Bloomberg Under Fire for 2008 Comments Blaming Mortgage Crisis on End of Redlining

[liskddksil]

Former Republican New York City Mayor and current Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg is under fire for comments he made in 2008 blaming the mortgage crisis on the end of the discriminatory practice of “redlining,” even as his newly-unearthed remarks defending “stop and frisk” have caused a firestorm.

Even as his campaign reels from the unearthed audio in which he defended “stop and frisk” in offensive terms, Bloomberg is now dealing with comments he made at a 2008 forum at Georgetown University in which he placed blame for the start of the mortgage crisis on the end of redlining.

Moderator and Georgetown University President John DeGioia asked Bloomberg “How did we get here, what are the root causes” of the mortgage crisis?”

“It all started back when there was a lot of pressure on banks to make loans to everyone,” Bloomberg said, and added “Redlining, if you remember, was the term where banks took whole neighborhoods and said, ‘People in these neighborhoods are poor, they’re not going to be able to pay off their mortgages, tell your salesmen don’t go into those areas.’”

https://www.mediaite.com/news/bloomberg-under-fire-for-2008-comments-blaming-mortgage-crisis-on-end-of-redlining/

[yaesu]

1. he's a billionaire, he's a capitalist, he probably has no idea what its like to live in the real

world and I would never vote for him in the primary but I would gladly vote for him in the GE. He is spending that money fighting tRump so lets give credit where credit is due.

[democrattotheend]

13. At least he's a self-made billionnaire

It seems like he grew up lower middle class, as the son of Jewish immigrants. He wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth like Trump, so at one point long ago he knew what it was like to live in the real world.

But otherwise, I agree with your post.

[patricia92243]

2. 12 years ago.

[DanTex]

3. That's right in the middle of his time as NYC mayor, the only political office he's ever held.

[Squinch]

4. No source. That doesn't make me suspicious at all.

And frankly, the mortgage crisis DID result in part from predatory lenders exploiting people in poorer areas who couldn't afford mortgages but were given them anyway because they could be packaged and sold for big money.

So if that's the rest of this suspiciously unsourced explanation, then he's right.

[liskddksil]

6. Fixed nt

https://www.mediaite.com/news/bloomberg-under-fire-for-2008-comments-blaming-mortgage-crisis-on-end-of-redlining/

[Squinch]

7. And the rest of the article IS about the predatory lenders

preying on poor people, ruining them financially for a profit.

Which is exactly what DID cause the mortgage crisis.

Im glad he spoke against the financial predators as it was happening. Few did.

[Squinch]

8. No, it isnt. Now that we can read the article, you should.

[Squinch]

12. That is true. Redlining was racist. Bloomberg was not saying

it was in any way acceptable. He was accurately describing how people in previously redlined districts were scammed and ruined financially.

[earthside]

10. The Bloomberg phenomenon makes me ill.

The ultimate success of Trumpism will be that it potentially infects the Democratic Party with the virus of obscene BIG money; the arrogance of elitist financial power; and total fluidity on important issues.

If Democrats fall for the illusion of billions of dollars being able to solve all problems, then there may not be a party by 2024.

Really, I can hardly even believe that this attempt at purchasing the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party has even got this far.

[jmg257]

11. Makes sense; politicians LOVED to say things like: 'the housing market is up!'

'More 1st time home buyers then ever!'


“And then Congress got involved — local elected officials, as well — and said, ‘Oh that’s not fair, these people should be able to get credit.’,” Bloomberg continued. “And once you started pushing in that direction, banks started making more and more loans where the credit of the person buying the house wasn’t as good as you would like.”

Watch The Big Short.

"The problem back then, amply illustrated in The Big Short by idiot estate agents and greedy bankers, was that the American banks were lending huge amounts of money to people who had little hope of repaying it if anything went wrong with the housing market. "

"The Miami stripper portrayed in The Big Short, who owned five houses and a condo, was perfectly plausible as a symbol of the madness of the time. They called such lending “subprime”, where even the jobless and the fraudulent could get a dream home.

[Merlot]

14. By his description he doesn't even understand redlining.

“Redlining, if you remember, was the term where banks took whole neighborhoods and said, ‘People in these neighborhoods are poor, they’re not going to be able to pay off their mortgages, tell your salesmen don’t go into those areas.’”

Capitalists just never get tired of blaming the mortgage crisis on poor people instead of banks who made the loans.

[SWBTATTReg]

15. It looks like the article simply asks Bloomberg about the mortgage crisis...Bloomberg answered...

and he's right about the pressure, by banks to make more and more profitable loans, writing standards be damned. Banks abused or ignored their writing standards and Boom, greedy bankers and investment bankers desperate to make even more money by underwriting mortgage-backed securities no matter what the quality of the underwritten mortgages were used, and were fraudulently graded improperly, thus misleading investors and all to the quality and grades of the mortgage backed securities, causing the whole mess to collapse.

The 2008 crisis caught everyone off guard. The bad mortgage backed securities started going bad and cascaded into the mess that was one of the main catalysts of the 2008 mortgage and real estate crisis.

Our lazy-assed president even bragged about picking up distressed properties at this time, and craved another such crisis again so he could pick up even more distressed properties. Remember this, our esteemed president is wishing that such a thing happens again, wiping out our stock market gains and / or real estate gains recovered over the last 10+ years or so, in order to make a buck again off the ensuing crisis (he can't do it any other way). He can't make money unless others are suffering, in another words.

The banks created the 'red line' concept, not Bloomberg. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 outlawed the practice of red lining by banks and the insurance industry. They (banks, other entities) were sued in court by numerous municipalities and they (banks, other entities) lost in many of these cases (if not all) to stop the continuing practice of red lining, and open up these areas to more affordable insurance and mortgage loans. Although minorities were a primary target, whole geographical areas of urban areas were targeted (regardless of race, in short, entire urban areas of major cities were red lined).