My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Gregory Cochran has always been drawn to puzzles. This one had been gnawing at him for several years: Why are European Jews prone to so many deadly genetic diseases?
Tay-Sachs disease. Canavan disease. More than a dozen more.It offended Cochran's sense of logic. Natural selection, the self-taught genetics buff knew, should flush dangerous DNA from the gene pool. Perhaps the mutations causing these diseases had some other, beneficial purpose. But what?The "faulty" genes, Cochran concluded, make Jews smarter.
At 3:17 one morning, after a long night searching a database of scientific journals from his disheveled home office in Albuquerque, Cochran fired off an e-mail to his collaborator Henry Harpending, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
"I've figured it out, I think," Cochran typed. "Pardon my crazed excitement."
That provocative -- some would say inflammatory -- hypothesis has landed Cochran and Harpending in the middle of a charged debate about the link between IQ and DNA.
They have been sneered at by colleagues and excoriated on Internet forums. They have been welcomed to speak at a synagogue and a Jewish medical society. They were asked to write a book; that effort, "The 10,000 Year Explosion," was published early this year.
Scientists are increasingly finding that propensities for human behaviors -- for addiction, aggression, risk-taking and more -- are written in our genes. But the idea that some groups of people are inherently smarter is troubling to many. Some scientists say it has such racist implications it's unworthy of consideration.
"What are their theories about those on the opposite end of the spectrum?" asked Neil Risch, director of the Institute for Human Genetics at UC San Francisco, who finds the matter so offensive he can barely discuss it without raising his voice. "Do they have genetic theories about why Latinos and African Americans perform worse academically?"
The biological basis for intelligence can be a thankless arena of inquiry. The authors of "The Bell Curve" were vilified 15 years ago for suggesting genes played a role in IQ differences among racial groups.
And here's Karen Kaplan's LA Times' article on John Hawks back in February.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
I won't explain the persuasive evidence for his long-ago Lyndon LaRouche connection, since that would necessitate revealing his real name, which might hurt him in his day job. But I'm 95% persuaded of a reader's suggestion that many years ago the individual who is now the extremely self-confident columnist "Spengler" of the Asia Times was a close colleague of the crackpot perennial Presidential candidate.LaRouche and Goldman had cowritten a book together in 1980, The Ugly Truth about Milton Friedman.
That reminds me that adventuring in the Middle East seems to appeal most to two sets of people:
- The not very bright sorts who get Iraq and Iran and Saddam and Osama confused.
- And the extremely bright but not quite stable sorts who can convince themselves of anything.
"I think Sailer is a racist SOB who sees the data through a distorted lens. Not all of what he says is wrong, though. There is a problem with illegitimacy. But I don't think Hispanics are stupid as he argues."
"Sailer is deeply misguided. A lot of the Hispanics coming to the US are in fact Asians -- southern Mexican or central American Indians with very poor education, nutrition, etc. Their first generation is pretty disastrous, but so were the Irish, Italians and Slavs. The Catholic Church in America wrote off a whole generation, maybe two, of Irish men. Can they assimilate? Sure. But I ought to point out that American kids of European ancestry aren't doing so well at the moment, either."
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
California's bubble pretty much drove the bubble in the adjoining states of Arizona and Nevada, which with Florida, covers the great majority of foreclosed upon mortgages when measured in dollars.
In Ground Zero of the Foreclosure Crisis, Southern California's Inland Empire of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, home purchase lending to Hispanics increased from 1999 to 2006 by 782%.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
"Because the testosterone is injected every two weeks, and it quickly leaves the bloodstream, I can actually feel its power on almost a daily basis. Within hours, and at most a day, I feel a deep surge of energy. It is less edgy than a double espresso, but just as powerful. My attention span shortens. In the two or three days after my shot, I find it harder to concentrate on writing and feel the need to exercise more. My wit is quicker, my mind faster, but my judgment is more impulsive. ...
