A really great post on the minority-mortgage confusion. Seems like journalists reflexively use the racism card when any economic disparity relates to minorities, and research not consistent with this narrative is ignored. Read the whole thing.
22 comments:
Filament
said...
I think some data in that post is interesting, but it seems weird to call it "really great".
It's still reasonable to presume that centuries of slavery, a century of vicious legal discrimination, and decades of civil discrimination are at the root of these issues. Major societal effect that last generations? Look for a major societal cause that last generations.
As far as I can tell, this data is evidence that the securitization of mortgages shifted things from directly discriminating against minorities to lenders gleefully taking advantage of the poor and financially unsophisticated, who were disproportionately black and brown.
What's especially creepy to me about this post is not just his inability to have any sympathy for poor non-white people that got screwed. He's legally entitled to be an asshole. It's his positive glee at finding evidence that confirms his bias, and stopping there. That's what he accuses the other people of. But at least their bias is one rooted in compassion. What's the root of his?
"sympathy for poor non-white people".... in other words, let's give people handouts just because of their race. I for one think it's time we go back to the principal of racial non-discrimination. This welfare based on race is corrupting in more ways than one.
I also am against racial discrimination. When I read the mortgage article, I reflected that it would have been no less true if the lead had been to the affect that more minorities are choosing to reneg on their mortgages than whites. This would have cast a negative aspersion on the minorities. The editor chose to reverse and portray the minorities as victims.
This is all editorializing. I would prefer color-blind editing, but you don't see that very much these days.
I also think of this issue when watching the careful portrayals of minorities in commercials. Where characters in a commercial are of different race or sex, for that matter, I often mentally consider whether the commercial could air if the roles were reversed. Often, the answer is no. One recent example is a black man, near retirement age golfing while his dumb white caddy tries to pitch a rediculous idea about ice as an investment. Reversing the races, this would never air in our current culture. Racism still exists. And it is practiced by every race.
Also, we can't "go back" to the principle of non-racial discrimination, because we've never been there. I agree that many attempts to fix the problems caused by centuries of oppression often have perverse effects. But that's not a reason to pretend that there's no problem.
Of course, I'm sure you're just as upset about the distorting effects of housing subsidies when it goes to people who look like you, right? You're also out there fighting for the repeal of the mortgage interest tax credit, I'm sure, as that's by far the biggest housing subsidy, one that goes disproportionately to rich white people.
The difference between the actual commercial and the hypothetical one is that of power. Making fun of the downtrodden tends to reinforce power imbalances; making fun of the powerful tends to support the underdog. A generation or two after the power imbalance disappears, so will the concern about negative portrayals.
E.g., you could put up a "no dogs or Irish" sign in a bar as a joke without anybody caring, because the Irish aren't treated poorly just for being Irish, and they haven't been for a long time.
'It's still reasonable to presume that centuries of slavery, a century of vicious legal discrimination, and decades of civil discrimination are at the root of these issues.'
Gee, it's almost as if Thomas Sowell never drew breath on this planet.
Filament... you want equality of result. I want equality of opportunity. I believe that your philosophy is a never ending set of state programs that is like a disease, sapping the life blood out of the society.
Followed the link to the "really great post" and I learned that ethnic groups that have lower income and fewer assets also have higher rates of default. 1) Why is this news? 2) I am left with the impresssion that helps Steve Sailer (and I guess Eric also) find confirmation of white supremecy. Yeah for them. 3) If the sub-prime meltdown was avoidable, then the uptick in foreclosures didn't have to be as severe as it was. Some people should never have gotten loans. But some of those people should of, and now then the economy melted down and they are screwed. And I would say that the people who have been foreclosed because of the economic collapse are victims.
Black people are scumbags ... seems to be the point here. WTF? What's wrong with Sailer and Falkenstein? Everyone knows that blacks make less money and have fewer assets. Everyone knows that, therefore, they are on the margin. Everyone knows that, because of the % of subprime loans in minority neighborhoods, there have been more foreclosures there, which have let to bigger drops in home prices. And then more foreclosures. So why are the journalists playing the race card when they point this out? And why do Falkenstein and Sailer find it neccessary to link this economic phenomena to some kind of giant racial/liberal conspiracy? I repeat: WTF?
Many organizations, if they thought there was a credible accusation you were a 'white supremacist', would fire you. As it doesn't take much criticism of diversity initiatives to generate such accusations (see above), this highlights there's a huge cost to applying any criticism towards policies that are allied with any form of diversity-minority 'restitution'. The net result is stupid policies.
