Deja vu: Holder to force "racist" banks to lend to minorities with weak credit

[Fury]

Holder Launches Witch Hunt Against Biased Banks
By PAUL SPERRY, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 07/08/2011 06:51 PM ET

In what could be a repeat of the easy-lending cycle that led to the housing crisis, the Justice Department has asked several banks to relax their mortgage underwriting standards and approve loans for minorities with poor credit as part of a new crackdown on alleged discrimination, according to court documents reviewed by IBD.

Prosecutions have already generated more than $20 million in loan set-asides and other subsidies from banks that have settled out of court rather than battle the federal government and risk being branded racist. An additional 60 banks are under investigation, a DOJ spokeswoman says.

No Job, No Problem

Settlements include setting aside prime-rate mortgages for low-income blacks and Hispanics with blemished credit and even counting "public assistance" as valid income in mortgage applications.

In several cases, the government has ordered bank defendants to post in all their branches and marketing materials a notice informing minority customers that they cannot be turned down for credit because they receive public aid, such as unemployment benefits, welfare payments or food stamps.

Among other remedies: favorable interest rates and down-payment assistance for minority borrowers with weak credit.

For example, the government has ordered Midwest BankCentre to set aside almost $1 million in "special financing" for residents living in predominantly black areas of St. Louis. The program includes originating conventional home loans at fixed prime rates for African-American borrowers "who would ordinarily not qualify for such rates for reasons including the lack of required credit quality, income or down payment."

The same federal order, signed last month, praises Midwest for adopting "less stringent underwriting criteria" while under investigation.

In the case against Citizens Bank of Detroit, settled in May, the U.S. decrees that "the bank may choose to apply more flexible underwriting standards in connection with the programs under this order."

Such efforts risk recreating the government-imposed lax underwriting that led to the housing boom and bust, critics fear.

"It's absolutely outrageous after what we've just gone through," said former Rep. Ernest Istook, a Heritage Foundation fellow. "How can someone both be financially stable enough to merit a mortgage at the same time they're on public assistance? By definition, you don't have the kind of employment that can support such a loan."

Justice March

Justice spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa said the anti-discrimination notice "does not compel the banks to make loans to people who do not qualify." She said such measures are "essential to remedy the harmful effects of the banks' conduct."

But industry analysts fear Attorney General Eric Holder is rekindling an anti-bank witch hunt launched by Attorney General Janet Reno in the 1990s, when Holder served as her deputy.

Some blame that in part for the subprime boom, because banks were ordered to throw open their lending windows to credit-poor minorities. That crackdown spurred the American Bankers Association to distribute to its thousands of members "fair-lend ing tool kits" advising the adoption of more permissive underwriting criteria to help inoculate them from prosecution.

In the new prosecutions, Justice acknowledges in every case it did not prove charges of intentional discrimination, while banks have denied any wrongdoing. Many, in fact, earned outstanding ratings from anti-redlining regulators enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act.

Istook calls Holder's crusade an "egregious overreach by the government." He says many of the targets are smaller banks without the resources to fight a protracted legal battle.

The House Judiciary Committee plans to investigate.

"This is an expansion of the law," said a congressional investigator. "They're pushing the envelope as far as they can go in the enforcement of civil rights."

DOJ Demands 'Nondisclosure'

As part of settlement deals, prosecutors have required banks to sign "nondisclosure agreements" barring them from talking about the methods used to allege discrimination. Bank lawyers contend the prosecutors are trying to hide the shaky legal grounds on which the cases are built. "It's horrible what they're doing at the civil rights division," said Reginald Brown, a partner at Wilmer Hale in Washington, who has represented banks in connection to recent race-bias investigations. "They don't have any proof, just theories."

He added, "They want you to sign something saying you agree, under the condition of any settlement with them, that you won't disclose what their theories were. That's because their theories are loopy and wouldn't stand the light of day."

One such theory — "disparate impact" — holds that merely a difference in loan application outcomes is enough to prove racial discrimination — even if no intent exists on the part of loan officers to contrast based on the color of applicants, and even legitimate business factors — such as credit scores and down payments — help explain disparities in loan outcomes between white and black applicants.

Under this broad theory, banks have been accused of racism simply for failing to open branches or aggressively market mortgages in black neighborhoods — regardless of the demand for, or viability of, such loans in those areas.

