Matt Yglesias And The Minority Mortgage Meltdown (Not Quite) Foretold
08/31/2012
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Matt Yglesias, however wrongheaded he may be about National Question issues, does actually know something about economics. He was boasting a bit on Twitter this morning:

And this was him predicting the financial crisis that Steve Sailer has called the Minority Mortgage Meltdown, and criticizing George W. Bush's "Zero Down Payment" plan, unveiled at the 2002 White House Conference on Minority Home Ownership:

No Downpayment? No Problem.

George P. [Bush] is up bragging about some bill that made it easier for people who can't afford a downpayment to buy a home. This sounds like the sort of thing that would attract strong bipartisan support. It also seems like a pretty bad idea. How many initiatives do we need to encourage bad credit risks to buy homes with borrowed money in an already-overheated property market? How many people's finances will be ruined by even a localized declined in key coastal areas?

Of course, Yglesias was objecting to it on pure economic grounds—he didn't get the "Minority Homeownership" angle, where the mortgages were being given to drywallers because they were Mexicans (often illegal.) He just thought it was stupid idea for anyone.

Both George W. Bush and George P. Bush (the son of Jeb Bush and  Columba Garnica Gallo) who did the speech have the ethnic factor clearly in mind. 

By the way, George P. Bush's speech starts out like this:

No matter how often I visit New York, I never tire of looking at the Statue of Liberty.

I can't help but reflect upon the impression she must have made on our weary but hopeful ancestors whose first glimpse of America was that inspiring silhouette.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

Speeches From The 2004 Republican National Convention, George P. Bush, New York, August 31, 2004

George P. Bush's ancestors didn't come past the Statue of Liberty. His father is a Mayflower descendant, and is mother is from León, in  Guanajuato, Mexico.

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