Sailer's post does a good job pointing out how liberal writers tie themselves up in knots and logical inconsistencies when writing about race. I guess sometimes it takes a race-obsessed nut to point this stuff out clearly.
On the other hand it is my understanding that Eric believes that
(a) it was rational for investors to not anticipate the housing bubble and bust, because it's obvious only in retrospect; and (b) it was irrational for institutions to promote minority homeownership, because such a push could only possibly lead to a disastrous housing bubble/bust with negative consequences for everyone
So, you know, even the smartest best-intentioned people can have logical blind spots.
These comments are a great example of how people will delude themselves to conform to the politically correct "consensus". If I may,
(a) it was politically correct for investors to not anticipate the housing bubble and bust, because it's obvious only if you consider politically incorrect views; and (b) it was politically correct for institutions to promote minority homeownership, because such a push could only possibly lead to a disastrous housing bubble/bust with negative consequences for everyone if you believed politically incorrect information
Quite the contrary, this shows that once people pick a scapegoat in their minds ("political correctness"), they can convince themselves that everything wrong in the world is that scapegoat's fault.
Eric has written on multiple occasions how it's futile to talk about changing the "culture" of Wall Street, that the profit motive is not suppressible, that you can't stop people from finding ways to make money. This idea that people on Wall Street couldn't see the inevitable and lost a fortune because they were afraid of thinking racist thoughts is quite frankly one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. I think it may contradict every model of investor behavior ever proposed.
"Eric has written on multiple occasions how it's futile to talk about changing the "culture" of Wall Street, that the profit motive is not suppressible, that you can't stop people from finding ways to make money."
But when the profit motives of Wall Street coincide with political correctness, they form an unstoppable juggernaut.
If the profit motive coincides with X, then X is probably irrelevant to explaining whatever it is that needs to be explained.
"He made $10,000,000 selling prepaid phone cards to illegal immigrants. That just proves how people will do anything to help illegal immigrants. Love of illegal immigration is truly an unstoppable juggernaut."
filament, you wrote, "lenders gleefully taking advantage of the poor and financially unsophisticated, who were disproportionately black and brown."
where is the notion of personal responsibility in all of this? if you don't understand the small print, if you can't work out the mortgage payments with a hand calculator and a piece of paper, don't sign the docs. this is not a difficult concept, and it is applicable to people of all colors.
There was no singular bottleneck or cause to the housing bubble, but the lowering of underwriting standards was exacerbated by a toxic synergy of good intentions and hucksters. It's the standard 'bootleggers and Baptists' coalition. Clearly, investors thought housing collateral trumped obligor quality to the degree that whether a borrower could pay didn't matter. This latter assumption is orthogonal to any diversity inspired mortgage programs.
But the whole idea that bankers were, or are, more racist than greedy I find patently absurd, not describing any bankers or mortgage brokers I have ever met. As Thomas Sowell has often argued, underperforming minorities are often deficient in many things that affect their socioeconomic success--wealth, income, IQ, social and familial resources--so if you just look at say income, you will see what appears to be racism in the race/ethnicity dummy variable as an omitted variables bias. The research Sailer alluded to illustrated this phenomenon.
And no, I am not a white supremacist. I think ethnic pride is pathetic, whether white or any other kind. I also have no guilt for being white, as I never had an epiphany that blacks or Jews were not human like me, so I have no deep seated guilt about at one point treating everyone the same, even privately. Unfortunately, there is a lot more ethnic tribalism among disadvantaged minorities because it's a convenient, Marxist explanation for the status quo, and I'm not going to pretend that's all innocuous because they are relatively disadvantaged. Such policies don't help anyone, let alone the disadvantaged minorities the presume to benefit
Sowell says that BP voluntarily agreeing to put $20 billion in an escrow account is just like a German law giving Hitler dictatorial powers. And you know what was also just like Hitler? FDR taking the US off the gold standard. "Is US Now on Slippery Slope to Tyranny?"
So what explains this -- stupidity, dishonesty, senility, all of the above?
Anyway, just thought it was odd that apparently some people think he has tremendous credibility.
I don't exclude people or groups because some things they say may be wrong. All interesting people have wrong beliefs on some stuff! Further, while V-dare has some unsavory aspects, I think Sailer's piece I linked to stands on its own.
The best option these days to unlock the value of your home involves taking out a lifetime mortgage plan, equity release schemes will let you borrow money against the value of your home with the debt being repaid from its sale only after your death, seem an attractive solution to many cash-poor, asset-rich retirees.
22 comments:
I think some data in that post is interesting, but it seems weird to call it "really great".