And then after a few days, as the testosterone peaks and starts to decline, the feeling alters a little. I find myself less reserved than usual, and more garrulous. The same energy is there, but it seems less directed toward action than toward interaction, less toward pride than toward lust.
... "Then there's anger. I have always tended to bury or redirect my rage. I once thought this an inescapable part of my personality. It turns out I was wrong. ... That was an extreme example, but other, milder ones come to mind: losing my temper in a petty argument; innumerable traffic confrontations; even the occasional slightly too prickly column or e-mail flame-out."
Warning: Don't take anything Andrew Sullivan says seriously. Remember that what you see here is the product not of careful thought and proven good judgment, but just of whatever phase of his hormone therapy Andrew happens to be in at the moment.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Before children can take charge of their own experience and begin to spend time with peers in social groups outside the home, almost everything they learn comes from their families, to whom society has assigned the task of socializing children.
We were not surprised to see the 42 children turn out to be like their parents; we had not fully realized, however, the implications of those similarities for the children's futures.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz recently instructed ministry officials to develop a comprehensive plan for deporting 100,000 illegal foreign workers from Israel within a year.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Sex, Race And IQ: Off Limits?
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
The report also said a push for new immigration legislation that would grant residency or citizenship to people who entered the country illegally could fuel anger among groups fearing competition for jobs.
Three-year-olds whose mothers had taken valproate during pregnancy had I.Q. scores that were nine points lower on average than children whose mothers had taken a different antiseizure medication, lamotrigine. The I.Q. scores of toddlers whose mothers took valproate were also lower than scores of children whose mothers took two other antiseizure medications, phenytoin and carbamazepine. ...
Cognitive assessments were conducted in 258 2- and 3-year-olds born to 252 mothers, of whom 53 had taken valproate.
Over all, children’s I.Q. scores were strongly related to mothers’ I.Q. scores, except among the children of mothers treated with valproate [generic name Depakote], the study found.
At age 3, children exposed to valproate in utero had a mean I.Q. of 92, compared to 101 for children exposed to lamotrigine, 99 for those exposed to phenytoin, and 98 for those exposed to carbamazepine, the study found.
The achievement gap troubled Coleman. As a sociologist he was inclined to ascribe the differences in black and white test scores to the influence of the social environment, and he also knew that attributing even part of the difference to racial inheritance would place him outside the pale of his profession and render him ineligible for future frants. For Coleman and for many other educators and sociologist who studied his report, the key variables were family background and neighborhood. There was no correlation between test scores and per-pupil spending, age of textbooks, and a host of other measures. But there was a correlation with family background, the education and occupations of parents, and the number of books in the home. ...
For Coleman, these findings were unwelcome. Personally, he favored more spending for education. And Coleman's dismay was compounded by another correlation that emerged from the data. Both black and white children seemed to do better on tests if their teachers had one well on a standard test of vocabulary. This was especially problematical because black teachers were "on the whole less well prepared, less qualified, with lower verbal skills, than their white counterparts." This led to "the conjecture that [students] would do less well on average under black teachers than under white teachers." If so, "a major source of inequality of educational opportunity for black students was the fact they were being taught by black teachers." Yet this possibility was so heterodox that the Coleman report did not pursue the matter. In 1991 Coleman expressed regret over the decision "not to ask the crucial question." "A dispassionate researcher," he wrote, "would have gone on to ask the question we did not ask." ...
Poring over the statistics, he noted that African American teachers, on average, had slightly more years of formal education than their white counterparts. But the black teachers lagged behind whites in vocabulary and reading comprehension.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Genetic reporter Nicholas Wade, who has been on book break, is back with an NY Times front page story "Genes Show Limited Value in Predicting Diseases:
"The era of personal genomic medicine may have to wait. The genetic analysis of common disease is turning out to be a lot more complex than expected.