Following this theory, the government has ordered several banks to advertise in black media and open branches in black neighborhoods, despite the weak economy.

Justice confirmed it has asked banks to keep its methodologies, which include computer-based statistical analysis, secret.

"In certain circumstances, when a bank has requested details of our analysis, the department has requested that a defendant agree to a confidentiality agreement," Hinojosa told IBD.

Critics say Holder's interpretation of civil-rights law is even more radical than Reno's.

For the first time, prosecutors are judging banks for the secondary impact their policies have on entire minority communities, not just households. And they're ordering reparations accordingly.

In announcing a recent $2 million settlement with Dallas-based PrimeLending, Civil Rights Division chief Tom Perez said, "We will require lenders to invest in the community that they've harmed."

Another Reno protege, Perez has compared bankers to Klansmen. Only difference is, he said, bankers discriminate "with a smile" and "fine print." He said this kind of racism, though more subtle, is "every bit as destructive as the cross burned in a neighborhood."

Perez has put in place an infrastructure to enforce "fair lending" — including a first-of-its-kind Fair Lending Unit staffed with more than 20 lawyers, economists and statisticians.

He's appointed a special lending cop to run it — Special Counsel for Fair Lending Eric Halperin, who also worked for Reno. Before returning to Justice, Halperin was chief Washington lobbyist for the Center for Responsible Lending, an anti-redlining group that urged banks to relax lending standards for low-income urban borrowers before the crisis.

Perez has required bank defendants to earmark potentially millions in funding for inner-city community organizers — who must be approved by Justice. Critics say lenders are being forced to bankroll Acorn clones that often exist just to shake them down for risky loans.

Hinojosa declined to provide a list of these "qualified organizations."

Perez is also prosecuting banks for "reverse redlining through the targeting of minority communities for predatory loans."

Istook finds it odd that the government is condemning lenders for doing too well what it pressured them to do in the name of diversity before the crisis. "Banks are damned if they do, damned if they don't," he said.

Also, critics say Justice is acting as a bank regulator by enforcing its own quota system for multicultural loans. The civil rights division has set "benchmarks" for minority lending, and will monitor bank lending volume and activity in that area among the banks it's suing.

In effect, Justice is using private banks to carry out affirmative-action lending, Istook says, a campaign he describes as "legal plunder."

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=577794&p=3



Rinse and repeat. These fucking leftists never learn.

But it's really cool that our AG only cares about blacks, illegals and Muslims. Good thing they make up such a HUGE portion of this country's populace.  

[Soul Crusher]

This Perez is a real pofs.   He has his hands in all sorts of nasty shit.   Look him up.   I have done research on Tom Perez.   He is a commie traitor like holder and Obama.   

You won't believe the crap you find on that lunatic.

He was the main guy who shut down the black panthers case in doj and said white victims don't matter and should not bother filing complaints. 

[Fury]

This Perez is a real pofs.   He has his hands in all sorts of nasty shit.   Look him up.   I have done research on Tom Perez.   He is a commie traitor like holder and Obama.   

You won't believe the crap you find on that lunatic.

He was the main guy who shut down the black panthers case in doj and said white victims don't matter and should not bother filing complaints. 

I honestly never heard of him until I read this article. It's impossible to keep track of all of the hand-picked thugs in the Obama regime. There's just so many of them.

[Soul Crusher]

I honestly never heard of him until I read this article. It's impossible to keep track of all of the hand-picked thugs in the Obama regime. There's just so many of them.

Look up Tom Perez.   He runs the civ rights division of doj.   You won't believe some of the crap he has pulled so for.   Type his name in the search function even here.   I know I posted some stuff on this radical before. 

[Fury]

Ha. I remember the two threads you just bumped. Didn't remember that it was Perez behind them.

Par the course for an Obama regime appointment.

[Soul Crusher]

Back in the Sub-Prime Mortgage Habit
Frontpagemagazine ^ | Jul 13th, 2011 | Arnold Ahlert

________________________ ________________________ ___________



One might be inclined to think that an economic meltdown caused by irresponsible mortgage underwriting would be a “‘lesson learned” of the first order. One might think a federal government which has largely escaped well-deserved blame for its part in pressuring banks to relax loan standards for minority applicants, in order to avoid charges of racism, would never reprise such an ill-conceived concept. One might think a U.S. Department of Justice neck-deep in a Mexican gunrunning scandal and unresolved charges of reverse-discrimination for dropping a voter intimidation case against Black Panthers would be chastened by such disclosures. One would be completely wrong: the DOJ is once again strong-arming banks to make risky loans to minority applicants, or face charges of discrimination.


