I'm not smart enough to say what exactly the cause of all of this is, but I am also not dumb enough to lay all the blame on one thing. I've worked at Banks for about 8 years, all in consumer lending, and while the government gives us a lot of direction and regulations, they've never forced us to make bad loans. The marketing and sales people try to make us do that a lot more than the government.

My opinion is that the massive growth in the mortgage CDO market did a whole lot more to cause this than the government (and the fault that the government has is not in getting rid of redlining). Large investors (pushed by investment houses) created a huge demand for CDOs, the investment houses pushed that demand down to the consumer banks and mortgage brokers, who sold a bunch of loans to people who couldn't afford them (who are also not faultless in this). The brokers who made these loans were motivated much more, IMO, by the fact that they could make a lot of money selling them than they were by the government hoding a gun to their heads.

I think there are some investors around Fair Park who are going to get very, very rich.

Being sort of hickish and definitely not urban, you've never actually witnessed urban renewal.

Good for them. If they are doing it with their own money. Just don't tell me that I have to pay for it.

because you are a bank, and have redlined all the "black" areas?

As we are seeing over the past few weeks, you don't have to be the bank to have to pay for the mess.

And you continue to race bait. I NEVER said anything about "black" areas. I said that private businesses should be able to choose areas to lend in or not based on real socioeconomic data. If those areas happen to be predominantly black, that is irrelevant.

choose based on socioeconomic data, meaning hey, if the area has a lot of kids getting free lunch at school, no loans? Or if the data says that the zip code is only 5% white, no loans?

Is that what you are advocating? Do you think these banks exist in a vacuum, getting no benefit from the govt. and the fed?

You can't help but bring race into this can you? To your first point, it would not be unreasonable to consider those who can't afford to feed their families higher risk. The 2nd point is completely irrelevant.

How about data that says foreclosures are 50% higher in the area. Or that 50% of homeowners are behind in their payments. Or that crime is astronomical so responsible people don't want to live there? All valid factors IMO.

you never 1) answered what your experience in the area is 2) explained what you know of predictive modeling in consumer loans 3) nor have you provided any evidence that your approach, widely acknowledged as racist, is good business.

Yeah, you can get away with espousing these views in the church. But try going around to other places, and get away with saying "there is no racism in redlining."

Maybe you can get SU to argue for you. He seems to live fascism these days.

It' not in home loans per se, but I built a model a few years ago that dealt with assigning credit ratings to thos who receive collect calls from correctional facilities (I'm not kidding). Not surprisingly, demographic data including location was a big part of that model. It resulted in reducing bad debt by over 40% and there is a patent on it. Good enough?

Which part of your grant-unded research has to do with this, IT, or any other host of things you think you seem to think you know all about?

even in your "perfect" example, you say location was a "big" part of it, meaning that in no way was it all of it, and a model that only used location was not nearly as robust as a model that used location and many other factors.

I hope it's not too insulting for me to interpret your own work for you.