The Experience of the Guy Who Headed the Government Push on Sub-Prime Mortgages Before the Crash

Scott Sumner, while discussing Peter Conti-Brown's new book  on the Fed, reports:

In one amusing anecdote, Laurence Meyer is nominated for a position on the [Federal Reserve] Board, and Joe Stiglitz calls to tell him that, "he didn't want to pressure me on any issues on behalf of the Clinton administration, but he did want me to know that the administration was strongly in favor of CRA". Up to this point in time, Meyer had never even heard of the CRA. Conti-Brown reports that, "Immediately after hanging up, Stiglitz sent Meyer a sixty-five-page history of the Community Reinvestment Act for Meyer's educational benefit." Then Conti-Brown provides this quote from a book Meyer wrote in 2004 (which I'm guessing he now wishes he'd never written):

. . . not much more than a year later, I was named head of the Board's oversight committee on consumer and community affairs." I became the member of the Board to testify before Congress on issues related to the CRA. I went around the country and supported work that community groups in banks were doing in providing affordable housing for low and moderate income groups. In other words, I was CRA all the way. I guess I am a fast learner.

 -RW