The Wall Street Journal has a long article, Vermont Mortgage Laws Shut the Door on Bust -- and Boom, on how Vermont's old-fashioned skinflint mortgage regulations prevented excessive lending in that state. State regulations played a sizable role in the Bubble -- for example, Ohio has a lot more foreclosures than Pennsylvania due to differences in regulations. (Although without the expectation of continued massive Hispanic immigration, as in California, Florida, Nevada, and Arizona, home prices couldn't reach levels where losses mattered much in the big picture.)
In general, state laws on lending, which typically were devised back when "usury" was considered a bad thing, were more Mr. Potterish than federal laws and regulations, which, being more recent, were more George Baileyesque.
Vermont is, of course, the whitest state in the union, which means that, despite Vermont's liberalism, the bipartisan federal push for more minority lending through lower credit standards had little way to gain traction in Vermont. The federal government couldn't persecute anybody in Vermont for not lending enough to minorities or reward anybody with lighter regulation for pledging to lend more to minorities because there were no minorities in Vermont.
In general, state laws on lending, which typically were devised back when "usury" was considered a bad thing, were more Mr. Potterish than federal laws and regulations, which, being more recent, were more George Baileyesque.
Vermont is, of course, the whitest state in the union, which means that, despite Vermont's liberalism, the bipartisan federal push for more minority lending through lower credit standards had little way to gain traction in Vermont. The federal government couldn't persecute anybody in Vermont for not lending enough to minorities or reward anybody with lighter regulation for pledging to lend more to minorities because there were no minorities in Vermont.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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46 comments:
"The federal government couldn't persecute anybody for discriminating against minorities in Vermont since there were no minorities."
...Wait for it.....
Long term, though, there will be a catastrophic collapse in Vermont housing prices [barring any future immigration into Vermont]:
Vermont Losing Prized Resource as Young Depart
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: March 4, 2006
nytimes.com
...Vermont, with a population of about 620,000, now has the lowest birth rate among states. Three-quarters of its public schools have lost children since 2000...
The nihilists just aren't making enough children to sustain the species, much less sustain an economy.
I'm in Vermont and little by little, even this place is changing. I know half a dozen families with adopted Chinese/Black/Guatemalan children, a couple of Hispanic women married to locals, and of course the Somali refugee group foolishly resettled in Vermont.
No large-scale chain immigration yet.
And the dirtiest part is that Vermont will have to pony up just like everybody else to pay Uncle Sam off, even though she acted more responsibly.
This is the kind of thing I just can't abide. Why should Vermont have to pay for others' mistakes?
Every liberal in Vermont needs to be taunted as a racist for living there, loudly and proudly, by conservatives. Its like a state-wide gated community.
More stuff I can't abide, but two wrongs don't make a right.
You're forgetting the more important variable. Vermont is close to Canada. That explains it all.
Steve, this is unrelated but Whiskey/Testing99 basically addressed you directly at Roissy's regarding "Game" and your comments on it at the American Scene.
In the case of the housing bubble, Vermont's immunity comes more from it's distance from Mexico than from it's proximity to Canada
"More stuff I can't abide, but two wrongs don't make a right."
Too late for that.
"...Vermont, with a population of about 620,000, now has the lowest birth rate among states. Three-quarters of its public schools have lost children since 2000... "
Cool, I think I will retire in Vermont. Low school taxes, the beautiful fall foliage, cheap real estate, low crime, and the Ben and Jerry's ice cream. The grandkids can come up and go skiing.
Yes, but that certainly doesn't address at all why North Carolina and Texas didn't have much of a housing boom, unlike California, Florida, Nevada, and Arizona.
NC and TX certainly haven't lacked for Hispanic immigration. You have to look at multiple factors in anything this large, such as land-use regulation.
Right, you need Hispanic immigration and land use regulations. Vermont has lots and lots of land use regulation but it's, uh, close to Canada. Texas is far from Canada but it has an enormous amount of flat well-watered land and few regulations.
