Re: the last point, under Clinton and then Bush, the old Carter era CRA law got new life poured into it. Deval Patrick (now MA mayor) was one of the key guys on this when he was at Justice, using a number of laws (including the CRA and others) to beat up banks if they didn't lend to minorities at higher risk of default. Example:
Google around, you can find plenty of stuff that starts using new regs around the CRA in 1993-5:
www.ffiec.gov/cra/letters/letter_19950629.htm
An analogy: the actual FD&C Act empowering the FDA hasn't changed much, but new appointees differ dramatically on how to interpret the law and which new regulations are consistent with that interpretation. Starting with Clinton and continuing through Bush and Obama, HUD, Justice, and others started to use the CRA as a tool to force banks to extend more mortgages to minorities ("anti-redlining"). Like Ness using tqx evasion to go after Capone, old laws were put to new use.
There really is copious documentation of all of this in Ms Morgenson's book; if you're as interested in the topic as I am, it may be worth reading even if you end up rejecting her line of argument.
(FWIW, National Review spent the 00s telling people about how Iraq was so important to US security. They had and have as little interest in exposing Bush's complicity in this as, say, MSNBC has in going after Obama. Morgenson is unusual in that she has penned a damning bipartisan indictment.)
The Justice Department alleged that Chevy Chase violated the federal Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act by declaring black areas off-limits for mortgage lending, a practice otherwise known as redlining. The complaint, filed together with a settlement in U.S. District Court in D.C., claimed that the bank underwrote approximately 97% of its loans from 1976 through 1992, in predominantly white areas.
"You can't be refused service, if there is no service being offered," said Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Deval L. Patrick.
The document makes it clear that the bank engaged in an illegal activity (red-lining), they got caught, and they settled the case with the government.
Nowhere does the document state that the bank was at any time before or after required to even loosen their lending standards in "black areas", let alone make "ultra high risk loans" as you have asserted.
I likewise find nothing in the second document you cited that proves your assertion.
I'm going to close this out with a tip - two years ago, Barry Ritholtz issued the following challenge:
"Well, its time to put up or shut up: I hereby challenge any of those who believe the CRA is at prime fault in the housing boom and collapse, and economic morass we are in to a debate."
The challenge is for any amount between $10,000 - $100,000.
In the two years since he issued that challenge, nobody has stepped forward to claim what should be an easy payout for those making the same argument as you.
Also, Deval Patrick is the Governor of MA, not the mayor.
www.justice.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/August94/484.txt.html
Google around, you can find plenty of stuff that starts using new regs around the CRA in 1993-5:
www.ffiec.gov/cra/letters/letter_19950629.htm
An analogy: the actual FD&C Act empowering the FDA hasn't changed much, but new appointees differ dramatically on how to interpret the law and which new regulations are consistent with that interpretation. Starting with Clinton and continuing through Bush and Obama, HUD, Justice, and others started to use the CRA as a tool to force banks to extend more mortgages to minorities ("anti-redlining"). Like Ness using tqx evasion to go after Capone, old laws were put to new use.
There really is copious documentation of all of this in Ms Morgenson's book; if you're as interested in the topic as I am, it may be worth reading even if you end up rejecting her line of argument.
(FWIW, National Review spent the 00s telling people about how Iraq was so important to US security. They had and have as little interest in exposing Bush's complicity in this as, say, MSNBC has in going after Obama. Morgenson is unusual in that she has penned a damning bipartisan indictment.)