> It takes a special kind of idiot to assign blame for a housing
> bubble to CRA.
As Michael points out, in this case, the kind of idiot is one who is reflexively pro-corporate. I first came across this Liebowitz character in his postings of research to the pages of the Copyright Alliance
http://www.copyrightalliance.org/documentsandresearch/research
It's not so much that he has a particular ideological bent: though he seems more fond of some than others, he's fairly flexible in choosing which perspective will be most appropriate to the required apologetics.
As for the thesis he presents, it seems like he believes he had nailed the policy problem long ago. If the problem is that lenders were forced to lend to people who were objectively uncreditworthy (a Pen-L poster in a discussion on GMU economics a few weeks ago made a similar claim) I wonder if they were also forced to bundle them into securities and if credit rating agencies were forced to rate these instruments "AAA" and investers around the globe were forced to buy them? Then again, the invention of these obscure instruments, rise of mortgage backed securities, and the myriad other changes to financial regulation are just incidental: what it comes down to is that a bunch of PC activist types are really responsible for this trouble. That should play well to the crankier elements in the NYPost audience.
s