http://www.reuters.com/article…80107

Another article with a study showing supporting information:
Traiger & Hinckley LLP Study Shows CRA Banks Were Substantially
Less Likely Than Other Lenders to Make the High Cost Loans That Helped Fuel the Foreclosure Crisis

NEW YORK–(Business Wire)–A Traiger & Hinckley LLP study of 2006 mortgage loan data suggests that the Community Reinvestment Act, a federal law that requires banks to help serve the credit needs of their local communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, deterred banks from engaging in the kinds of risky lending practices that are provoking the foreclosure crisis.

Compared to other lenders in their communities, banks making loans
in their CRA assessment areas (CRA Banks) were less likely to make a
high cost loan, charged less for the high cost loans they did make,
and were substantially more likely to eschew the secondary market and
retain high cost and other loans in portfolio. Foreclosure rates were
also lower in metropolitan areas with proportionately greater numbers
of bank branches.

The Traiger & Hinckley LLP study, entitled “The Community
Reinvestment Act: A Welcome Anomaly in the Foreclosure Crisis,”
reviewed 2006 home purchase mortgage lending in the nation’s 15
largest metropolitan areas: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit,
Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix,
Riverside, CA, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC. The study
utilized public data filed pursuant to the CRA and Home Mortgage
Disclosure Act (HMDA).

“Without the CRA, the foreclosure crisis might have negatively
impacted even more borrowers and neighborhoods,” stated law firm
partner Warren Traiger. “Apparently, the CRA’s mandate that banks help
serve the credit needs of their local communities consistent with safe
and sound banking practices has resulted in CRA Banks making a greater
proportion of safe and sound loans than other lenders.”

Specifically, the Traiger & Hinckley LLP study found that:

– CRA Banks were 66 percent less likely than other lenders to
originate a high cost loan;

– The average high cost loan made by CRA Banks was priced 68
basis points lower than the average high cost loan originated
by other lenders;

– CRA Banks were more than twice as likely as other lenders to
hold originated loans in their portfolio; and

– The higher a metropolitan area’s concentration of bank
branches, the lower its foreclosure rate.

Conclusion

To a much greater extent than other lenders, CRA Banks avoided
making the types of home purchase mortgage loans that provoked the
foreclosure crisis. Unfortunately, the law’s impact on the subprime
crisis was limited because in the 15 metropolitan areas analyzed, the
CRA Banks’ share of the mortgage market was less than 25 percent.

While some have suggested extending CRA-like obligations to other
categories of lenders as a way of prospectively limiting the volume of
high cost loans and the problems associated with them, the study
speculates that the presence of local brick and mortar branches in a
community was at least as important a reason for CRA Banks’ better
performance than fear of a less than satisfactory CRA evaluation.
Although the CRA still has a vital role to play for banks lending in
their communities, it is doubtful whether the same benefits can be
realized for other lenders without a branch nexus.

The complete study is available at http://www.traigerlaw.com.

Not only were they less likely to produce sub-prime loans, they also gave lower rates than other sub-prime offerings (triggering less foreclosure), they also kept the mortgages in their own portfolio more often rather than selling them off to companies like F&F as ‘investments’.

What that last point means is that they were more comfortable with taking on more of the risk from their mortgages, rather than passing on the risk to other companies as ‘investment opportunities’.

In 2006, Obama requested $800,000 for the Will County Sheriff’s Office Wireless Communications Technology Upgrades.

In 2006, Obama requested $1,953,331 for Will County’s Ridgewood Water and Sewage Project.

In 2005, Obama requested $2 million for the Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois, to establish a Center for Academic and Community Learning, which is designed to address the significant educational needs of the less advantaged in the Will County region by providing academic assistance not only for students on campus but also for residents of the surrounding communities.

Neither the CRA nor its implementing regulation gives specific criteria for rating the performance of depository institutions. Rather, the law indicates that the evaluation process should accommodate an institution’s individual circumstances. Nor does the law require institutions to make high-risk loans that jeopardize their safety. To the contrary, the law makes it clear that an institution’s CRA activities should be undertaken in a safe and sound manner.

