Voice of the White House
September 17, 2008
Washington, D.C.: “The terrible pending financial collapse is being frantically addressed by terrified members of Congress and the President, mainly because most of them are deeply in the pockets of the Wall Street types and also because a serious recession at this time is unthinkable because of the pending presidential elections.
Their solemn statements at ad hoc press conferences (seen on all the major networks) will certainly be reflected in the media with cries of joy and exaltation “Joy! The Crisis is over! Stocks soar on News Of Assistance!” will echo throughout the land.
This will result in a brief flurry of upwards activity on the market but in the end, the damage is so severe that the collapse will continue its inexorable slide downwards to mass destruction. (The American media is not independent. For example, the once-respectable Chicago Tribune is now owned by a big real estate tycoon who is highly unlikely to publish devastating comments about the collapsing real estate market.)
The Dow rose more than 400 points. Gold was up $46 at the close of the day. The dollar is falling... oil is holding steady. Our Congressmen now are going to ban short selling of financial stocks. The SEC issued an emergency edict prohibiting “abusive” short selling.
The pre-election saviors have solemnly announced a program of coordinated intervention... with $250 billion to be made immediately available to the financial industry to cover its bad debts, and with a future direct cost to American taxpayers of half a trillion dollars!
Bush and his right wing Republicans are directly and personally responsible for the deliberate removal of stock market and financial institution safeguards, put in place decades ago by Congress specifically to prevent what is now happening.
None of this activity was by accident but it was, has been and is now in progress because it is the stated Republican policy to stop any government control over American capitalism. Capitalism, if left uncontrolled, has a distinct propensity to large surges and even large collapses as any student of American business can attest.
Finally, after the terrible 1929-1938 disaster, Congress installed regulations to prevent these surges and collapses but Wall Street, which connived at Bush’s fake election in 2000, wanted to benefit from the surges and so this corrupt administration has eagerly rushed to comply.
Now, we see the fruits of their labors.
The American housing market has collapsed and the collapse is still in progress.
We see that many Americans, who have good credit and pay their mortgage bills on time, are in a terrible situation. As long as they keep their homes, all is well and good but if and when they want to sell them, then there is trouble.
The collapse of the American housing market means that while a homeowner may have a mortgage on a house once worth $200,000, this house now only can be sold for $125,000.That means that if the house is sold, the bank, holder of the mortgage, is now owed $75,000.
The banks are not going to walk away from so much money, so either the homeowner stands pat and continues to pay his mortgage, he signs an interest-bearing note for the $75,000 for the bank or he walks away from the house, has his credit ruined and leaves the mortgage holder to eat the house and the mortgage.
I ought to advise those of you being forced into foreclosure of an interesting situation.
The person who owns the house can be forced into foreclosure but in court, they have the right to confront the mortgage holder.
Let me tell you all something: Given all the slicing and dicing and resales the criminally greedy banks and lending agencies indulged in, at this point, no one in any lending institution knows who holds the actual mortgage and, believe this, they can never find them.
Just a little gift from me to you.
Tell your lawyer this and watch the other side twist and squirm! And not bring the holder into court as they must.
Your Mr. Harring has prepared a clear, uncluttered and accurate chronology of the background of this Republican-sponsored disaster. Be sure to remember who is to blame for your hiked up credit card payments and other delightful things come November next.”