Poor not to blame for meltdown

In an episode of the tragically short-lived Fox sitcom "Arrested Development," a determined environmentalist named Johnny Bark sat atop a tree on the Bluth Company development lot, protesting the construction of "high cost, low quality mini-mansions" in an effort to save a few trees. Though his efforts proved fruitless, it is comforting to know that somebody, albeit fictional, was trying to save the country from an economic meltdown.

Throughout the decade, however, there have been too few dim-witted tree-huggers and too many families like the Bluths. Among the dozens of reasons (and trust me, there are dozens of them) why the cancellation of "Arrested Development" was undue, chief among them is the current economic situation facing the country. Despite fickle and self-righteous efforts to blame everyone from Wall Street to President Bush, the country really deserves to focus its hatred on the lovable and lavish Bluth family, and laugh with (and at) them as they poorly spend money that was poorly lent to them by poorly-managed investment banks.

Of course, there are those who would rather blame poor people than people poorly suited to handle their investors' generosity. Conservatives, who are doomed to spend the better part of the next decade trying to survive in the political wilderness, have focused their hatred on the government-favored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for encouraging lending to lower-income Americans so they could afford their own homes and not have to suffer the perils of renting. The mortgage giants certainly played their part - they, along with the Federal Housing Administration, were responsible for 17 percent of sub-prime lending, but only 17 percent. Private lenders, according to the McClatchy News Bureau, were responsible for 83 percent of sub-prime loans.

Conservatives have also hoisted blame on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), one of the brighter points in the spotty record of the Carter administration. This legislation dramatically decreased redlining, a practice that limited access to services such as banking and insurance to lower-income communities. If legitimate financial services are unavailable in these neighborhoods, people often fall prey to predatory lenders or, worse, loan sharks. Abandoning the principles of the CRA would remake America into a country where there is credit for certain groups of people but not for others, de facto discrimination that would compromise the ideals of social mobility and urban renewal.

Blaming low-income borrowers is flat-out incorrect. Wealthier Americans have more access to credit, and so many borrowed and made investments in housing property. They, not entirely foolishly, believed these were safe and profitable investments during the housing bubble. Major investment banks like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns lost billions when the bubble burst. Borrowers defaulted. Perhaps we have finally realized the perils of urban sprawl, and perhaps increased urbanization and higher quality public services will result from this crisis. The conservatives blaming the crisis on poor borrowers and not lavish lenders, well, their thinking is in a state of arrested development.

Matthew Struhar is a senior in history and political science. He can be reached at struhar.1@osu.edu.