In The News

Egon de Uriante, Lancaster
Readers' Forum
January 14, 2008

TO THE EDITOR:
Former Federal Reserve chief Allen Greenspan, when asked why he didn't foresee the mortgage crisis, said because at the time there were no statistics on sub-prime lending.

In the mid-1990s, I was sitting in the Tabor Community Services office reading a brochure on predatory lending practices that target the working poor who want to buy a home.

Capitalists were bragging then, and still are, about high percentages of home ownership. Foreclosures among the poor were skyrocketing but there were "no statistics."

Now the financial repercussions are felt all over. The brokers had to know that these adjustable rate mortgages would backfire on the poor. But there were "no statistics."