Since the human genome was decoded in 2003, researchers have been developing a powerful method for comparing the genomes of patients and healthy people, with the hope of pinpointing the DNA changes responsible for common diseases.
This method, called a genomewide association study, has proved technically successful despite many skeptics’ initial doubts. But it has been disappointing in that the kind of genetic variation it detects has turned out to explain surprisingly little of the genetic links to most diseases.
As Matt Ridley has said, no matter what you might think from reading the Health & Science section of your newspaper, your genes didn't evolve in order to kill you. So, this hunt for Killer Genes was always a little dubious, as I've been pointing out all decade.
Instead, your genes evolved to help you survive and reproduce. So, these expensive genome studies have so far proven better at finding the causes of differences in capabilities between individuals and between extended families (a.k.a., racial groups).
Dr. Goldstein argues that the genetic burden of common diseases must be mostly carried by large numbers of rare variants. In this theory, schizophrenia, say, would be caused by combinations of 1,000 rare genetic variants, not of 10 common genetic variants.
This would be bleak news for those who argue that the common variants detected so far, even if they explain only a small percentage of the risk, will nonetheless identify the biological pathways through which a disease emerges, and hence point to drugs that may correct the errant pathways. If hundreds of rare variants are involved in a disease, they may implicate too much of the body’s biochemistry to be useful.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
There is no doubt that times are still tough. By no means are we out of the woods just yet. But from where we stand, for the very first time, we are beginning to see glimmers of hope. And beyond that, way off in the distance, we can see a vision of an America’s future that is far different than our troubled economic past. It’s an America teeming with new industry and commerce; humming with new energy and discoveries that light the world once more. A place where anyone from anywhere with a good idea or the will to work can live the dream they’ve heard so much about.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
If this holds up (and I'm singularly unable to judge -- owing to my lack of 3-d processing power, I never been able to make head nor tail of any article referring to a region in the brain. No doubt my brain region that contributes to 3-d thinking is vanishingly small.)Personality types are linked with structural differences in the brain - which could explain why one child grows up to be impulsive and outgoing while another becomes diligent and introspective.
Anatomical differences between the brains of 85 people have been measured and linked with the four main categories of personality types as defined by psychiatrists using a clinically recognised system of character evaluation....
Brain scans that measure differences in volume down to an accuracy of less than one cubic millimetre found, for instance, that people defined as novelty-seeking personalities had a structurally bigger area of the brain above the eye sockets, known as the inferior part of the frontal lobe.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
There’s also a clear gender divide, as the researchers note: “Women of all races exhibit strong same race preferences, while men of no race exhibit a statistically significant same race preference.”That part about men having no preference sounds a bit like an artifact of doing the study at an Ivy League school where men have to be on their guard for ideological deviancy. Ivy League women, in contrast, would just slough off charges of racism with Ivy League feminist-quality logic: "I can't be a racist because I'm a feminist!"
And now you know why the Bitter Asian Men are so bitter.African-American women said yes about 30 percent less often to Hispanic men; about 45 percent less often to white men; about 65 percent less often to Asian men.
White women said yes about 30 percent less often to black or Hispanic men, and about 65 percent less often to Asian men.
Hispanic women said yes about 20 percent less often to black or white men, and 50 percent less often to Asian men.
Asian women didn’t discriminate much by race (except for showing a very slight preference for Asian men over black or Hispanic men).
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
So far, the president's double-homicide has not been covered by any major news outlets. The only two mentions of the heinous tragedy have been a 100-word blurb on the Associated Press wire and an obituary on page E7 of this week's edition of the Lake County Examiner.
While Obama has expressed no remorse for the grisly murders—point-blank shootings with an unregistered .38-caliber revolver—many journalists said it would be irresponsible for the press to sensationalize the story.
