Some conservatives have been blasting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as the Community Reinvestment Act, as the source of the mortgage crisis and subsequent financial meltdown. On Tuesday, October 7, Daniel Gross wrote a commentary on Slate titled Subprime Suspects in which he names (with quotations so they can’t claim otherwise) some of the people responsible for this: John McCain, Charles Krouthammer of the Washington Post, and Neil Cavuto of Fox Business. Gross’ proposition in his Slate piece is that, when Cavuto says “Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster.”, Cavuto is blaming the poor and brown among us for the financial meltdown. And if that’s not racism, Gross doesn’t know what else it is.
Unfortunately, the general tone of Gross’ commentary is a bit too confrontational in order to convince most non-liberals that he’s right (even though, if you can get past the tone, he clearly is). That’s where a new piece (Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis) out of McClatchy comes in. Full story »