It's still reasonable to presume that centuries of slavery, a century of vicious legal discrimination, and decades of civil discrimination are at the root of these issues. Major societal effect that last generations? Look for a major societal cause that last generations.
As far as I can tell, this data is evidence that the securitization of mortgages shifted things from directly discriminating against minorities to lenders gleefully taking advantage of the poor and financially unsophisticated, who were disproportionately black and brown.
What's especially creepy to me about this post is not just his inability to have any sympathy for poor non-white people that got screwed. He's legally entitled to be an asshole. It's his positive glee at finding evidence that confirms his bias, and stopping there. That's what he accuses the other people of. But at least their bias is one rooted in compassion. What's the root of his?
"sympathy for poor non-white people".... in other words, let's give people handouts just because of their race. I for one think it's time we go back to the principal of racial non-discrimination. This welfare based on race is corrupting in more ways than one.
I also am against racial discrimination. When I read the mortgage article, I reflected that it would have been no less true if the lead had been to the affect that more minorities are choosing to reneg on their mortgages than whites. This would have cast a negative aspersion on the minorities. The editor chose to reverse and portray the minorities as victims.
This is all editorializing. I would prefer color-blind editing, but you don't see that very much these days.
I also think of this issue when watching the careful portrayals of minorities in commercials. Where characters in a commercial are of different race or sex, for that matter, I often mentally consider whether the commercial could air if the roles were reversed. Often, the answer is no. One recent example is a black man, near retirement age golfing while his dumb white caddy tries to pitch a rediculous idea about ice as an investment. Reversing the races, this would never air in our current culture.
Racism still exists. And it is practiced by every race.
@Michael Meyers:
If I had meant that, I would have said that.
Also, we can't "go back" to the principle of non-racial discrimination, because we've never been there. I agree that many attempts to fix the problems caused by centuries of oppression often have perverse effects. But that's not a reason to pretend that there's no problem.
Of course, I'm sure you're just as upset about the distorting effects of housing subsidies when it goes to people who look like you, right? You're also out there fighting for the repeal of the mortgage interest tax credit, I'm sure, as that's by far the biggest housing subsidy, one that goes disproportionately to rich white people.
@Anonymous:
The difference between the actual commercial and the hypothetical one is that of power. Making fun of the downtrodden tends to reinforce power imbalances; making fun of the powerful tends to support the underdog. A generation or two after the power imbalance disappears, so will the concern about negative portrayals.
E.g., you could put up a "no dogs or Irish" sign in a bar as a joke without anybody caring, because the Irish aren't treated poorly just for being Irish, and they haven't been for a long time.
'It's still reasonable to presume that centuries of slavery, a century of vicious legal discrimination, and decades of civil discrimination are at the root of these issues.'
Gee, it's almost as if Thomas Sowell never drew breath on this planet.
Filament... you want equality of result. I want equality of opportunity. I believe that your philosophy is a never ending set of state programs that is like a disease, sapping the life blood out of the society.
Followed the link to the "really great post" and I learned that ethnic groups that have lower income and fewer assets also have higher rates of default.
1) Why is this news?
2) I am left with the impresssion that helps Steve Sailer (and I guess Eric also) find confirmation of white supremecy. Yeah for them.
3) If the sub-prime meltdown was avoidable, then the uptick in foreclosures didn't have to be as severe as it was. Some people should never have gotten loans. But some of those people should of, and now then the economy melted down and they are screwed. And I would say that the people who have been foreclosed because of the economic collapse are victims.
Black people are scumbags ... seems to be the point here.
WTF? What's wrong with Sailer and Falkenstein? Everyone knows that blacks make less money and have fewer assets. Everyone knows that, therefore, they are on the margin. Everyone knows that, because of the % of subprime loans in minority neighborhoods, there have been more foreclosures there, which have let to bigger drops in home prices. And then more foreclosures.
So why are the journalists playing the race card when they point this out?
And why do Falkenstein and Sailer find it neccessary to link this economic phenomena to some kind of giant racial/liberal conspiracy?
I repeat: WTF?
Many organizations, if they thought there was a credible accusation you were a 'white supremacist', would fire you. As it doesn't take much criticism of diversity initiatives to generate such accusations (see above), this highlights there's a huge cost to applying any criticism towards policies that are allied with any form of diversity-minority 'restitution'. The net result is stupid policies.
Sailer's post does a good job pointing out how liberal writers tie themselves up in knots and logical inconsistencies when writing about race. I guess sometimes it takes a race-obsessed nut to point this stuff out clearly.