"Texas is far from Canada but it has an enormous amount of flat well-watered land and few regulations."
And North Carolina? It's even farther from Canada then TX is, closer to the Caribbean if you get my drift.
Well here's an idea that none of you +150 IQ types seems to have thought of?
In order for a housing bubble, there has to be...a preponderance of people...who want to move there!
Shockingly brilliant I know, but maybe "close to Canada." in this case means "cold as shit?"
I don't think Whiskey is the same as Testing99. The two have a totally different style. The mental picture I get from each one is quite different.
With regard to Vermont, it's basically a city-state with its 621,000 people. We've got 10 million people out here in L.A. county alone. They get 2 senators and we don't get jack. Maybe for the best.
"Every liberal in Vermont needs to be taunted as a racist for living there, loudly and proudly, by conservatives. Its like a state-wide gated community."
Oooooo, I just love this idea!
"Shockingly brilliant I know, but maybe "close to Canada." in this case means "cold as shit?""
Ditto.
Cold as shit, icy mountain roads, neighbors who are among the smuggest liberals on Earth, housing prices propped up high by all the regulation... not exactly a prime destination.
-Vanilla Thunder
Perhaps we can hijack some Greyhound buses and fix their destination signs to read "Great Welfare state" and park them in towns and cities all over CA.
Here they come, Vermont!
Steve,
You should credit Douthat for the Potter/Bailey analogy.
Re Whiskey's comment on Roissy, someone call that kid a waah!mbulance. It's not 1974 anymore, he whines? Sailer's comments on male female relations aren't relevant anymore? I bet if Whiskey were the age he is now in 1974, he wouldn't be getting any either. It really isn't that hard to find a woman, if you're not wasting time pining for honeys out of your league.
Actually, there is minority representation in Burlington, Vermont and, you guessed it, Burlington is the epicenter of all the unVermonty social friction that exists in that state.
"With regard to Vermont, it's basically a city-state with its 621,000 people."
No, it's not even close to that. You're describing Rhode Island, with Providence and its suburbs.
Vermont has no city. It's a couple of medium sized towns, plus a bunch of small towns and villages. And outside of the modest population around Burlington, there is no center, but a population stretched widely, but sparsely across the state.
I don't think Whiskey is the same as Testing99. The two have a totally different style. The mental picture I get from each one is quite different.
Which is an odd analysis as they certainly both claim to be each other. I didnt think there was any doubt about the matter.
Steve,
Have you seen this,
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9A5GCC80&show_article=1
Basically the FBI had trained a man to go online and act as a "agent provacateur" to incite right wingers on blogs.
I wonder if any of your posters are plants sent here to dis-inform and otherwise demoralize the right?
That story astonished me. I didn't think the FBI was supposed to be subborning others to commit crimes for ideological reasons just so they could arrest them. M
I am both Whiskey and Testing99. And I think the statements are valid. Both Steve and Michael Blowhard **ARE** nice guys, but they live in the world of the past. When Women had radically different behaviors.
To pick one: in 1965 according to Juan Williams Father's Day column in the WSJ a few years ago, the White illegitimate rate was ~2-4% (IIRC the article). Today according to Charles Murray the White Working Class rate is 40%, and among White Middle Class women it is 20%.
When Steve formed his world-view about how women operate and make decisions, we did not have the cumulative effects of 40 years of cheap contraception, rising income for women, and urban anonymity. That's a huge change in behavior, and specifically AWAY from "leader of men" to excitement and domination. So that yes, the nice girl at the Starbucks he noticed with the tats DOES indeed want the dreaded, tatted, bicycle messenger.
Look at Vermont -- the very fall in fertility is a feature of delayed marriage, in a time of prosperity. Previously, delayed marriage was a feature of economic hardship (Depression, post-Potato famine Ireland) and THAT is another huge metric that changed.
Or, as Steve pointed out, look at Obama's book, where the old people in the projects expressed nostalgia for the days of Jim Crow just because the inter-Black violence level was far lower. Children playing out in the streets without fear of shooting, and doors unlocked. This is directly a "feature" of what Lauren London (and most other Black women) express: a desire for thugs (something Black bloggers like "the Rawness" have covered in detail (see his "Myth of the Alpha Ghetto Male" post.)
Dalrymple, Steyn, Roissy, myself, Novaseeker, and more have all noted parts of the change, in selection and behavior (including drinking and raunchiness) in younger professional White women. Roissy probably put together the best explanation.
Again, look at Vermont. If 1950-1970's marriage and fertility rates among the WHITE population were there, you'd still have seen a housing bubble and bust -- it just would have been White. Because you would have had an imbalance of limited (Vermont is hilly, building restrictions) housing supply and increasing demand. New England has gone through several population boom/busts so it's probably true that female (and male) marriage/mate behavior DOES CHANGE.
/I am also Testing99
I'll add that the thread that kinno references speaks to several women writing to advice columns about how their prospective husbands deal with the disparity in sex partners. One woman in her thirties admits to 40 partners, another writing to Amy Alkon "Advice Goddess" admits to 83 at age 26.
Both are outliers, obviously. BUT ... what is interesting is the female response to both emails. Which amount to -- approval of the number of partners, definitely not questioning the number, and stating that "only an insecure man" would have problems with huge disparities (the men had IIRC around 8 partners) and that "love conquers all."
Again, liking to Vermont, the move of younger people to large urban areas is as much "follow the women" as it is economic. Living costs in NYC are very high, even commuting adds a large cost, but young women flock there because they can do as they please among concentrations of Alpha guys without social censure. "The Walk of Shame" Sunday morning is a lot more tolerable in anonymous NYC than it is among people you grow up with, parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.
The world-wide growth of Mega-Cities is probably as much about young people maximizing sexual market value as economic value.
Let me add one more thing.
Vermont "should" be a place where young White people go to meet and mate. It "should" be a Seattle, or Portland (both known as "slacker central" filled with SWPL folks). Vermont has clean air, lots of outdoors activities, ala Portland and Seattle. It has "historic" stuff SWPL go nuts over. Being partly rural it should have affordable housing. Telecommuting "should" along with an excellent transportation network allow SWPL yuppies to work mostly in Vermont while servicing the NYC/Boston markets.
It "should" be like Seattle and Portland are for the Northwest. Yet is loses not gains young people. Why? My guess is that lack of anonymity in rural areas is a big turn-off.
That FBI informant story is one of a string recently about would-be white supremacists that fizzled despite the SPLC's fondest wishes. Last week, there was the one about the guy threatening to bomb the White House. Obviously Aryan Nation material, of course. But no, he turned out to be Jewish. Then the putatively racist creator of the Obama Joker poster was outed, and turned out to be ...Palestinian. Then just yesterday, there was the bigoted hick in Arizona who showed up at an Obama speech with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder. Alas, Mark Potok was denied yet again. He was black. :(
"The mental picture I get from each one is quite different."
I think this quote reveals why empiricism ultimately won out. This quote is really rationalism in its purest form. And it really is that dumb and silly.
Barne- og Familiedepartementet...
Bidirectional Forwarding Detection...
OR
Bowling for Dollars?
"Alas, Mark Potok was denied yet again. He was black. :("
But I thought all blacks loved Obama?
Testing,
I agree with what you said about the hormones and their effect on bonding, per the other thread.
I disagree vehemently that women lead me nowadays and do so because of contraception, etc.
Men rule: always have, always will.
Women are submissive to *LIBERAL* men as they and their ideology rule our society.
Do men submit so wholeheartedly to this doctrine that they go trekking through, say, militarized New Orleans at 2 in the morning and get themselves shot? Or how about that silly woman who dressed up as a bride as performance art, hitchhiked across Europe to promote "peace" and got herself raped and murdered.
Who is it that *always* gets themselves killed doing these things?
Women are submissive and internalize to a much greater extent what authorities tell/teach them.
I'm a married woman to five children and my husband is the only man I've ever been with. I'm a bit of an outlier, but not by much. I'm *far* closer to normal than these uber-sluts that guys such as yourself hold up as normal. I've never been to a club and my other girlfriends can count on one hand the number of times they went.
Every one of us is happily married to hard working men and have been since our early to mid 20s. Every single one of us, and every normal girl I knew, said the same thing: We have to be friends with the guy first; strangers were distrusted vociferously.
Baby's crying.
"But I thought all blacks loved Obama?"
It's amazing how this kind of "there exists at least one counterexample therefore you must be wrong and no generalized statements can be uttered, ever" argument actually passes for real though. You hear it or variations of it all the time in our society today, in the mainstream media and among regular folk. It's really been completely assimilated into society.
It's like the intellectual version of the Rawlsian veil of ignorance. You shouldn't ever make a generalization because there could always be that single counterexample to it.
Feeling thrilled to be mentioned by Whiskey in the same sentence as Steve ...
Michael Blowhard
kinno sed:
Steve, this is unrelated but Whiskey/Testing99 basically addressed you directly at Roissy's regarding "Game" and your comments on it at the American Scene.
I feel testy is getting too big for his shoes. Steve honored him once or twice and now he thinks he's on par. Btw, Roissy gets banned as being sexual/explicit in my internet filter. I've never been there.
"It's amazing how this kind of "there exists at least one counterexample therefore you must be wrong and no generalized statements can be uttered,"
I don't think you understand. Chris set the rules of the "lone counterexample" game, not me. He held up a vociferous civil rights attorney's "witch hunt" and ostensible frustration as something to be ridiculed. The reason; because the two usurpers in question turned out to be nontraditional (i.e. Jewish and black.) I would be willing to bet every dime I have in the bank that if a comprehensive poll was done of all Americans, white Americans (precisely the demographic Chris feels that Mr. Potok feels is being scapegoated) would want to bomb the white house more than anyone else.
And I would bet all the money I WILL ever make, that white Americans are more likely to want to kill Obama than black Americans.
Therefore the black man with the gun provides a much more accurate "lone counterexample" to "people who want to kill Obama," by virtue of his African heritage than he does to "people who do not like Obama" by virtue of the same.
So that yes, the nice girl at the Starbucks he noticed with the tats DOES indeed want the dreaded, tatted, bicycle messenger.
Well testy, there's your clue. Get tatted up and start cycling, and there's your babe waiting for u at the local coffee shop. OK, so the style has changed. No more walking sticks, bowler hats, suits, bowing, courteousy and all that jazz. Just tats, cycling and off to bed!
gotta agree with married Anon+5kids upthread:
testy is chasing after the wrong kind of babes. The ones he so lusts after but knows are bad news have always been around, though contraception has given them more mileage and greater choices. Maybe there are also more of them. But the sluts testy cites are not a measure of anything normal, no matter how gorgeous they are. That’s why it’s so important to them that "love conquers all". It doesn't. That shows their vulnerability. If they thought their lifestyle was so hot why do they need “love” to fix it? In fact love (the kind they talk about) is the worst instrument for papering over all the immoral behavior and the licentious lifestyle, which is why they usually keep moving along like “sexual vagrants”. Maybe if they became born-again Christians they could overcome the past. But only in a spiritual sense, and only maybe. Many of these "saved" former freaks of various persuasions whom pastors like to parade around their churches as examples of the power of Christ to change people, have struggles for the rest of their lives, be it alcohol, drugs, licentiousness (plain old fornication), adultery, fraud, theft or murder. Once you go down any of those avenues, and with 86 partners the gal testy cites is seriously sluttish, turning back is very hard if not downright impossible, even as a Christian. No amount of contraception, lifestyle drugs, NYT editorials, SWPLC ideology or Obama-like saviors is going to change that because the heart cannot be played around with like putty.
Re FBI agent provocateurs...
As a recovering Leftist I ought to remind folks about the long history of FBI agent provocateur/entrapment actions against the Left.
Eg COINTELPRO (which the infamous Ward Churchill wrote widely about), along with the more recent Judi Bari/Earth First! case, and some lesser animal rights operations.
The point, I suspect, is to stop the FBI pushing people to extremes and then playing them off against eachother.
As I said, I'm a recovering Leftist - and certainly find HBD thinking interesting these days (Sailer, Murray...)
That said, when I notice the 'HBD Books' blog bluntly talking about how women mustn't be leaders ("large scale female involvement it politics, or work in general, is a bad thing. Women simply didn’t evolve to be the decision makers in society") and black people shouldn't even be allowed in to countries (ie "civilized countries should avoid letting blacks, in any number, in at any cost"), I do wonder whether I could ever fully embrace HBD.
Are there in fact a number of different 'camps' in HBD?
Or does everyone round here go along with a sort of 'No blacks, no women' rule - but mostly decide they should 'hide' it when in public?
Or maybe Richard Hoste is himself an agent provocateur - to make sure HBD can't become too popular... ;-)
Just kidding... (I hope).
The number of people who talk about all that pick-up artists/Game stuff, makes me wonder whether there isn't an HBD contingent that is fairly immature/impulsive/instrumental in its attitude to other people...?
"Or does everyone round here go along with a sort of 'No blacks, no women' rule - but mostly decide they should 'hide' it when in public?"
What gives you any impression that they are hiding it?
and black people shouldn't even be allowed in to countries (ie "civilized countries should avoid letting blacks, in any number, in at any cost"), I do wonder whether I could ever fully embrace HBD. Said the recovering leftist.
If you have not yet reached the point of thinking in those terms, you have not thought about HBD enough. I too am a recovering leftist and at first I recoiled in horror at the policy implications.
Now Im getting quite comfortable with the idea that white countries should only white immigration. Sure we can tolerate miniscule levels of non-whites, but thats about it.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/08/why-no-housing-bubble-bust-in-vermont.html
Why no housing bubble / bust in Vermont?
This is directly a "feature" of what Lauren London (and most other Black women) express: a desire for thugs (something Black bloggers like "the Rawness" have covered in detail (see his "Myth of the Alpha Ghetto Male" post.)
Black male behavior began moving toward black norms and away from white ones because the coercion dissipated.
Roissy probably put together the best explanation.
Not if it hinged on bean-counting like contraception and women's wages. Your whole theory seems to hinge on women as natural leaders of society, with men adapting to whatever it is women want. It's like the Beta Theory of Everything.
Women are submissive to *LIBERAL* men as they and their ideology rule our society.
Bingo (quibbles aside). But no, this is too simple, hence the Rube Goldberg contraptions.
It's amazing how this kind of "there exists at least one counterexample therefore you must be wrong and no generalized statements can be uttered, ever" argument actually passes for real thought.
He's a troll.
Or does everyone round here go along with a sort of 'No blacks, no women' rule - but mostly decide they should 'hide' it when in public?
What's a "no blacks, no women" rule? Yes, of course most of us keep our politics to ourselves to some extent; what do you expect?
Eg COINTELPRO (which the infamous Ward Churchill wrote widely about), along with the more recent Judi Bari/Earth First! case, and some lesser animal rights operations.
Interesting, can you summon some targets that aren't animal rights or environmentalist ones? I ask because there's a theory in ethnic nationalist circles that these are extraneous appendages of the left...
Are there in fact a number of different 'camps' in HBD?
Yes, very much so. In fact, you should probably think of HBD as apolitical (except in the sense that different ideologies or doctrines encourage or discourage knowledge of HBD) until you figure out the map. There are paleocons, neocons, ethnic nationalists, libertarians, and even a liberal/commie or two. I'm an ethnic nationalist myself (think founding fathers with racial homogeneity if you want specifics), and many HBD-aware libertarians, paleocons, neocons, and probably even a few ethnic nationalists would like to throttle me.
how women mustn't be leaders ("large scale female involvement it politics, or work in general, is a bad thing. Women simply didn’t evolve to be the decision makers in society")
Inconsistent; your characterization and the quote don't match. I disagree with your characterization, agree about large scale involvement of women in politics (took a long time for that to sink in), open to argument about the workplace, and agree with the final statement. I don't have a problem with women being leaders, but vehemently oppose the idea that women are as suited to leadership as men, and any measures to encourage or enforce this harmful delusion.
Whiskey, when it's 20 degrees in Boston it's about zero in VT. Have you ever experienced zero degrees? Suffice to say that slackers in the Pacific NW would need many extra layers of flannel to live in Vermont!
Vermont DOES have an immigration problem. Most businesses there are owned by New Yorkers, while the natives contribute to the highest alcoholism rate in New England.
I don't see Vermont becoming anywhere near as developed as the rest of NE. The state government is uber-protective of the state's "Made in Vermont" brand, and its pristine nature is pretty much all Vermont has going for it, ergo the legal restraints on development.
Brutus
"This is directly a "feature" of what Lauren London (and most other Black women) express:"
Do you really know enough black women well enough, Svigor, to be able to extrapolate what "most" of them desire?
"The mental picture I get from each one is quite different."
I think this quote reveals why empiricism ultimately won out. This quote is really rationalism in its purest form. And it really is that dumb and silly.
-------------
OK, I thank you guys (including Whiskey) for kicking my butt. It shows that I can't always trust my instincts. I thank you for this.
Do you really know enough black women well enough, Svigor, to be able to extrapolate what "most" of them desire?
For a group of people who don't like thuggin' brothers, they sure like having their kids.
Recovering Leftist comments...
Well, there seem to me to be potentially very credible arguments that any kind of automatic 50/50 division of leadership positions between men and women ignores biological differences, values, predilections.
But the idea that women didn't evolve to be 'decision-makers' seems like quite a leap from that.
And it seems a fairly strong argument that mass non-European immigration might be hard... even impossible to assimilate (ie 'wrong').
But I don't see that hard-to-assimilate immigration automatically equates with 'Black'.
I'd be happy to have Obama or Bill Cosby living next to me (and I'd love to see the arguments if I got them over for a barbecue).
Skin colour doesn't determine values in a totally rigid way - but, yes, there may be a lot of overall tendencies.
One strong piece of evidence that diverse communities lead to loss of trust, isolation, crumbling of social capital came (reluctantly) from Robert Putnam.
Though no-one responded to those two papers I sent links for, which apparently show that his findings don't transfer to other locations.
I think that Putnam's paper is the strongest evidence there is against the merits multiculturalism - which might be why few want to discuss it.
But we need to know if it has been undermined by more recent findings.
Re allowing "miniscule" non-white immigration. I think society needs to come to some agreement about its core values, then work out based on evidence what level of immigration it wants and also what level of immigration would lead to a failure to integrate etc.
If we don't bother with evidence, we just end up giving in to demagogues, I suspect.
By the way, there was a great visual map of all the political camps across the US spectrum in Utne Reader, many years ago - it was all there, very funny, and pretty accurate too.
Re COINTELPRO - it was targeted against the Left/black rights/American Indian groups.
I think it's right to be against agent provocateurs/entrapment used against the Left *and* the Right - not least as these operations can kill people.
So, you can complain if the SPLC turns out to be doing agent provocateur stuff (which wouldn't surprise me) - but that doesn't mean you just ignore whatever Ward Churchill has documented about COINTELPRO - just because you hate him for being a Leftist etc.
"For a group of people who don't like thuggin' brothers, they sure like having their kids."
I didn't say they did, and I didn't say they didn't...
I asked if he was qualified to judge.
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