Bloggy takedown of the day

Megan wrote:

[The role of the CRA in the financial meltdown is] understated by liberals who are unwilling to admit that regulation, too, can produce hideous unintended consequences.  . . . Regardless of how much causal blame you assign it, the financial crisis has certainly proven that the CRA seems to have been a very, very bad idea.

publius isn't having it (bold mine):

Essentially nothing in that excerpt is true.  Felix Salmon and Ryan Chittum hopefully put the stake through this argument, but it keeps appearing (the Chittum post is more comprehensive).  To sum them up -- the bad loans at the heart of the meltdown came overwhelmingly from unregulated, non-bank lenders who weren't even covered by the CRA.  In addition, the CRA loans did very well.  And there's basically not a shred of evidence that the CRA led to the meltdown.  And you can't evade that 100% lack of evidence by citing vague "mentalities" and drawing imaginary causal lines constructed entirely of ideology.