"There's been some debate around the office about whether we should report on this at all," Washington Post senior reporter Bill Tracy said while on assignment at a local dog show. "It's enough of a tragedy without the press jumping in and pointing fingers or, worse, exploiting the violence. Plus, we need to be sensitive to the victims' families at this time. Their loved ones were brutally, brutally murdered, after all."My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
“Sugar” is a critically acclaimed indie film about a 20-year-old Dominican pitcher’s minor league baseball season in Iowa. “Half Nelson,” the last collaboration of its married auteurs, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, brought Ryan Gosling a Best Actor nomination as a caring white liberal teacher in a Brooklyn slum school attended by African-Americans and Dominicans. Because numerous Dominican immigrants in New York City are failed minor leaguers, “Sugar” was a logical next film for the pair.
This movie is about a black Dominican, but it was very much made for white Americans. Indeed, “Sugar” exemplifies Sundance movies. It’s so sensitive, subtle, soft-spoken, averse to crowd-pleasing gimmicks, and generally beholden to the Stuff White People Like rulebook that few ballplayers of any nationality would pay to see it. Dodger slugger Manny Ramirez would snore so loudly through it that the audience couldn’t hear the soundtrack’s climactic song: Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah sung in Spanish.
Boden and Fleck wanted not a tale of triumph, but a statistically representative illustration of the typical Dominican athlete’s brief playing career and eventual transition into being an illegal immigrant in the South Bronx. ...
The young ballplayer claims he’s nicknamed “Sugar” because he’s “so sweet with the ladies,” but Boden and Fleck intend their film’s title to convey that by signing so many Dominican teens, baseball teams are, like sugar companies, neocolonialist exploiters. ... The real scandal is that big league baseball has facilitated the illegal immigration of tens of thousands of washed-up uneducated jocks. The MLB privatizes profits and socializes costs.
The irony in this trend of dramas striving to be “more documentary-like” is that the best documentaries are far more satisfyingly dramatic than “Sugar.” For example, Werner Herzog’s popular documentary “Grizzly Man” culminates with the annoying protagonist being devoured by a bear. Documentaries that follow somebody as ho-hum as Sugar are unlikely to get widely distributed or even finished.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
The Pew Hispanic Center is a nonpartisan research organization that seeks to improve public understanding of the diverse Hispanic population in the United States and to chronicle Latinos' growing impact on the nation. It does not take positions on policy issues. The center is part of the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan "fact tank" based in Washington, D.C., and it is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, a Philadelphia-based public charity. All of the Center’s reports are available at www.pewhispanic.org. The staff of the Center is:
Paul Taylor, Director
Rakesh Kochhar, Associate Director for Research
Mark Hugo Lopez, Associate Director
Richard Fry, Senior Research Associate
Jeffrey S. Passel, Senior Demographer
Gretchen Livingston, Senior Researcher
Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, Senior Analyst
Daniel Dockterman, Research Assistant
Mary Seaborn, Administrative Manager
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Bart & Lisa participate in a focus group, along with several other kids including Milhouse, Nelson and Ralph.
MAN: Alright, thanks for participating in our focus group, kids. Today, we're going to show you some Itchy & Scratchy cartoons.
The kids cheer in delight. ...
MAN: We want you to tell us what you think. And, be honest, because no one from the show is here spying on you. (chuckles)
A sneezing sound comes from a large mirror on the wall.
LISA: Why is that mirror sneezing?
MAN: Ah, look, it's just an old, creaky mirror, y'know, sometimes it sounds a little like it's sneezing, or coughing, or talking softly.
LISA: Hmm...
The man gives a thumbs-up to the mirror.
MAN: Now, you each have a knob in front of you. When you like what you see, turn the knob to the right. When you don't like what you see, turn it left.
RALPH: (with knob in mouth) My knob tastes funny.
MAN: Please refrain from tasting the knob.
First up, Itchy & Scratchy play pool. Itchy knocks out Scratchy's eyeballs with a cue ball and Scratchy replaces them with two pool balls. The kids laugh turn their knobs to the right. The next cartoon is set on an island. While Itchy & Scratchy sunbathe, a muscle-bound man in bikini trunks flexes in front of the camera. Nelson turns Milhouse's knob repeatedly to the right.
