Just Askin'!

Hey, wait a minute, didn't Mickey once have some other theories about the housing crisis?

Am I crazy to think that the failure of comprehensive immigration reform--and with it, the prospect (despite sponsors' assurances) of millions more legal and illegal immigrants--has something to do with the trouble in the housing market? link

I still suspect that the failure of immigration reform had something to do with the credit crunch--not because it was illegal immigrants defaulting on those mortgages, but because with lower prospective immigration the long-term value of all housing fell, making everyone's collateral worth less and lenders more reluctant to provide money secured by that collateral. How's that wrong? link

It seems highly plausible to me that there is some non-trivial causality running between the decrease in the net inflow of illegal immigrants and the real estate bust--all the immigrants who have disappeared would have had to live somewhere. link

Oh, right. So where have, say, Numbers USA and Tom Tancredo been in Mickey's half-assed parceling of blame for the housing collapse? Why do they get a pass in Mickey's patently absurd crisis narrative? Is it because demagoguing xenophobia is somehow less morally culpable in Mickey's world -- "sure, the financial ruin is bad, but at least there are fewer immigrants jostling for space in the soup line!" -- than institutions that encourage homeownership for poor people?

Do I even need to ask?