The notion that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) lies at the heart of our financial woes might perhaps be a useful metaphor for the way in which this crisis is to no small extent the product of a disastrous entanglement between government and finance, but a metaphor is mainly what it is. The causes of our current predicament run far, far deeper than any one piece of legislation, and there’s plenty of blame to go around — public sector, private sector, you name it.

All that said, this (via the Business Insider) is at least worth noting:

[In the course of Bank of America’s] conference call, CFO Joe Price said the CRA book accounts for 7% of the total in residential mortgages, but 24% of the losses.