MILHOUSE: Hey, quit it!
From behind the mirror, Meyers and two other people watch on a monitor.
MEYERS [owner of Itchy & Scratchy, Intl.]: They like Itchy, they like Scratchy, one kid seems to love the Speedo man... what more do they want?
Back with the focus group.
MAN: Okay, how many of you kids would like Itchy & Scratchy to deal with real-life problems, like the ones you face every day? (the kids all cheer and agree) And who would like to see them do just the opposite - getting into far-out situations involving robots and magic powers? (more cheering) So, you want a realistic, down-to-earth show... that's completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots? (The kids agree)
NELSON: Yeah, good.
MILHOUSE: And also, you should win things by watching!
The man sighs. The light is turned on in the observation booth, and Meyers appears at the mirror.
MEYERS: You kids don't know what you want! That's why you're still kids: 'cause you're stupid! Just tell me what's wrong with the freakin' show!
He turns the lights out. Ralph starts crying and turns his knob to the left.
RALPH: Mommy!
LISA: (talking to the mirror) Um, excuse me sir. The thing is, there's not really anything wrong with the Itchy & Scratchy show, it's as good as ever. But after so many years, the characters just can't have the same impact they once had.
Meyers turns the light back on.
MEYERS: That's it. That's it, little girl! You've saved Itchy & Scratchy!
A lawyer enters the room, holding papers.
LAWYER: Please sign these papers indicating that you did not save Itchy & Scratchy.
At Itchy & Scratchy, Intl., Meyers has called a meeting of the writers (who look strikingly similar to the real Simpsons writers [i.e., the Harvard Mafia whom my old-next-door neighbor, who was a writer on "Married with Children," used to denounce for ruining the business]) along with Krusty and a female network executive.
MEYERS: I have figured out how to rejuvenate the show. It's so simple, you egghead writers would've never thought of it! What we need is... a new character! One that today's kids can relate to!
The writers look at each other, uncertain.
OAKLEY [writer]: Are you absolutely sure that's wise, sir? I mean, I don't want to sound pretentious here, but Itchy and Scratchy comprise a dramaturgical dyad.
KRUSTY: Hey, this ain't art, it's business! (to Meyers) Whaddya got in mind? Sexy broad? Gangster octopus?
MEYERS: No, no. The animal chain of command goes mouse, cat, dog. (to the writers) D-O-G.
WEINSTEIN [writer]: Uh, a dog? Isn't that a tad predictable?
FEMALE EXECUTIVE: In your dreams. We're talking the original dog from hell.
OAKLEY: You mean Cerberus?
FEMALE EXECUTIVE: (pause) We at the network want a dog with attitude. He's edgy, he's "in your face." You've heard the expression "let's get busy"? Well, this is a dog who gets "biz-zay!" Consistently and thoroughly.
KRUSTY: So he's proactive, huh?
FEMALE EXECUTIVE: Oh, God, yes. We're talking about a totally outrageous paradigm.
MEYER [writer]: Excuse me, but "proactive" and "paradigm"? Aren't these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important? Not that I'm accusing you of anything like that. I'm fired, aren't I?
MEYERS: Oh, yes.
MEYERS: The rest of you writers start thinking up a name for this funky dog; I dunno, something along the line of say... Poochie, only more proactive.
KRUSTY: Yeah!
Meyers, Krusty and the network executive leave.
OAKLEY: So, Poochie okay with everybody?
WRITERS: Yeah...
An animator, who looks like David Silverman, draws a sketch of a dog.
MEYERS: No, no, no! He was supposed to have attitude.
SILVERMAN [animator]: Um... wh-what do you mean, exactly?
MEYERS: Oh, you know, attitude, attitude! Uh... sunglasses!
