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Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (view source)
Revision as of 17:10, August 7, 2009
, 17:10, August 7, 2009Community Redevelopment Act
==Big businesses==
==Big businesses==
ACORN opts for undisguised authoritarian socialism, as when it proposes that “large companies which desire to leave the community” be forced to obtain “an exit visa from the community board signifying that the company has adequately compensated all its employees and the community at large for losses due to relocation." ACORN promotes ideas like “sustainable development,” which would limit the growth of suburbs—so businesses and individuals can’t flee just beyond the city limits. One of ACORN's highest targets is big businesses, dubbing them, “irresponsible.” This means any financial institutions that supposedly hinder the minority poor from getting the capital needed for home buying and business start-ups.<ref>[http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_2_acorns_nutty_regime.html ACORN’s Nutty Regime for Cities] City-journal.org, 2003</ref> ACORN strongarms financial institutions into to providing risky loans to the undeserving. In 1998, Acorn activists disrupted Federal Reserve hearings on the proposed Citicorp merger with Travelers and then later protested Citigroup's acquisition of Associates First Capital Corp. Eventually Citigroup signed an agreement to provide mortgages through Acorn counseling centers, including home loans to undocumented aliens in California. <ref>[http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_wsj-acorn_squash.htm Acorn Squash] Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2006</ref> They protest and picket banks mergers until they are paid off. The banks see it as the cost of doing business. One of Acorn's real intentions is to help its public-sector union allies. ACORN argues for the "Living-wage." By artificially raising the cost of outsourcing until it is just as costly as work done by government employees, "the living-wage undercuts the incentive to privatize." This is a tactic used against Wal-Mart preventing the opening of stores in low-income Chicago neighborhoods. ACORN's living-wage campaign is more likely to benefit unions than the poor. <ref>[http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_wsj-acorn_squash.htm Acorn Squash] Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2006</ref>
ACORN opts for undisguised authoritarian socialism, as when it proposes that “large companies which desire to leave the community” be forced to obtain “an exit visa from the community board signifying that the company has adequately compensated all its employees and the community at large for losses due to relocation." ACORN promotes ideas like “sustainable development,” which would limit the growth of suburbs—so businesses and individuals can’t flee just beyond the city limits. One of ACORN's highest targets is big businesses, dubbing them, “irresponsible.” This means any financial institutions that supposedly hinder the minority poor from getting the capital needed for home buying and business start-ups.<ref>[http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_2_acorns_nutty_regime.html ACORN’s Nutty Regime for Cities] City-journal.org, 2003</ref> ACORN strongarms financial institutions into to providing risky loans to the undeserving. In 1998, Acorn activists disrupted Federal Reserve hearings on the proposed Citicorp merger with Travelers and then later protested Citigroup's acquisition of Associates First Capital Corp. Eventually Citigroup signed an agreement to provide mortgages through Acorn counseling centers, including home loans to undocumented aliens in California. <ref>[http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_wsj-acorn_squash.htm Acorn Squash] Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2006</ref> They protest and picket banks mergers until they are paid off. The banks see it as the cost of doing business. One of Acorn's real intentions is to help its public-sector union allies. ACORN argues for the "Living-wage." By artificially raising the cost of outsourcing until it is just as costly as work done by government employees, "the living-wage undercuts the incentive to privatize." This is a tactic used against Wal-Mart preventing the opening of stores in low-income Chicago neighborhoods. ACORN's living-wage campaign is more likely to benefit unions than the poor. <ref>[http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_wsj-acorn_squash.htm Acorn Squash] Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2006</ref>
==Community Redevelopment Act==
In 1991 ACORN took over the House Banking Committee room for two days to protest efforts to scale back the Community Redevelopment Act (CRA). ACORN was the driving force behind a 1995 regulatory revision pushed through by the [[Clinton Administration]] that greatly expanded the CRA and laid the groundwork for the [[Fannie Mae]], [[Freddie Mac]] borne [[financial crisis of 2009]]. [[Barack Obama]] was the attorney representing ACORN in this effort. With this new authority, ACORN used its subsidiary, ACORN Housing, to promote subprime loans more aggressively. As a New York Post article describes it:
:"A 1995 strengthening of the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to find ways to provide mortgages to their poorer communities. It also let community activists intervene at yearly bank reviews, shaking the banks down for large pots of money.
:Banks that got poor reviews were punished; some saw their merger plans frustrated; others faced direct legal challenges by the Justice Department. [http://www.nypost.com/seven/02052008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_real_scandal_243911.htm?page=0]
Flexible lending programs expanded even though they had higher default rates than loans with traditional standards. On the Web, you can still find CRA loans available via ACORN with "100 percent financing . . . no credit scores . . . undocumented income . . . even if you don't report it on your tax returns." Credit counseling is required, of course.
Ironically, an enthusiastic Fannie Mae Foundation report singled out one paragon of nondiscriminatory lending, which worked with community activists and followed "the most flexible underwriting criteria permitted." That lender's $1 billion commitment to low-income loans in 1992 had grown to $80 billion by 1999 and $600 billion by early 2003. [http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjRjYzE0YmQxNzU4MDJjYWE5MjIzMTMxMmNhZWQ1MTA=&w=MQ==]
The lender they were speaking of was [[Countrywide]], which specialized in subprime lending and had a working relationship with ACORN. [http://www.inman.com/news/2008/02/1/countrywide-acorn-partner-foreclosure-prevention]
Investor's Business Daily added:
:The revisions also allowed for the first time the securitization of CRA-regulated loans containing subprime mortgages. The changes came as radical "housing rights" groups led by ACORN lobbied for such loans. ACORN at the time was represented by a young public-interest lawyer in Chicago by the name of Barack Obama. [http://boards.msn.com/MSNBCboards/thread.aspx?threadid=787698]
Since these loans were to be underwritten by the government sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the implicit government guarantee of those loans absolved lenders, mortgage bundlers and investors of any concern over the obvious risk. As Bloomberg reported: "It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit." [http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0]
==Sotomayor & PRLDEF==
==Sotomayor & PRLDEF==