A history lesson on the continuing development of the Republican party

[bedstuy]

Yeah, this is pretty bad history, basically turning things into good guys vs. bad guys. 

I think the story has been the same for a long time, just the old line Republican Party vs. the conservative movement battling for control, mods vs. cons.  You could make the argument that the conservative movement actually dates from the 1920s with the post-WWI era chaos and the red scare. 

[bedstuy]

It changed because the anti-stagflation CRA and the Clinton-era housing stimulus collapsed global credit markets?

Oh God, you're one of those "poor people crashed the economy" conservatives. Now I know you're truly a troll.

He ate up Rick Santelli's vein-throbbing histrionics about how none of it would have happened if those lazy, greedy lower-middle class slobs hadn't insisted on buying the tract house with the guest bathroom.

Well, there clearly were a lot of people who got mortgages they couldn't afford and shouldn't have gotten in the first place. Why that happened is debatable, but it's hardly "anti-poor" to suggest that affordable housing regulations which forcibly reduced lending standards might have had something to with it (FTR, I don't think they were the main cause, but IMO they were still a factor).

Anti-poor or not, it isn't true.  The CRA was passed in 1977 for crying out loud.  1977!  How do you blame a 1977 law for bad loans made mostly around 2003-2007?  And, the CRA only applied to banks and thrifts.  Most of the bad loans were made by mortgage origination companies, not covered by the CRA at all.  On top of that, the whole root cause was financial manipulation by investment banks.  Anyone in that industry will tell you that. 

Or, just think of it this way.  Who has the power in finance, the major investment banks or random people trying to buy a home?  It takes two parties to make a loan after all.  Do you think a bunch of poor people just barged into Goldman Sachs and demanded that they use structured finance to create a housing bubble so they could buy a bigger house?  Just use your common sense.