On the other hand it is my understanding that Eric believes that
(a) it was rational for investors to not anticipate the housing bubble and bust, because it's obvious only in retrospect; and
(b) it was irrational for institutions to promote minority homeownership, because such a push could only possibly lead to a disastrous housing bubble/bust with negative consequences for everyone
So, you know, even the smartest best-intentioned people can have logical blind spots.
These comments are a great example of how people will delude themselves to conform to the politically correct "consensus". If I may,
(a) it was politically correct for investors to not anticipate the housing bubble and bust, because it's obvious only if you consider politically incorrect views; and
(b) it was politically correct for institutions to promote minority homeownership, because such a push could only possibly lead to a disastrous housing bubble/bust with negative consequences for everyone if you believed politically incorrect information
Quite the contrary, this shows that once people pick a scapegoat in their minds ("political correctness"), they can convince themselves that everything wrong in the world is that scapegoat's fault.
Eric has written on multiple occasions how it's futile to talk about changing the "culture" of Wall Street, that the profit motive is not suppressible, that you can't stop people from finding ways to make money. This idea that people on Wall Street couldn't see the inevitable and lost a fortune because they were afraid of thinking racist thoughts is quite frankly one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. I think it may contradict every model of investor behavior ever proposed.
"Eric has written on multiple occasions how it's futile to talk about changing the "culture" of Wall Street, that the profit motive is not suppressible, that you can't stop people from finding ways to make money."
But when the profit motives of Wall Street coincide with political correctness, they form an unstoppable juggernaut.
If the profit motive coincides with X, then X is probably irrelevant to explaining whatever it is that needs to be explained.
"He made $10,000,000 selling prepaid phone cards to illegal immigrants. That just proves how people will do anything to help illegal immigrants. Love of illegal immigration is truly an unstoppable juggernaut."
Please.
filament, you wrote, "lenders gleefully taking advantage of the poor and financially unsophisticated, who were disproportionately black and brown."
where is the notion of personal responsibility in all of this? if you don't understand the small print, if you can't work out the mortgage payments with a hand calculator and a piece of paper, don't sign the docs. this is not a difficult concept, and it is applicable to people of all colors.
There was no singular bottleneck or cause to the housing bubble, but the lowering of underwriting standards was exacerbated by a toxic synergy of good intentions and hucksters. It's the standard 'bootleggers and Baptists' coalition. Clearly, investors thought housing collateral trumped obligor quality to the degree that whether a borrower could pay didn't matter. This latter assumption is orthogonal to any diversity inspired mortgage programs.
But the whole idea that bankers were, or are, more racist than greedy I find patently absurd, not describing any bankers or mortgage brokers I have ever met. As Thomas Sowell has often argued, underperforming minorities are often deficient in many things that affect their socioeconomic success--wealth, income, IQ, social and familial resources--so if you just look at say income, you will see what appears to be racism in the race/ethnicity dummy variable as an omitted variables bias. The research Sailer alluded to illustrated this phenomenon.
And no, I am not a white supremacist. I think ethnic pride is pathetic, whether white or any other kind. I also have no guilt for being white, as I never had an epiphany that blacks or Jews were not human like me, so I have no deep seated guilt about at one point treating everyone the same, even privately. Unfortunately, there is a lot more ethnic tribalism among disadvantaged minorities because it's a convenient, Marxist explanation for the status quo, and I'm not going to pretend that's all innocuous because they are relatively disadvantaged. Such policies don't help anyone, let alone the disadvantaged minorities the presume to benefit
For a guy who isn't a racist, why do your links to "great posts" make everyone think you are? Maybe it's the content at Vdare.
This isn't relevant to race or the financial crisis, but I really don't see why people venerate Thomas Sowell.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=537967&p=2
Sowell says that BP voluntarily agreeing to put $20 billion in an escrow account is just like a German law giving Hitler dictatorial powers. And you know what was also just like Hitler? FDR taking the US off the gold standard. "Is US Now on Slippery Slope to Tyranny?"
So what explains this -- stupidity, dishonesty, senility, all of the above?
Anyway, just thought it was odd that apparently some people think he has tremendous credibility.
I don't exclude people or groups because some things they say may be wrong. All interesting people have wrong beliefs on some stuff! Further, while V-dare has some unsavory aspects, I think Sailer's piece I linked to stands on its own.
The best option these days to unlock the value of your home involves taking out a lifetime mortgage plan, equity release schemes will let you borrow money against the value of your home with the debt being repaid from its sale only after your death, seem an attractive solution to many cash-poor, asset-rich retirees.
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