FEMALE EXECUTIVE: Can we put him in more of a "hip-hop" context?
KRUSTY: Forget context, he's gotta be a surfer. Give me a nice shmear of surfer.
FEMALE EXECUTIVE: I feel we should rastafy him by ... ten percent or so.
Silverman redraws Poochie. They're still not totally satisfied.
MEYERS: Hmm... I think he needs a little more attitude.
Silverman blackens in Poochie's sunglasses.
FEMALE EXECUTIVE: Oh yeah, bingo. There it is, right there!
KRUSTY: Yeah, that's it!
MEYERS: I love it!
The next morning, The Simpsons eat breakfast. Bart notices the headline in the newspaper Homer is reading: "Funny Dog To Make Life Worthwhile". ...
[After Homer's debut as the voice of Poochie]
In the Android's Dungeon...
COMIC BOOK GUY: Last night's Itchy & Scratchy was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever! Rest assured that I was on the Internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world.
BART: Hey, I know it wasn't great, but what right do you have to complain?
COMIC BOOK GUY: As a loyal viewer, I feel they owe me.
BART: What? They're giving you thousands of hours of entertainment for free. What could they possibly owe you? I mean, If anything, you owe them.
COMIC BOOK GUY: (pause) Worst episode ever.
Kent Brockman delivers the news.
KENT BROCKMAN: It looks like the end of the venerable Itchy and Scratchy program. For years, TV critics, such as yours truly, Kent Brockman, have waited impatiently for cracks to appear in the show's hilarious facade. Yesterday, our prays were finally answered when Poochie the Dog made his howlingly unfunny debut. Far be it from me to gloat at another's downfall, but I have a feeling that no children are gonna be crying when this puppy is put to sleep.
Krusty and the writers are watching the report.
KRUSTY: What the hell happened?!
FEMALE EXECUTIVE: Well, I'd attribute the product failure to fundamental shifts in our key demographic, coupled with the overall crumminess of Poochie.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Until now, there hasn't been much solid data on who in Minnesota has lost homes to foreclosure. A recent University of Minnesota study finds the majority of owner-occupied foreclosures in Minneapolis involved Spanish-speaking families.
St. Paul, Minn. — Longtime real estate broker Rolando Borja saw the foreclosure crisis coming. His clients are mostly Spanish-speaking, and he said that community is especially vulnerable to predatory lending because most business relies on word of mouth.
"They told their cousin and their friend and their compadre and this and that, not realizing that the deal they just made was a bad one. And you know," he said, "they told ten people and those ten people told another ten, so we are talking about it was like a disease. It started spreading and it happened like that."
Largely fueled by adjustable rate subprime loans, foreclosures increased dramatically nationwide, rising by 75 percent between 2006 and 2007.
In Minnesota, defaults spiked by about 82 percent.
Experts say one reason for the increase is that subprime loans were heavily marketed to vulnerable groups.
Brokers canvassed churches, schools, advertised in Spanish-language media and went door to door. As a result, Borja said, lots of people took out risky loans they didn't understand to buy homes they couldn't afford.
"All these funky programs started coming out on the market," he said. "Pretty much anybody could buy a home,"
The University of Minnesota is the first to study the ethnicity of people caught up in the foreclosure crisis. The study linked two years' of data from Minneapolis sheriff's sales with public schools enrollment data, which tracks ethnicity and language spoken at home.
The data, from June 2006 to July 2008, paints a grim picture of the early stages of the current housing crisis. By far, more African-Americans and Hispanics lost their homes than any other groups. Most of the foreclosures were rental properties. That's already widely understood.
But here's what surprised the study authors: among homeowners, the foreign born lost their homes at a much higher rate - and the majority were Spanish-speaking.
"There is not a part of the city that's unaffected; there is not a part of the city where you didn't see foreclosed properties that had a foreign-born family living in them," said University of Minnesota Professor Ryan Allen, who authored the study.
