Another myth that has already been debunked, but is a required belief among our right wing brethern.
See here, and here, and finally, here. The CRA had little, if anything to do with "the mess" we're in.
Chuck, adding to one of your source links who also published another study
CRA of 1977 - "Not Guilty" I would like to add that if you read the article posted by Lone Hawk regarding the CRA...you'll see a chronology of legislative actions (beyond the CRA) that seem to stair-step the the following:
I still reference two legislative acts that clearly are related to our financial woes.
1. Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000
2. Gramm-Bailey-Leach Act of 1999
There are two individuals who have a history of being completely correct about our financial and economic condition and they are:
1.
Warren Buffett has been making it well known about the severity of our financial problems since 2003.
In more recent times:
In an interview with Marketwatch, Mr. Buffett labeled derivatives “the financial weapon of mass destruction.” He stated that the derivatives market is approximately $500 Trillion ($500,000,000,000,000). To put things in perspective, the same magazine tells us that America’s gross domestic product (GDP) is around $15 trillion. The GDP of all nations combined is around $50 Trillion. The total value of all the real estate in the world is estimated at $75 Trillion, and the total value of all the world’s stocks is about $100 Trillion. But there is a $500 Trillion market in derivatives!” Obviously derivatives are weapons of mass destruction.
<Snip>
Wall Street Didn't Listen to Buffett. Derivatives grew into a massive bubble, from about $100 trillion to $516 trillion by 2007.
The new derivatives bubble was fueled by five key economic and political trends:
a. Sarbanes-Oxley increased corporate disclosures and government oversight
b. Federal Reserve's cheap money policies created the subprime-housing boom
c. War budgets burdened the U.S. Treasury and future entitlements programs
d. Trade deficits with China and others destroyed the value of the U.S. dollar
e. Oil and commodity rich nations demanding equity payments rather than debt
In short, despite Buffett's clear warnings, a massive new derivatives bubble is driving the domestic and global economies, a bubble that continues growing today parallel with the subprime-credit meltdown triggering a bear-recession.
Data on the five-fold growth of derivatives to $516 trillion in five years comes from the most recent survey by the Bank of International Settlements, the world's clearinghouse for central banks in Basel, Switzerland.
2.
Nouriel Roubine, an economics professor at New York University, stood before an audience of economists at the International Monetary Fund and announced that a crisis was brewing. In the coming months and years, he warned, the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession.
He laid out a bleak sequence of events: homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unraveling worldwide and the global financial system shuddering to a halt. These developments, he went on, could cripple or destroy hedge funds, investment banks and other major financial institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
This man was virtually 100% right...and everybody blew his warnings off.
Our government and Wall Street have had plenty of warnings! 
