Why Did Our Economy Melt Down In 2008? (Email This To Your Friends)

Note: I did not write the following; I am only passing it along.  I hope you read it and then pass it along as well.

Remember the LONG-TERM Causes of the Financial Sector Meltdown (an email pre-formatted for sending)
FreedomKeys.com ^ | 20101010 | various
Posted on 10/23/2010 12:49:32 PM PDT by FreeKeys

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
by novelist Orson Scott Card, a Democrat
_________
.. This [financial crisis] was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it.  One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules.  The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.
..
Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans.  (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me.  It’s as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.) …
..
If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.
..
If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis. …
..
So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all?  Do you even know what honesty means?
..
[Was] getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for? …
..
… tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis.  You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.
..
This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.
..
If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.
– Novelist Orson Scott Card, a Democrat, on October 5, 2008,HERE
..
.. The Financial Sector Meltdown ..
1.  Almost all of the financial problems we see today are based on bad mortgage lending.  That would be lending money to people to buy homes who didn’t qualify for a loan.
..
2.  The Democrats, under Clinton, strengthened a government-created monster called the “Community Reinvestment Act” [first foisted upon the country under Jimmy Carter].  This law was then used by “activists” and “community organizers” …  to coerce lending institutions to make these bad loans … millions of them.
..
3.  Now we see what happens when political “wisdom” supplants good loan underwriting.  When private financial institutions are virtually forced to make loans to people with a bad credit and job history … this is what you get.  Enjoy it. — Neal Boortz, here ..

---

.
Enough cards on this table have been turned over that the story is now clear. The economic history books will describe this episode in simple and understandable terms: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exploded, and many bystanders were injured in the blast, some fatally.
..
Fannie and Freddie did this by becoming a key enabler of the mortgage crisis. They fueled Wall Street’s efforts to securitize subprime loans by becoming the primary customer of all AAA-rated subprime-mortgage pools. In addition, they held an enormous portfolio of mortgages themselves.
..
In the times that Fannie and Freddie couldn’t make the market, they became the market.
.. — Kevin Hassett, Bloomberg News, here ..

 

---

.. Obama choice helped Fannie block oversight
National security adviser tied to discrediting of probe ..
By Jim McElhatton, The Washington Times,October 13, 2010 here
..
UNDER SCRUTINY: Thomas E. Donilon worked as a registered lobbyist for Fannie Mae from 1999 to 2005.
..
Years before Fannie Mae foundered amid a massive accounting scandal, President Obama’s choice for national security adviser oversaw an office inside the mortgage giant that orchestrated a negative publicity blitz to fight attempts by Congress to increase government oversight, records show.
..
Thomas E. Donilon, who won the job as national security adviser this month, worked as a registered lobbyist for Fannie Mae from 1999 to 2005 at a time the company’s officials insisted finances were sound. He also earned more than $1.8 million in bonuses [from Frannie Mae] before the government took over the troubled company in the wake of an accounting scandal.
..
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Mr. Obama, who railed against lobbyists on the campaign trail, hailed Mr. Donilon’s appointment last week, but made no mention of his time as a registered lobbyist.st wee
..

 

---

..
Democrats and some [big-government] Republicans opposed reform in part because Fannie and Freddie were very good at greasing palms. Fannie has spent $170 million on lobbying since 1998 and $19.3 million on political contributions since 1990.
..
The principal recipient of Fannie Mae’s largesse was a Democrat, Sen. Chris Dodd (D, CT), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. No. 2 was another Democrat, Sen. Barack Obama (D, IL).
..
Mr. Dodd was also the second largest recipient in the Senate of contributions from Countrywide’s political action committee and its employees, and the recipient of a home loan from Countrywide at well below market rates.  The No. 1 senator on Countrywide’s list? Barack Obama. Check it out here:  http://tinyurl.com/4h9955
..

 

---

..
“Congressman Frank and Senator Dodd wanted the government to push financial institutions to lend to people they would not lend to otherwise, because of the risk of default.
..
“The idea that politicians can assess risks better than people who have spent their whole careers assessing risks should have been so obviously absurd that no one would take it seriously.” — Dr. Thomas Sowell, Professor Emeritus, Economics, Stanford University, HERE
..