The pressure is yielding results. Prosecutors from the department have succeed in wresting more than $20 million in set-asides from lending institutions apparently intimidated by such pressure: the funds were raised in out-of-court settlements with banks fearful of being branded racist for maintaining sensible loan standards. Another 60 banks are in the DOJ’s cross-hairs.

How dubious are these loans? Once again, prime mortgages are being set aside for minority applicants with questionable credit. And once again, as incomprehensible it was the first time, “valid” income considerations for obtaining a mortgage will include “welfare payments, and unemployment benefits.” Former Rep. Ernest Istook, a Heritage Foundation fellow, illuminates the insanity. ”It’s absolutely outrageous after what we’ve just gone through,” said Istook. ”How can someone both be financially stable enough to merit a mortgage at the same time they’re on public assistance? By definition, you don’t have the kind of employment that can support such a loan.”

Such concerns are irrelevant for a Justice Department that sees racial bogeymen wherever it turns. Many of the banks they sued have been ordered to post notices in all their branches and on advertising material notifying minority customers that they cannot be turned down for a loan simply because they’re on the government dole. Justice Dept. spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa, while noting that such pressure “does not compel the banks to make loans to people who do not qualify,” contended such lending is “essential to remedy the harmful effects of the banks’ conduct.”

Toward that end the DOJ has created a new entity called the Fair Lending Unit, comprised of more than 20 lawyers, economists and statisticians. It is headed by Special Counsel for Fair Lending, Eric Halperin, who answers to Civil Rights Division chief Tom Perez. Both men worked for former Attorney General Janet Reno. How credible is Perez? He is the man who once likened lending institutions to the Klu Klux Klan, saying their racism with respect to mortgages is ”every bit as destructive as the cross burned in a neighborhood.” He was also responsible for dropping the case against the two Black Panthers involved in voter intimidation in Philadelphia — after it was already won.

More importantly, with respect to minority lending, Mr. Perez is pursuing policies best described as a schizophrenic. At a meeting hosted by the Brookings Institution in June of 2010, Mr. Perez spoke about a housing crisis “fueled in large part by risky and irresponsible lending practices that allowed too many Americans to get unsustainable or unaffordable home loans.” He then claimed that while the crisis affected everyone, “communities of color have been hit particularly hard, and have suffered greater consequences.” In other words, the same lending institutions which had lowered credit standards to make more mortgages available for minority applicants were at fault for higher default rates by those same applicants! And one year later, the DOJ is pursuing banks for not engaging in the same risky practices that led to the housing bust which disproportionally affected minority borrowers!

Perez blamed this disproportion on the fact that minority borrowers were put in more sub-prime loans than non-minorities with similar incomes, citing a New York Times study which noted that “a black household in New York City making more than $68,000 a year was almost five times more likely to have a subprime loan than whites with similar incomes.” That certainly sounds unfair until one discovers the following reported by the Manhattan Institute’s Howard Husock:

A September 1999 study by Freddie Mac, for instance, confirmed what previous Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation studies had found: that African-Americans have disproportionate levels of credit problems, which explains why they have a harder time qualifying for mortgage money. As Freddie Mac found, blacks with incomes of $65,000 to $75,000 a year have on average worse credit records than whites making under $25,000.

Furthermore, a study conducted by insurance giant Prudential entitled the “African American Financial Experience” reveals that black Americans do not save as much money as white Americans do, especially with regard to retirement funds, even as they are “three times more likely to raid their 401(k) or other retirement plans to meet immediate financial needs.”

Again, one might think that such realties concerning credit and savings histories would diminish the Justice Department’s efforts to portray banks and other lending institutions as racist. It has, in an Orwellian sense. According to Investor’s Business Daily’s Paul Sperry, if the methodology used by the DOJ to allege racism by particular institutions is requested by the institutions themselves, they must sign a non-disclosure agreement to get it. Reginald Brown, partner at Wilmer Hale in Washington, who has represented banks in connection to recent race-bias investigations, explains why. ”They want you to sign something saying you agree, under the condition of any settlement with them, that you won’t disclose what their theories were. That’s because their theories are loopy and wouldn’t stand the light of day,” he said.

