Since 2008 tens of millions of people have lost their jobs, savings and homes. The finger can be pointed to one person who put the nail in America's financial coffin. The following is just small history lesson:
After listening to the horrific terrorist murders in Norway of innocent people. I thought about what happened to our own country. I know the housing market lost over $10 trillion in equity, millions are out of work and the National Debt is over $14 trillion. Bernie Madoff earned a life sentence in jail for a $65 billion Ponzi Scheme and Scott Rothstein, who I know, and I always thought a nice guy, earned a 50 year sentence. Their crimes are paled by Banksters and those in the legislature and top officials in our government, but are continued to be rewarded for their Ponzi Schemes.
If we had to point the finger to the one person who is responsible, I doubt if you will guess and the answer can be found in the last paragraph of this paper. Don't look yet.
Banksters and Wall Street caused the Great Depression. In response to irresponsible and criminal banking practices leading to the Great Depression the Glass-Steagall Act was enacted in 1933 to keep banks in check by imposing heavy regulations and restricting them from gambling with depositor money. Everything went fairly well until 1999 when the regulations imposed by Glass-Steagall were repealed by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. This act removed the banking regulations put in place in 1933 because we didn't learn from history. In essence it gave Wall Street and the banks use of depositor money to gamble with and in essence created nothing short of a gigantic Ponzi Scheme.
The banks and Wall Street unregulated took depositor and investor money and made the most unbelievable mortgage loans imaginable. The term for these mortgages, heard at a recent short sale conference is NINJA loans (no income, no job, no assets). I was awed by the buyers I was witnessing buying my listings. No income verification, fraudulent appraisals, fraudulent loan applications, and more. The Ponzi Scheme was so outrageous a landscape company with one lawn mower, edger and clippers had a first and second mortgage of over $432,000! Do you want to guess what happened to the property when the bubble burst? It was one of the first to be foreclosed. Just like any Ponzi Scheme the Banksters and Wall Street took there money knowing there would not be any way these home owners would be able to pay their loans in the future.
Here is how it all worked. The bank and mortgage bankers would make the mortgage loan and sell them at discounted prices to investors which included Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and 500 investment institutions. In turn, they would take the new money and make more fraudulent loans. Over and over this scenario was repeated. Now that everyone could buy and also had a right to own a home whether they could afford it or not quickly diminished the inventory. With low supply and high demand appreciation increased exponentially prices doubling and tripling in just a few years. Professional and amateur investors got in the act buying and flipping; raking in thousands, tens of thousands to hundred of thousand dollar profits on a single home without seeing the home or even taking title. We had a feeding frenzy of catastrophic proportions. In the heyday, Wall Street and the Bankster were making millions in salaries and bonuses. Richard Fuld, CEO Lehman Brothers, took home $485,000,000 in salary on bonuses in 2006 - 2007 and Joseph Cassano, CEO of the failed AIG, took home $315,000,000 in 2007. There were many more Banksters on Wall Street, but these two were the biggest and most blatant in essence thumbing their noses at every single American except their fellow Banksters who were thumbing their noses too.
After all was said and done this gigantic Ponzi Scheme turned into Economics Treason or Terrorism (pick your term). Since this President signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and unleashed the banks and Wall Street the National Debt has grown from $6 B to $10 B. The one person who put the final nail in the coffin that should be held solely responsible and gave the Banksters and Wall Street the licenses to steal is...Bill Clinton. To him, we owe all our thanks for repealing Glass-Steagall.
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