 

---

..
When the Bush administration tried to rein in Freddie and Fannie from continuing to engage in risky practices, guess who stepped in to block their efforts? Democratic senators Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and — are you ready? — Barack Obama.
..
Meanwhile, guess who were the top four recipients of campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie between 1988 and 2008?
..
Senators Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and — still ready? — Barack Obama.
..
A coincidence, I tell you — just a coincidence.
..
More mere coincidences: Franklin Raines — a former Carter- and Clinton-administration official and former head of Fannie Mae, now under investigation for cooking its books — had a lot of powerful people in Congress beholden to his agency. Here is a list of his campaign-contribution recipients. Meanwhile, Democratic honcho Jim Johnson, another former Fannie Mae CEO, has been an economic adviser to and major fundraiser for Barack Obama, and even ran his vice-presidential search committee until growing scandals over his Fannie management forced him to step down in July. – Robert Bidinotto, here ..

 

---

..
On May 25, 2006, Sen. John McCain spoke forcefully on behalf of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005.  He said on the floor of the Senate:
..
“Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.
..
“The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.
..
” The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.
..
“For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.
..
“I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
..
“I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.”
..
It died at the hands of the DEMOCRATS —
HERE’s a video clip showing their anger.
..

 

---

..
“Many politicians and pundits claim that the credit crunch and high mortgage foreclosure rate is an example of market failure and want government to step in to bail out creditors and borrowers at the expense of taxpayers who prudently managed their affairs. These financial problems are not market failures but government failure. … The credit crunch and foreclosure problems are failures of government policy.” — Dr. Walter E. Williams, the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University, HERE
..

 

---

..
“Barack Obama wasn’t just the second-largest recipient of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac political contributions. He was also the senator from ACORN, the activist leader for risky ‘affirmative action’ loans. … [The CRA] gave groups such as ACORN a license and a means to intimidate banks … ACORN employed its tactics in 1991 by taking over the House Banking Committee room for two days to protest efforts to scale back the CRA. … Obama represented ACORN in a 1994 suit against redlining.  ACORN was also a driving force behind a 1995 regulatory revision pushed through by the Clinton administration that greatly expanded the CRA and helped spawn the current financial crisis. Obama was the attorney representing ACORN in this effort.” — IBD Editorials
..
“The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN’s Madeline Talbott in her pioneering [“community organizer”] efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. He trained her personal staff and other aspiring ACORN leaders, he consulted with her extensively, and he arranged a major boost in foundation funding [via CAC and Woods Fund] for her efforts.” — Stanley Kurtz, “BARACK’S ‘ORGAANIZER’ BUDS PUSHED FOR BAD MORTGAGES”HERE
.

 

---

.
Bloomberg News has an excellent recap of
the history of the financial meltdown:.HERE.
.

 

---

 

Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama
not shown: Bill Clinton

---

..

 

---

“Scratch the surface of an endemic problem — famine, illness, poverty —  and you invariably find a politician at the source.” —  Simon Carr

 

---

“One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.” — Ayn Rand

 

---

“I think that we all need to consider the possibility … just the possibility … that Obama is engaged in a conscious effort to destroy our free market economy so that he can build a government-controlled socialist party on the rubble.” — Neal Boortz, here
[Conscious effort or not, we have an emergency on our hands.]

 

Another Milestone Day For Obama: The Monstrous Mistake Of Trying Foreign Terrorists Like U.S. Citizens

I didn’t used to believe in anything special about “Friday the 13th.”  It was just another day.  Turns out I was wrong.

Obama has brought about yet another “change.”

Friday the 13th now features a new monster – the President of the United States of America – as the Creature Who Made Terrorists Feel Right At Home.  I know the name doesn’t sound as scary as “Jason Voorhees,” the hockey-masked hacker-slasher, but believe me, this is a monster that can kill more Americans than Jason Voorhees ever did.

Under Obama, we’re undermining our CIA.  We’re mirandizing terrorists captured on foreign battlefields.  And now we’re trying mass-murdering terrorists like American citizens in our justice system.

And, of course, when a terrorists actually guns down more than two score unarmed soldiers on a military base, he denies the man is even a terrorist in a rush to whitewash lest the revelation somehow undermine our “diversity.”

Hope you terrorist-murderers feel at home.  If there’s anything else we can do for you, please let us know.  Our president will go to any lengths to make you as comfortable as possible.

And don’t you mind that whole “slaughtering” thing.  We’re really like sheeple now; we don’t mind.  Murder 3,000 of us, or 3,000,000; we’re fine with it.  Really.

Why are we going to put the 9/11 mastermind and four of his fellow murderers on trial in civilian court?  Because Barack Obama is more righteous and wonderful than our despicable presidents of the past – such as Abraham Lincoln and the admittedly less-righteous FDR – have ever been.  Honest Abe was actually DIShonest Abe because he had military tribunals.

NYC trial of 9/11 suspects poses legal risks

By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 33 mins ago

WASHINGTON – In the biggest trial for the age of terrorism, the professed 9/11 mastermind and four alleged henchmen will be hauled before a civilian court on American soil, barely a thousand yards from the site of the World Trade Center’s twin towers they are accused of destroying.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced the decision Friday to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial at a lower Manhattan courthouse.

It’s a risky move. Trying the men in civilian court will bar evidence obtained under duress and complicate a case where anything short of slam-dunk convictions will empower President Barack Obama’s critics.

The case is likely to force the federal court to confront a host of difficult issues, including rough treatment of detainees, sensitive intelligence-gathering and the potential spectacle of defiant terrorists disrupting proceedings. U.S. civilian courts prohibit evidence obtained through coercion, and a number of detainees were questioned using harsh methods some call torture.

Holder insisted both the court system and the untainted evidence against the five men are strong enough to deliver a guilty verdict and the penalty he expects to seek: a death sentence for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people who were killed when four hijacked jetliners slammed into the towers, the Pentagon and a field in western Pennsylvania.

“After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September the 11th will finally face justice. They will be brought to New York — to New York,” Holder repeated for emphasis — “to answer for their alleged crimes in a courthouse just blocks away from where the twin towers once stood.”

Holder said he decided to bring Mohammed and the other four before a civilian court rather than a military commission because of the nature of the undisclosed evidence against them, because the 9/11 victims were mostly civilians and because the attacks took place on U.S. soil. Institutionally, the Justice Department, where Holder has spent most of his career, has long wanted to reassert the ability of federal courts to handle terrorism cases.

Lawyers for the accused will almost certainly try to have charges thrown out based on the rough treatment of the detainees at the hands of U.S. interrogators, including the repeated waterboarding, or simulated drowning, of Mohammed.

The question has been raised as to whether the government can make its case without using coerced confessions.

That may not matter, said Pat Rowan, a former Justice Department official.

“When you consider everything that’s come out in the proceedings at Gitmo, either from the mouth of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others or from their written statements submitted to the court, it seems clear that they won’t need to use any coerced confessions in order to demonstrate their guilt,” said Rowan.

Held at Guantanamo since September 2006, Mohammed said in military proceedings there that he wanted to plead guilty and be executed to achieve what he views as martyrdom. In a letter from him released by the war crimes court, he referred to the attacks as a “noble victory” and urged U.S. authorities to “pass your sentence on me and give me no respite.”

Holder insisted the case is on firm legal footing, but he acknowledged the political ground may be more shaky when it comes to bringing feared al-Qaida terrorists to U.S. soil.

“To the extent that there are political consequences, I’ll just have to take my lumps,” he said. But any political consequences will reach beyond Holder to his boss, Obama.

Bringing such notorious suspects to U.S. soil to face trial is a key step in Obama’s plan to close the military-run detention center in Cuba. Obama initially planned to close the prison by next Jan. 22, but the administration is no longer expected to meet that deadline.

Obama said he is “absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people will insist on it and my administration will insist on it.”

After the announcement, political criticism and praise for the decision divided mostly along party lines.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said bringing the terrorism suspects into the U.S. “is a step backwards for the security of our country and puts Americans unnecessarily at risk.”

Former President George W. Bush’s last attorney general, Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge in New York, also objected that federal courts were not well-suited to this task. “The plan seems to be to abandon the view that we are at war,” Mukasey told a conference of conservative lawyers. He said trial in open court “creates a cornucopia of intelligence for those still at large and a circus for those being tried,” and he advocated military tribunals instead.

But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the federal courts are capable of trying high-profile terrorism cases.

“By trying them in our federal courts, we demonstrate to the world that the most powerful nation on earth also trusts its judicial system — a system respected around the world,” Leahy said.

Family members of Sept. 11 victims were also divided.

“We have a president who doesn’t know we’re at war,” said Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles Burlingame, had been the pilot of the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon. She said she was sickened by “the prospect of these barbarians being turned into victims by their attorneys.”

From McClatchey:

Congressional Republicans, however, promptly accused the Obama administration of trying to return to a pre-Sept. 11 mentality of criminalizing the war on terrorism.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas warned that “bringing these dangerous individuals onto U.S. soil needlessly compromises the safety of all Americans.”

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said the possibility that the accused terrorists “could be found not guilty due to some legal technicality just blocks from Ground Zero should give every American pause.”

Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder – who actually has a track record for PARDONING AND FREEING TERRORISTS had this to say:

A big obstacle could be whether an impartial jury can be impaneled so close to where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood.

Holder said that a careful jury selection process should dispel those concerns.

“I would not have authorized the bringing of these prosecutions unless I thought that the outcome … would ultimately be successful,” he said. “I will say that I have access to information that has not been publicly released that gives me great confidence that we will be successful in federal court.”

But what happens if you thought wrong, Holder?  What happens then?

What happens if these guys are found not guilty?  Are we supposed to just let them go?

What happens if the five terrorists draw a liberal activist judge who wants to make “torture” and issue, rather than “terrorism” and “3,000 murdered Americans”?  Is Obama and his Justice Department at work to circumvent the system relating to the assigning of judges to particular cases and guarantee that “the right” judge hears the case?  Wouldn’t that be tantamount to the very worst that Obama has claimed he wants to avoid in the first place?  Wouldn’t that amount to a show trial?

Obama is either taking a giant chance, a literal roll of the dice, or he’s already stacked the deck.

What happens if a Muslim is on the jury pool?  That one’s kind of interesting.  A single juror can hang the jury and lead to a mistrial.  Do we want to take a chance that a sympathizer throw a monkey wrench into the system?  Is the Obama team that so values “diversity” going to try to prevent Muslims from serving on the jury?

What about a change of venue?  Surely a judge would HAVE to grant such an obvious petition, given the fact that the attacks occurred in New York, virtually every adult was impacted, and “New York” is hardly the best place to find an untainted jury pool for the 9/11 attack on the “World Trade Center attack in New York”?  And yet New York has this mulit-million dollar high tech courthouse complex to deal with them.

I mean, again, if you grant the change of venue, people will justifiably become enraged.  And if you DON’T grant the change of venue, people will justifiably think that the fix is in.

A military tribunal of KSM and his terrorist buddies at Gitmo would have been a ho-hum affair.  A civilian trial in a lower Manhattan courthouse with the press swarming over every detail like cockroaches would be the trial of the century.

Propaganda forum?  You bet.  Journalists will cover every remark that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his merry band of mass murderers offers.  Including the words of solidarity with other jihadist murderers.  Including words of encouragement to any who would murder Americans anywhere on the planet.  This is hardly the message that the American media should be broadcasting, but rest assured we’ll be broadcasting every word of it.

Terrorists are different from jewel thieves and even from gang bangers: every single thing they do is directed toward spreading a message.

These terrorists want a big stage.  And Barack Obama and Eric Holder want to make sure they have that stage.

And what happens if the trial – whether it’s held in New York or somewhere else – stimulates more terrorist attacks?  It’s one thing if terrorists try to attack Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, quite another if they launch an attack in New York, Los Angeles, or wherever else.

And assuming (no guarantee anymore) that these terrorist monsters go to prison, you can bet in the age of Gitmo (which is actually a model prison) being shut down under Obama that these guys will end up in the U.S. civilian system.  And they will be welcomed like rock stars.

Authorities are becoming increasingly alarmed over the radicalized Muslim population coming out of the U.S. prison system:

“Over the past 30 years, Islam has become a powerful force in the U.S. prison system, with some estimates that up to 20% of the inmate population is now Muslim.  Terrorism experts are increasingly concerned that disaffected inmates drawn to radical Islam could become a source of homegrown terrorist activity.”

Authorities are seeing more and more “homegrown jihadists” coming out of the prison system.  Just two weeks ago, federal authorities were confronted by radicalized Muslims coming out of the U.S. prison system and organizing a cell that was claiming “that the government was the enemy and they must be willing to take on the FBI — even if it meant death.”  And thanks to this brain dead decision by Barack Hussein, we’re going to start seeing a lot more of this.  Putting these terrorists into the U.S. prison system is tantamount to putting crack cocaine in the hands of addicts.  It will not end well.

This is a truly stupid idea on every level imaginable.

My question is, what are we gaining from taking what Obama’s Justice Department ADMITS is a risk?  That we were “open”?

There’s the obvious question, “You know what?  This thing could backfire.  I mean these guys could be acquitted.”  And MSNBC Justice Department Correspondent Pete Williams has this to say, based on his sources:

“No.  They’ve got a drawer full of other charges that they could bring against these defendants.  There are already indictments pending against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for other crimes, so they will just re-arrest them and charge them with something else.”

The thing about a fair game is that either team could actually win.  This isn’t a fair game.  And everyone in the world is going to know that, no matter where it is held.  Contrary to what the White House might think, the inhabitants of the rest of the world are not as stupid and gullible and willing to believe propagandist drivel as Democrats are.  This isn’t going to be any kind of demonstration about how “open” we are.  People who didn’t believe it before won’t start believing it now – unless and possibly even including that we allow the five terrorists to walk out of court free men.

A National Review article entitled, “Holder’s Hidden Agenda,” reminds us of how Obama’s people just ripped into the CIA and started pulling out every wire and diode they could.  They demanded an investigation and just plain released all kinds of previously classified information that made the US and the CIA look as bad as they possibly could.  To what end?

This summer, I theorized that Attorney General Eric Holder — and his boss — had a hidden agenda in ordering a re-investigation of the CIA for six-year-old alleged interrogation excesses that had already been scrutinized by non-partisan DOJ prosecutors who had found no basis for prosecution. The continuing investigations of Bush-era counterterrorism policies (i.e., the policies that kept us safe from more domestic terror attacks), coupled with the Holder Justice Department’s obsession to disclose classified national-defense information from that period, enable Holder to give the hard Left the “reckoning” that he and Obama promised during the 2008 campaign. […]

So: We are now going to have a trial that never had to happen for defendants who have no defense. And when defendants have no defense for their own actions, there is only one thing for their lawyers to do: put the government on trial in hopes of getting the jury (and the media) spun up over government errors, abuses and incompetence. That is what is going to happen in the trial of KSM et al. It will be a soapbox for al-Qaeda’s case against America. Since that will be their “defense,” the defendants will demand every bit of information they can get about interrogations, renditions, secret prisons, undercover operations targeting Muslims and mosques, etc., and — depending on what judge catches the case — they are likely to be given a lot of it. The administration will be able to claim that the judge, not the administration, is responsible for the exposure of our defense secrets. And the circus will be played out for all to see — in the middle of the war. It will provide endless fodder for the transnational Left to press its case that actions taken in America’s defense are violations of international law that must be addressed by foreign courts. And the intelligence bounty will make our enemies more efficient at killing us.

Like I said.  The new Friday the 13th monsters revealed today as Barack Obama and his AG Eric Holder are far more dangerous to Americans than Jason Voorhees ever was.

Update, November 14: TEN jihadists terrorists are coming to the U.S. to stand trial in civilian court, rather than the five that Obama and Holder claimed.

Update, November 14: Barack Obama, on September 27, 2006, in the debate concerning “The Military Commissions Act of 2006,” assured America that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and those like him would face MILITARY justice, and that he would NOT get “all kinds of rights.”  Obama is, as usual, a documented liar.