One is left to wonder how such secrecy squares with remarks made by Thomas Perez at Heritage, where he promised that the Justice Department will “continue its practice of building accountability into agreements…requiring transparency so that communities can monitor the progress being made.” Even more so, when Sperry notes that “Justice acknowledges in every case it did not prove charges of intentional discrimination, while banks have denied any wrongdoing.” He further notes that the department “has asked banks to keep its methodologies, which include computer-based statistical analysis, secret.” Justice has confirmed the allegation. ”In certain circumstances, when a bank has requested details of our analysis, the department has requested that a defendant agree to a confidentiality agreement,” DOJ spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa told IBD.

What else is being kept a secret? For one, the list of “qualified organizations” Perez has required defendant lending institutions to bankroll with millions of dollars in funding, as part of the settlement agreements. One case in particular involved Midwest BankCentre, a small bank which has been operating in the suburbs of St. Louis for over a century. They are reportedly settling a case with the DOJ for failing to open branches or issue mortgages in minority areas. $1 million dollars is reportedly being set aside for African American applicants ”who would ordinarily not qualify for such rates for reasons including the lack of required credit quality, income or down payment.” The organization which brought pressure on the bank? A community activist group calling itself the St. Louis Equal Housing and Community Reinvestment Alliance. Such pressure is reminiscent of the tactics that now-discredited ACORN and other community activist groups used to shakedown lending institutions prior to the housing crisis.

Such concessions are made possible by a sea-change in the Justice Department’s approach to prosecution. Rather than being held liable for particular loans they haven’t made to individual households, banks are being judged for the “secondary impact” such refusals have on an entire neighborhood. Thus, when First United Security Bank in Alabama settled with the DOJ in 2009 for alleged discriminatory practices, stipulations to fund community reinvestment and education programs were part of the deal. These included $600,000 to open a new branch in an African American neighborhood, $500,000 for a special financing program, and $110,000 for outreach to potential customers in the unserved areas.

And such considerations of secondary impact are not limited to mortgages. The DOJ is planning to extend their scrutiny into credit cards, auto loans, and even loan modification programs. Any violations which appear to be pattern-like will be referred to DOJ for prosecution based on a concept called “disparate impact.“ Disparate impact is defined as a “facially neutral practice that has an unjustified adverse impact on members of a protected class.” What does this mean with respect to litigation? Buckley/Sandler lawfirm co-chairman Andrew Sandler explains. “Perez is going to depend on disparate impact theory, where the intent [to discriminate] does not have to be proven,” he says.

But it gets even crazier. On one hand, it is against the law for banks to compile data on race, gender or age for nonmortgage loan applications. On the other hand, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act requires the compilation of such data. Crazier still? ”[DOJ is] expecting each bank to have a fair-lending risk assessment,” says Carl Pry, vice president and compliance manager at KeyBank in Cleveland. ”That is something relatively new–you won’t find it either in the regulations, in the statutes, and not in any of the exam procedures.”

So what does the DOJ expect banks to do? Collect “proxy data,” in which they amass minority applicant information based on ”geocoded neighborhood patterns, or guesswork based on gender or racial classification of a customer’s name” in order to determine if an applicant falls into a protected class. Such guesswork produces error rates as high as 40 percent in mixed neighborhoods. Furthermore, Mike Brauneis, director of regulatory risk consulting for Protiviti, a global consulting and internal audit firm, reveals the Orwellian nature of such data compilation. ”If we do an analysis and it suggests that fair-lending risk exists, those analyses can themselves be risks,” he said.

That such questionable data coupled with unprovable intent would be used by the racial bean-counters at that DOJ should surprise no one. It is merely the next link in the chain behind the department’s utter illogic of simultaneously blaming lending institutions for irresponsible lending practices that propelled the housing meltdown, even as they are arm-twisting those institutions to engage in them all over again.

Added to the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal, and the failure to prosecute Black Panthers intimidating Philadelphia voters — a case which also included sworn testimony of systemic abuse by the department’s Voting Rights Section — and a very disturbing pattern emerges. Attorney General Eric Holder is running a Justice Department that is abusive, out of control, and possibly racist. It is also a department more than willing to stonewall any investigation into its operational methods. Any one of these abuses on its own would be enough to warrant Mr. Holder’s resignation. All three? Mr. Holder is either incompetent or corrupt.