It looks like you purposely left this info out. Deceptive, to say the least.

It’s definitely a favorite saved!

“In 1995, Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar balked at implementing the federal motor voter law…”
Yes, Obama was part of a team of lawyers who, with acorn, succesfully forced the governor to implement a federal law. A federal judge found that, in fact, Illinois is subject to the US constitution. I don’t have a problem with supporting the constitution, or trying to help poor people vote.

“In 1996 Obama ran for Illinois State Senate and ACORN became his precinct organization, identifying and turning out the vote.”
“Precinct organization?” ALmost certainly untrue, but i could be persuaded if you present evidence. Certainly willing to believe they supported him… he shared many of their passions about helping the working poor.

“When Obama served on the board of the Woods Fund for Chicago, the Fund frequently gave ACORN grants to fund its agenda and voter registration activities.”

The woods fund says its goals are “to increase opportunities for less advantaged people and communities.” Heres a link to the oldest annual report archived on its website, 2003, the year after he left:

http://www.woodsfund.org/Folder_1042751691717/Folder_1207621291201/File_1207621304526 . Would be much better to have reports from the years he was there, or course. At any rate, gives a flavor of their operations and i doubt they changed much at that time. Go to grants paid section. They paid out $3 million that year to over 50 organizations, most of which seem worthy causes to me. Judge for yourself. Among them all is a $70,000 grant to the chicago acorn branch to support their work on “education reform, anti-predatory lending, living wage… and immigration reform.” That does’t seem scary to me.

“In 2004 ACORN operates as Obama’s precinct organization in his run for the U.S. Senate.”

Citation, please. This is a highly dubious assertion.

“In 2007 ACORN’s national political arm endorsed Obama for president, and its “nonpartisan” voter registration affiliate starts registering hundreds of thousands of voters for Obama.”

Look, all sorts of advocacy groups register voters, and you can usualy tell who they want to win by lookign at where they focus their efforts . The rules are simply that you must provide assistance to anybody you reach out too, even when they tell you they’re not going to support your guy. Evangelical groups do this. Inner-city groups do this. Gun advocates do tihs. This is the way the system runs and there’s nothing alarming about it.

“Obama claims he has no ties to “a group he once did some legal work for.””
I guess there could be a semantic argument about “ties.” But i tried and failed to find any quote from obama about the organization and the nature of his relationship to it. Could you post and cite, please? Let’s hear what he said.

“In July 2008 the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, along with NoQuarter researchers, exposes the lie by uncovering $832,598.29 that the Obama campaign funneled through a front company called Citizens Services, Inc.”

I just read the trib article. The Obama campaign origialy said it paid citizen’s services for political advance work. It later amended the filing to say it paid the organization for get out the vote work. This group is a liberal/democratic, for-profit political mobilization organization. None of this alarms me, but reasonable people can disagree.

“ACORN, which receives partial taxpayer funding, used those funds to conduct solicitations for contributions to and raised over $800,000 for Obama in Philadelphia alone.”

If it could be proven they took taxpayer money and used it for partisan politics, that would be very damaging for them. Has this been proven? Links please.

I’m willing to accept for the sake of argument that ACORN has links to the obama campaign (never mind how or how circuitous) AND that acorn has engaged in a number of dodgy practices. But none of what’s beign shown to me seems off teh reservation within our political culture. McCain? The words “Keating five” should be enough. Bill Clinton? “Marc Rich.” Hillary Clinton? “Norman Hsu.” You’d struggle to find any natioal political organization that does’t have dodgy associations when you follow the money.

About ACORN, to me it’s nothing more than a ’strong-arm’ organization that uses the threat of large numbers of low income people to protest or boycott corporations (banks) to intimidate and extort money from them. If it was run by Italians or Irish or any white group, it would be called the Mafia, but it’s run by blacks (thanks to community organizers-are ya listening Obama) so it’s called affirmative action.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink