Becoming Human

 A few years ago I went to a Chicago hotel for a meeting of the National Home Equity Mortgage Association where we tried to listen to speakers talk about facilitating ethical lending to qualified borrowers of all races.  The speakers went along smoothly until all of a sudden there was a commotion in the back.  At first I didn’t know what was going on.  The hotel staff seemed to be struggling with a group of people.  Then the group pushed past the hotel staff and marched on stage with signs saying “ACORN” and disrupting the speakers.  They were yelling that the lenders MUST give more loans to inner-city, low-income borrowers to buy houses.  Aside from the fact that they were in the wrong place because these were home equity (second mortgage) lenders, they weren’t the least bit concerned with whether the borrowers could afford the loans.   They didn’t care about the lenders getting paid back, but only about getting more money into the inner-city. 

I’m not saying Obama was one of them.  I wouldn’t have known who he was then, just a few years ago.  He probably trained them, but wasn’t keen about being on the front lines.    His claim to experience is that he was a “community organizer.”  Specifically, he was a leadership trainer and lawyer for ACORN.   

ACORN stands for “Association of Community Organiszations.” Recently there have been news reports of ACORN storming meetings of the Mortgage Bankers Association, again in Chicago, demanding a reprieve from forclosures for inner-city dwellers.  So let me get this straight.  First they demand that lenders, who are in business and have stockholders, give loans to people who don’t have the means to pay them back, then they demand that these same lenders don’t foreclose when the loans aren’t paid back.  Looks like the makings of a morgage crisis to me. 

Just look at the ACORN website.  It says “No other organization has fought harder to increase access to credit for low-income and minority families than ACORN.”  Notice the words “low-income.”  OK, so people have to have a place to live, but does everyone have a right to buy a house?  There is nothing in the ACORN agenda about working hard to earn money.  But it does say: “ACORN is working to make affordable housing available so people in low – and moderate – income neighborhoods can be homeowners.  ACORN members demand more rehabilitation programs aimed at developing affordable housing and increased production of affordable housing.”  It’s all about demanding and entitlement. 

I worked in the mortgage industry for 20 years and I can tell you first hand that lenders do not want to discriminate.  They’re in business like everyone else, to make money.  They don’t care about the color of the borrowers, but they don’t make money if they don’t get paid back.  When that happens, either because the government required them to make the loans through the Community Reinvestment Act or because community organizers threatened them with bogus actions under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the result is the same. a mortgage meltdown.

Many people blame the meltdown on the greed of the lenders and the greed of Wall Street, but isn’t what ACORN doing an example of greed as well?  I’m not much of a Bible quoter, but isn’t there something about “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” or “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s donkey” or “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house?”  That’s exactly what is going on here and it is the basis of Obama’s socialism.  What else is behind his redistribution of wealth but jealosy of the success of others?