Either way, it’s time for him to go.

Arnold Ahlert is a contributing columnist to the conservative website JewishWorldReview.com.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/07/13/back-in-the-sub-prime-mortgage-habit/

[whork25]

Here we go again with risky loans to people who cant pay them back

What did you expect? Obama thought this crisis was a minor bump for the US economy mistakes like that cant be made when you run the largest economy on earth

[Vince G, CSN MFT]

Holder Launches Witch Hunt Against Biased Banks
By PAUL SPERRY, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 07/08/2011 06:51 PM ET

In what could be a repeat of the easy-lending cycle that led to the housing crisis, the Justice Department has asked several banks to relax their mortgage underwriting standards and approve loans for minorities with poor credit as part of a new crackdown on alleged discrimination, according to court documents reviewed by IBD.

Prosecutions have already generated more than $20 million in loan set-asides and other subsidies from banks that have settled out of court rather than battle the federal government and risk being branded racist. An additional 60 banks are under investigation, a DOJ spokeswoman says.

No Job, No Problem

Settlements include setting aside prime-rate mortgages for low-income blacks and Hispanics with blemished credit and even counting "public assistance" as valid income in mortgage applications.

In several cases, the government has ordered bank defendants to post in all their branches and marketing materials a notice informing minority customers that they cannot be turned down for credit because they receive public aid, such as unemployment benefits, welfare payments or food stamps.

Among other remedies: favorable interest rates and down-payment assistance for minority borrowers with weak credit.

For example, the government has ordered Midwest BankCentre to set aside almost $1 million in "special financing" for residents living in predominantly black areas of St. Louis. The program includes originating conventional home loans at fixed prime rates for African-American borrowers "who would ordinarily not qualify for such rates for reasons including the lack of required credit quality, income or down payment."

The same federal order, signed last month, praises Midwest for adopting "less stringent underwriting criteria" while under investigation.

In the case against Citizens Bank of Detroit, settled in May, the U.S. decrees that "the bank may choose to apply more flexible underwriting standards in connection with the programs under this order."

Such efforts risk recreating the government-imposed lax underwriting that led to the housing boom and bust, critics fear.

"It's absolutely outrageous after what we've just gone through," said former Rep. Ernest Istook, a Heritage Foundation fellow. "How can someone both be financially stable enough to merit a mortgage at the same time they're on public assistance? By definition, you don't have the kind of employment that can support such a loan."

Justice March

Justice spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa said the anti-discrimination notice "does not compel the banks to make loans to people who do not qualify." She said such measures are "essential to remedy the harmful effects of the banks' conduct."

But industry analysts fear Attorney General Eric Holder is rekindling an anti-bank witch hunt launched by Attorney General Janet Reno in the 1990s, when Holder served as her deputy.

Some blame that in part for the subprime boom, because banks were ordered to throw open their lending windows to credit-poor minorities. That crackdown spurred the American Bankers Association to distribute to its thousands of members "fair-lend ing tool kits" advising the adoption of more permissive underwriting criteria to help inoculate them from prosecution.

In the new prosecutions, Justice acknowledges in every case it did not prove charges of intentional discrimination, while banks have denied any wrongdoing. Many, in fact, earned outstanding ratings from anti-redlining regulators enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act.

Istook calls Holder's crusade an "egregious overreach by the government." He says many of the targets are smaller banks without the resources to fight a protracted legal battle.

The House Judiciary Committee plans to investigate.

"This is an expansion of the law," said a congressional investigator. "They're pushing the envelope as far as they can go in the enforcement of civil rights."

DOJ Demands 'Nondisclosure'

As part of settlement deals, prosecutors have required banks to sign "nondisclosure agreements" barring them from talking about the methods used to allege discrimination. Bank lawyers contend the prosecutors are trying to hide the shaky legal grounds on which the cases are built. "It's horrible what they're doing at the civil rights division," said Reginald Brown, a partner at Wilmer Hale in Washington, who has represented banks in connection to recent race-bias investigations. "They don't have any proof, just theories."

He added, "They want you to sign something saying you agree, under the condition of any settlement with them, that you won't disclose what their theories were. That's because their theories are loopy and wouldn't stand the light of day."

One such theory — "disparate impact" — holds that merely a difference in loan application outcomes is enough to prove racial discrimination — even if no intent exists on the part of loan officers to contrast based on the color of applicants, and even legitimate business factors — such as credit scores and down payments — help explain disparities in loan outcomes between white and black applicants.

Under this broad theory, banks have been accused of racism simply for failing to open branches or aggressively market mortgages in black neighborhoods — regardless of the demand for, or viability of, such loans in those areas.

Following this theory, the government has ordered several banks to advertise in black media and open branches in black neighborhoods, despite the weak economy.

Justice confirmed it has asked banks to keep its methodologies, which include computer-based statistical analysis, secret.

"In certain circumstances, when a bank has requested details of our analysis, the department has requested that a defendant agree to a confidentiality agreement," Hinojosa told IBD.

Critics say Holder's interpretation of civil-rights law is even more radical than Reno's.

For the first time, prosecutors are judging banks for the secondary impact their policies have on entire minority communities, not just households. And they're ordering reparations accordingly.

In announcing a recent $2 million settlement with Dallas-based PrimeLending, Civil Rights Division chief Tom Perez said, "We will require lenders to invest in the community that they've harmed."

Another Reno protege, Perez has compared bankers to Klansmen. Only difference is, he said, bankers discriminate "with a smile" and "fine print." He said this kind of racism, though more subtle, is "every bit as destructive as the cross burned in a neighborhood."

Perez has put in place an infrastructure to enforce "fair lending" — including a first-of-its-kind Fair Lending Unit staffed with more than 20 lawyers, economists and statisticians.

He's appointed a special lending cop to run it — Special Counsel for Fair Lending Eric Halperin, who also worked for Reno. Before returning to Justice, Halperin was chief Washington lobbyist for the Center for Responsible Lending, an anti-redlining group that urged banks to relax lending standards for low-income urban borrowers before the crisis.

Perez has required bank defendants to earmark potentially millions in funding for inner-city community organizers — who must be approved by Justice. Critics say lenders are being forced to bankroll Acorn clones that often exist just to shake them down for risky loans.

Hinojosa declined to provide a list of these "qualified organizations."

Perez is also prosecuting banks for "reverse redlining through the targeting of minority communities for predatory loans."

Istook finds it odd that the government is condemning lenders for doing too well what it pressured them to do in the name of diversity before the crisis. "Banks are damned if they do, damned if they don't," he said.

Also, critics say Justice is acting as a bank regulator by enforcing its own quota system for multicultural loans. The civil rights division has set "benchmarks" for minority lending, and will monitor bank lending volume and activity in that area among the banks it's suing.

In effect, Justice is using private banks to carry out affirmative-action lending, Istook says, a campaign he describes as "legal plunder."

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=577794&p=3



Rinse and repeat. These fucking leftists never learn.

But it's really cool that our AG only cares about blacks, illegals and Muslims. Good thing they make up such a HUGE portion of this country's populace.  

This isn't even news.  The Justice Dept has been investigating and prosecuting banking and housing discrimination for over 50 years since the Civil Rights act was passed.  Its an on-going job and its nothing brand new. 

[Soul Crusher]

Yawn - why the fuck do you think we are in this mess to begin with! 

[Vince G, CSN MFT]

Yawn - why the fuck do you think we are in this mess to begin with! 

Because of Civil Rights???  Are you suggesting that we go back segregation.....  

[Soul Crusher]

Because of Civil Rights???  Are you suggesting that we go back segregation.....  

No - we go back to hard lending standards.   If people can't come up with 20% down for a house - too fucking bad. 

[doison]

No - we go back to hard lending standards.   If people can't come up with 20% down for a house - too fucking bad.  

Fuck that shit.  

So for someone to be able to buy a home they need to not only have a job and have held some form of steady job for a few years, they ALSO have to consistently live "below their means" for however long it takes to save enough of that income to put 20% on a home?!?!?  

What if I haven't consistently had a job for a few years straight and have an expensive hobby?  
My hobby (very important to me) takes up all my extra income when I'm working, there's no way in hell I could save up 20% for a home on top of that!  What if my girl gets pregnant?  I ain't raising no baby in an apartment!  It's not my fucking fault I don't have 20%, but you want to say I don't deserve a house for my family?? 

Fucking 20% downpayment?  The lease payment on my cars alone would make it hard to save that much money without sacrificing on most of the shit my girl and I do for fun.