had won the lottery in that store until I picked out the Dt. Mountain Dew. And as soon as I picked it out somone won! Eureka! It quenched my thirst too--it's a miracle drink.

Put simply, just because B follows A doesn't mean A caused B.

Hope that helps.

@austin

We all know how that went. It’s hard to feel much compassion for those buyers today, even though the media paints them as hapless victims of a rope-a-dope scheme. Everyone, including the banks, got swept up in groupthink and didn’t want to feel left out of the buzz. What’s weird is that I’m seeing almost the same buzz and groupthink going on again, including with friends of mine and even in some of the posts here.

Which is exactly why Obama needs to let the markets reset themselves. We cannot continue financing GDP with equity and with 3 million more jobs due to be offshored our middle class will not be able to afford these home prices that are being inflated by the agents and their "Multiple Offer" schemes. Obama needs to act quickly as he said he would, so far he is allowing the banks, congress and the poor buyers of yesterday dictate his course....I am not with that kind of hopeless change.

Where is the hope? The HOPE that the markets will reset? The HOPE that huge tax incentives will be provided to keep jobs local?

@misstrial

I remember being shunned by the neighbors because I was a renter (God forbid!) even though I was younger, better educated and a highly trained professional - made NO difference to these people. Their WHOLE IDENTITY was in being a known as homeowner: having people wave as they washed their cars in the driveway and honk out in the supermarket parking lot, local fame….the whole deal :/

I get the same in Sierra Madre, but when I look back I have smirk on my face because I know I am looking at the idiot that bought at the peak for 899K whereby I will get something for 450K.....should I decide to go that high.

Today, a house is like a BMW...but tomorrow it will be like an old beat up BMW, no one will want it.

Those dang WW2 Veterans and their Socialist Home Ownership Programs!

That's about the same time they started fluoridation of the water supply! I smell a commie plot.

4x said:
Shame on you for showing no remorse for any 6th generation children of slaves, they need our empathy and good will. Imagine if someone had of kicked you until you were down for 400 years and then all of sudden released your shackles, sent you on your way with no education or understanding of how society works.

Um... American Revolution... ever hear of it?

I dunno, I may be wrong but it sounds like you know what is better than African American's what is best for them.

@mike3

Right, here is the solution to African Americans problem.

A small percentage of African Americans (1/3 of the population) need to be forced to attend college enrollment and the remaining portion need to be dropped from welfare altogether. While the majority (2/3 of the population) are on the right track, building their families. About 1/3 of the population has not seperated itself from the enslaved thoughts and impoverished mentalities that came from slavery. IE Lil Wayne, Lil Kim, Biggie Smalls, Tupac. On the opposite end of the sprectrum you have Barrack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Don Cheadle, Denzel Washington, Bill Cosby, Maya Angelou, so forth and so on...these are people that represent the real black community. The others are just a part of the poor communities that plague America. Poor people across the world are all the same...stupid and over indulgent on immoral behaviors. Just take a look at those poor Indian children in that movie Slumdog Millionaire. They are about to lose their million dollar contract because their parents wont send them to school...that is sad.

Look up Clarence 13X then you will understand why my name is 4X.

Here is another solid debunk of the old "CRA caused the housing crash" baloney:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/cre-and-the-cra/

Also you can follow several links to read more.

Elvis cannot be bothered with facts nor with solid evidence. So what. No big whoop.

@ justme .... for old times sake .... if CRA did anything, good or bad, bubble or no, what did it do after the changes Komrade Klinton made? What action or activity would you point to and say "this right here was due to the CRA using the new Klinton guidelines and supporting legal structure". Anything justme, please. Thanks.

@ bap33, sorry, I don't understand the question.

I suggest reading the Krugman article. It contains the perfect evidence that CRA was a NO-OP (as they say in computing).

@Elvis

I dunno, I may be wrong too, but it seems like the Government claims to know better than Americans what is best for us. The problem is that virtually everything the government touches turns to crap (the law of unintended consequences). Could it be the reason that our country is losing its prosperity, its jobs, its currency is the politicians (both parties) are completely out of touch and make decisions that cause more damage than help?

I read a quote from Newsweek that would help bring light to your statement. It read:

"If the American people want the president to be more like the Barack Obama they elected, perhaps they should start acting more like the voters who elected him."

The challenge for any president is that if they did what needs to be done (Raise Taxes, Cut Government Programs, Regulate the Banks, etc.) to bring our country back to prosperity they would not get a second term, their party would be typecast forever as the party who does nothing for the people....and the opposing party would be seen as more favorable for the long term. Voters are a fickle group, Americans even more so...we really dont want change because the first instance someone speaks of cutting programs, raising taxes or pulling out of Iraq the other side starts to bark in outrage and we change sides.

==========================

I was talking this over with Vincente and Headset in another forum.

Headset Says:

Has any politician ever won with the “cut” platform. All I hear about is what goodies politicos will provide for whoever votes for them. I hope you have an example of an elected official who actually won with a campaign platform of across the board spending cuts, delivered on those cuts, and was then re-elected. It would provide hope.

Vincente Says:

Many voters want a free lunch. They want services without taxes. Thus no politician of the 2 major parties actually has any intention of really cutting overall expenditures drastically. They make symbolic cuts in places that viscerally please their constituents, and then layer on the pork somewhere else.
It’s high time for a 3rd party.

The reason I quote these folks is that many are feeling the same way you are, we have to admit that it is our very own fault...our fault for not supporting policy that gets things done. Less government, some regulation, tougher requirements for social welfare, tax incentives for businesses to bring jobs back, a pull out from Iraq/Afghan and higher taxes is what will get us out of this crisis. Only then, will we be able to start over as a nation, we should be focused on being #1 or a close #2 in various industries and stop financing our GDP on equity.

@BAP33 @TATUP

And I can agree with your points, so here we are. We agree the standards changed (1). Those changes resulted in more buyers(2). More buyers drive prices up(3). From there the monster grew(4). So, we agree.

The devil is in the details though where CRA, Frank, Barry, ACORN, and Fanny are concerned, so if you agree, we can detail each step in order. .

I agree that more buyers equals higher prices however can you folks agree that there is a need and role within lending for CRA, FHA, Fair Housing Act?

I recently read that FHA was created in response to the crash of 1929 and the associated programs gave banks confidence to start lending after the crash. Almost immediately after the creation of FHA the practice of "redlining" certain neighborhoods began. Oddly enough, the practice of "redlining" is actually noted as originating within the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in the 1930s. You may already know this, however, redlining refers to the discriminatory credit practices against low-income neighborhoods in which lenders would not lend monies to these neighborhoods. Congress passed the CRA Act in 1977 to reduce this practice, whereby there was 47 years of inaction that had passed before anything was done to increase investment in lower income neighborhoods. The law, however, emphasizes that an institution's CRA activities should be undertaken in a safe and sound manner, and does not require institutions to make high-risk loans that may bring losses to the institution. The CRA followed similar laws passed to reduce discrimination in the credit and housing markets including the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975. The Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or other personal characteristics.

I do not see how the CRA caused the bubble as it was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act that allowed the creation of Alt-A loans which were not previously available to the lower economic demographics. Prior to Gramm-Leach-Bliley lower economic communities were not afforded 400k, 500k loans.

Your thoughts?

@BAP @TATUP

Here is how Gramm-Leach-Bliley reduced the effectiveness of CRA:

From Wiki

In conjunction with the above "Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act" changes, smaller banks would be reviewed less frequently for CRA compliance by the addition of §2908. (Small Bank Regulatory Relief) directly to Chapter 30, (the existing CRA laws), itself. The 1999 Act also mandated two studies to be conducted in connection with the "Community Reinvestment Act":

the first report by the Federal Reserve, to be delivered to Congress by March 15, 2000, is a comprehensive study of CRA to focus on default and delinquency rates, and the profitability of loans made in connection with CRA; the second report to be conducted by the Treasury Department over the next two years, is intended to determine the impact of the Act on the provision of services to low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and people, as intended by CRA.
On signing the "Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act", President Clinton said that it, "establishes the principles that, as we expand the powers of banks, we will expand the reach of the [Community Reinvestment] Act"

My point is that there is a need for the CRA but we need to reverse GLB act of 1999 passed by Clinton.