WASHINGTON (AP) -- The head of the Federal Housing Administration is warning that boosting the minimum down payment borrowers must provide to qualify for home loans backed by the agency could threaten the housing market.

FHA commissioner David Stevens said at a House hearing Thursday that his agency would insure 300,000 fewer loans per year if the mandatory down payment was hiked from the current level of 3.5 percent to 5 percent.

Credit score requirements also will be hiked. Many FHA lenders already require a higher score, but there had been no standard requirement across the program. Borrowers with a score lower than 580 now would need a down payment of at least 10 percent.

I'm working on a device to allow you to punch people through the internet.

I'm going to punch the next person I hear say the government didn't cause this **** storm.

I'm going to punch the next person I hear say the government didn't cause this **** storm.

Even if the government is throwing out free money left and right, it's still your own fault if you bankrupt yourself trying to ride the obvious bubble to riches before it pops.

Even if the government is throwing out free money left and right, it's still your own fault if you bankrupt yourself trying to ride the obvious bubble to riches before it pops.

People, by and large, just want to get along. People, by and large, also don't understand the nature of our managed boom and bust cycle economy, largely inpart because the government tells them it doesn't work that way. Now, I'm not one to absolve people of their personal responsibility. It's how we learn not to put our fingers in the fire, but given that for generations people have been indoctrinated to trust the government, and as an economic certainty alway do what they are incentivized to do, the large share of the blame falls on the economic system we have in place.

It's akin to some ****-tard rapist putting roofies in an unattended drink at a bar. Sure, the poor girl should have been more responsible and not left her drink while she went to the bathroom, but at the end of the day the rapist is more at fault.

If FHA hadn't existed there probably would have been no bubble.

But FHA only created a small one, everyone else inflated it to massive proportions trying to exploit it and get rich quick.

Also, it's really disingenuous to use the "the average person doesn't know better" defense when conservatives generally laugh at liberals trying to defend the people who bought ARMs with this logic.

Obama actually was a lawyer in one of the cases where the government sued a lending institution for "discriminatory" lending practices because they were not creating mortgages for people below a certain credit level regardless of race.

They won and the institution was forced to lend to minorities below their previous credit floor.

Even if the government is throwing out free money left and right, it's still your own fault if you bankrupt yourself trying to ride the obvious bubble to riches before it pops.

No risk to themselves? Surely you've noticed the thousands of bank failures in the past few years?

Of course all investment carries risk. The problem with perception which has been skewed by inflation, is that over the years, people have viewed personal real estate as an investment. It is not, just like owning a car is not an investment. Not in the sense of strict balancesheets, anyway. Of course, you gain utility by owning such items, but such items do not translate into line items very directly.

That said, yes, people must bear the responsibility for collapsing real estate prices because that's always a possibility.

However, your analogy is akin to saying a man who is forced to play Russian Roulette against himself is at fault for his own death. After all, he only had to keep spinning the cylinder to get empty chambers, no one forced him to choose the loaded one.

Well I apologize for the thousands parts, I've been reading too many really negative posts about how bad of a depression we're in and assumed it was higher.

Not to say I'm a fan of what FHA did. You know I don't like affirmative action. But increasing mortgage lending to minorities just doesn't cause the economic collapse by itself. They're called minorities for a reason, there's not that many of them.

They're called minorities for a reason, there's not that many of them.

The nation’s minority population reached 100.7 million, according to the national and state estimates by race, Hispanic origin, sex and age released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. A year ago, the minority population totaled 98.3 million.

“About one in three U.S. residents is a minority,” said Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon. “To put this into perspective, there are more minorities in this country today than there were people in the United States in 1910. In fact, the minority population in the U.S. is larger than the total population of all but 11 countries.”

I'm working on a device to allow you to punch people through the internet.

Obama actually was a lawyer in one of the cases where the government sued a lending institution for "discriminatory" lending practices because they were not creating mortgages for people below a certain credit level regardless of race.

They won and the institution was forced to lend to minorities below their previous credit floor.