Ryan said that while the numbers were surprising, they are nonetheless pretty easy to explain. Immigrants are thought to be vulnerable to predatory lending because of language barriers.
People who are foreign-born may also be less familiar with mortgages. In Latin America for example, buying a home usually means putting down all the money up front and buying the land where you want to build.
Another reason has to do with lending disparities. Studies have documented that minorities are more likely to borrow adjustable rate mortgages because they are more often turned down for prime loans. ...
"People who are saying, 'Yes, you can get into a home,' and it's homebuyers who don't have enough information to make an educated decision as to whether or not homeownership is the right thing for them," she said.
As a former marketing researcher, I should be all in favor of more marketing research, but still ...Disney Expert Uses Science to Draw Boy Viewers
By BROOKS BARNES
The Walt Disney Company is relying on the insights of Kelly Peña, or “the kid whisperer,” to help reassert itself as a cultural force among boys.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
From a August 12, 2007 Orange Country Register article, "Street of Broken Dreams," by John Gittelsohn and Ronald Campbell about one block of 48 homes in all-Latino Santa Ana, CA:
An Orange County Register investigation found that lenders targeting Hispanic buyers wrote $19 million in loans on this modest Santa Ana block of 1920s bungalows, where roses and jasmine bloom behind white picket fences. Those loans helped nearly triple sales prices from $182,000 to $600,000 over five years. Some owners got cash out. Others sold for big profits.
Then the credit stopped. And home values crashed. ...
A year ago, Angelita Medina Albarran, 47, a garment worker at St. John Knits, took out two loans from Fremont Investment & Loan to cover the entire $600,000 purchase price for 919 W. Camile St., a 1,450-square-foot bungalow. Her five grown children help pay the mortgage – $4,000 a month and scheduled to rise in May. ...
A Register analysis of federal housing data pinpointed West Camile Street as a center of the subprime borrowing binge. In 2005, 75 percent of the home loans in the surrounding census tract were subprime.
That's the highest concentration of subprime loans in Orange County and one of the densest in California. More than 200 neighborhoods in California, particularly in south Los Angeles and the Inland Empire, were similarly dependent on subprime lending. ...
The Register found that the brokers and lenders gave little consideration to the long-term performance of a loan or to borrowers' future. Subprime loans became the dominant source of funding for black and Hispanic buyers. Now the hidden costs of these loans are coming due, blighting neighborhoods as surely as any drug plague. ...
Another bank repo is the 1922 Craftsman-style bungalow advertised as a two-bedroom, one-bath at 946 W. Camile St. It still has the original hardwood floors, built-in cabinets and a faux fireplace surrounded by green tiles. But the last owner added four bedrooms and two toilets without permits in an effort to pack in more tenants to help pay the mortgage.
Eight mortgages on the block were sold by Ameriquest Mortgage Co. ...
Owned by the U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands and co-founder of the Museum of Tolerance, Roland Arnall ...
and other subsidiaries of Orange-based ACC Capital Holdings. That company paid $325 million in 2006 to settle predatory-lending investigations in 49 states.
Other subprime lenders on the block included now bankrupt New Century Financial and People's Choice Home Loan, both of Irvine. ConquistAmerica of Santa Ana, Option One of Irvine and Quick Loan Funding of Costa Mesa are other troubled Orange County subprime lenders that issued mortgages on Camile.
A subprime firm targeting Hispanics entitled "ConquistAmerica!" It has (or had) a shiny ten story office building in Santa Ana. It describes itself in the English-translation of its website as:
We believe ConquistAmerica to be the premier lender to the Spanish speaking community today.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Is it a coincidence that the biggest purely financial crisis in 75 years, which has cratered the world economy, is occurring because of massive losses in the one financing sector that is most heavily and obviously influenced by government pressure? The investment banks could have used their sophisticated models to underestimate the risks of all sorts of assets, but apparently these models only blew up when used on mortgage-backed securities.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer