The Year The Media Died (2008)

Well, well, well....here we sit. September 29th, in the year of our Lord, 2008. Waiting on our Congress to pass a $700 billion bail out of Wall Street. Here is my take on how we got in such a mess.

First, let's start with illegal immigration. Have you ever wondered how it is, that our media continues to tell us that the illegal immigrant population is coming to the United States and taking, or doing, jobs that Americans won't do? It should be, that they are doing these jobs for wages that most Americans will not take for these jobs. So, if that is the case, and these illegal immigrants are doing jobs for a much low pay scale, how can they afford to live here in the States? Easy. It's called The Community Reinvestment Act, started in 1977 by then President, Jimmy Carter. It was to help banks make risky loans to low-income families in order for them to afford housing. In 1993, President Bill Clinton, ordered new regulations for the Community Reinvestment Act. Those new regulations went into effect in January of 1995.

Banks were being called "racist" for not lending to the high-risk, low-income families. In my opinion, it has NOTHING to do with race, but rather common sense. Good ole' business smarts. Why would a bank want to lend to someone with "high risk"? Would you?

Starting in 1995, banks went on a "lending spree". They saw an untapped market with the illegal immigrant population and low-income families. "This is a huge untapped market with people that live and work in this country and are capable of buying homes to realize the American dream," said Chan Peterson, executive vice president and head of community banking at Banco Popular, one of the earliest banks to enter this field. Bill Schumer, vice president of product development at Fifth Third Mortgage Co., a unit of Fifth Third Bancorp. (Research), said the company entered the marketplace due to the belief that providing these low-to-moderate income loans will help revitalize communities in the United States, as borrowers buy more run-down properties and rebuild. For now, community banks are leading the charge when it comes to providing home loans for illegal immigrants. Banking experts say that community banks often have the bilingual capabilities and are more in tune with local community needs and markets. And larger banks are holding out for secondary markets such as Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to agree to buy illegal immigrant mortgages from the banks – thus lowering their risk. Nothing in federal law prohibits illegal immigrants from owning homes. And banks can legally accept passports, tax identification numbers, and consular cards from people who want to open bank accounts or get home loans, according to the Comptroller of the Currency, a bureau of the US Treasury that regulates national banks.

So, that is a little insight to some of the back-ground on how all of this started. It's not ALL because of the illegal immigrant, but they are a big part of it.

Let's talk about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for a little bit. They are the companies that were buying up these bad loans from the banks that were making them. Did they know they were buying bad paper, sure they did. From 1991 to 1998, the Chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae was Jim Johnson. If the name "Jim Johnson" sounds familiar to you, it might be because he was involved in the 2008 Democratic vice-presidential selection of Senator Joe Biden. We'll get back to that point later. Also, in 1991, the Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae, was Franklin Raines. That name may sound familiar as well, due to the fact that Franklin Raines is one of Obama's financial advisers. Again, we will get back to that later. In 1996, Franklin Raines left Fannie Mae to join President Clinton's Administration as The Director of The U.S. Office of Management and Budget. Raines returned to Fannie Mae in 1999 as CEO.

You may be asking yourself, "...who over looks companies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?". Well, that would be the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs. The Chairman of that committee? Democratic Senator Chris Dodd from Connecticut. Senator Dodd also ran for President in 2008, but soon dropped out of the race. We'll get back to Senator Dodd as well. For now, let's talk about Senator John McCain and what he had to say about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

On May 25th, 2006, Senator McCain spoke to President Bush regarding the Federal Housing Enterprise Reform Act of 2005. He is quoted as saying the following: " 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."

McCain goes on to say, "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." (source for above quote from Senator John McCain: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=109-s20060525-16&bill=s109-190 )

What was Senator Obama saying? Nothing. He was too busy taking campaign contributions from both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. According to http://www.opensecrets.com/ , who did a study from 1989 to 2008, Senator Chris Dodd, the above mentioned Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, & Urban Affiars, took in $164,400 from both Freddie Mae and Freddy Mac. Coming in second on Freddie Mae's and Freddie Mac's contribution list was none other than Senator Obama with a staggering $126,349. Isn't that odd? It took 19 years for Senator Dodd to accumulate $164,400 from Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac, but only 2 years for Senator Obama to bank roll $126,349 from the two. Odd, very odd.

Back to the names of "Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson". The only thing I can say is that we can add these two names to the list of folks that Obama surrounds himself with. Along with Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, and Tony Rezko. The web is weaved bigger and tighter each and every day.

All of this brings me to the heading of this entry: The Year The Media Died (2008). You can turn on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC, and you will hear nothing about the above topics. You won't hear anything about the illegal immigrant and how they, as a group, helped the United States get into this financial mess that we are now in. You won't hear anything about the connection of Senator Obama and Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson. You won't hear anything about Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs, NOT warning the President and the American people of this potential catastrophe. Nope, you won't hear any of that on these networks. But you will damn sure hear everything about Governor Sarah Palin's daughter being pregnant. These are very tough times we are in as a Nation and for our media outlets to be covering up a lot of the issues that led us to these tough times is just sickening. Don't get me wrong, Republicans are just as guilty of all of this as the Democrats are, but come on folks, look at the cover up here that is taking place right in front of our very faces.

Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-Ca.) authored a bill that was signed and put into law by President George Bush. This bill would have given us a double-layered fence to help keep not only illegal immigrants, but terrorist as well, out of this country. As of this writing, no fence. As a result, organizations such as ACORN and La Raza want to scream "racism" at our banks for not handing out loans to low-income families and illegal immigrants. Not to be considered a racist, banks buckle to the pressure of such groups and turn a blind eye and lend the money. The economy crashes. Construction comes to a halt. Jobs become more and more rare. And the illegal immigrant packs up and goes back home. Leaving the Legal citizen of the United States holding the bag full of $700 billion worth of bad debt.

In my opinion, this is just the beginning. How naive of us to think that this just affected the housing market. I have a feeling that credit card companies opened accounts with a blind eye as well. How many goods do you think were purchased with credit cards by people that were given credit based on income that wasn't true? What about automobiles? How many cars, trucks, and vans do you think were bought with bad credit by illegal immigrants? Do you think that all of this "stuff" that was bought with bad credit was left in the houses that were defaulted on that they moved out of? What about their automobiles? Not a chance. My guess is that there are a ton of goods and a ton of automobiles sitting in Mexico that was purchased with bad credit. Just a hunch.