ACORN Has Grown to a Giant Oak Tree

So I have been doing some homework on ACORN. I have been hearing about it in the news and didn't even know what it was. It is an acronym for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and is the largest left wing radical group in America. They have over 150 sub-organizations with various fields they concentrate their efforts. They are a group of community organizations that use two forms of activism. One of force, civil disobedience and fear tactics to get their messages out. Second, an inside approach where they control a situation through legislation and bullying tactics. The group makes no effort to conceal that they are a radical socialist party. ACORN turns in thousands upon thousands of new voter registrations each week throughout the country. Massive task forces must be employed to review these application due to a track record of voter fraud. ACORN is currently being investigated in as many as 12 states for voter fraud. Naturally the majority of them democratic.

ACORN is the modern successor of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO)that sought to remove eligibility restrictions for welfare, thus flooding the welfare rolls and requiring a massive government rehaul of the entire welfare system for our "socially unjust capitalist society." Their efforts did nothing but destroy the inner cities and create a culture of dependency.

Now you may be thinking, this kind of sounds like the bailout problem that now requires the government to intervene. Well, there's a bit more to the story than this.

Under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)passed under the ACORN supported Clinton administration, banks are required to make a certain number of sub-prime loans to certain ethnic and low-income groups. If the banks want to expand or merge, they are required to show that they have met these requirements. So the banks comply and the housing bubble begins to build. The banks begin making plenty of money and ACORN no longer has to threaten lawsuits to push these lending practices. You know the rest of the story now.

Now I am not one for believing in and loosing a lot of sleep over conspiracy theories but this is not a coincidence. In the bailout bill as it was voted on the first time, those Congresspeople close to ACORN included a loophole to allow them to give the first 20% of any profits made to organizations such as ACORN. Before the taxpayer! Many house republicans recognized this bamboozle and voted against it. It was removed in the second version of the bill because of public outcry.

A side note now. Apparently, Obama has close ties to ACORN. He has trained staffers for them during his community organizer days, argued for them as a lawyer in major cases and while serving on the board of directors of two foundations, funneled millions of dollars to ACORN.

When all this bailout started being talked about, I find it funny that Obama remained so quiet and unopinionated. Perhaps because he knew of these connections and how ACORN stood to potentially profit from the bill passing.

So the organization that helped cause this massive financial meltdown is now sitting in the corner watching their plans for the meltdown of capitalism as we know it unfold. I think now our eyes are open and we can see what has happened and it's too late to fix this in a rational way. France, Germany, Russia and now Al Queda are all watching this happen and claiming this is a result of our corrupt capitalist society. Perhaps the problem with our capitalist society is we allow the government intervention that allows groups like ACORN to exert their influence on private enterprise and legislators that taint the system with failed policies. I categorically reject the stance Obama takes on this mess. He claims it is the Bush administration's failed policies. In 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005 both Greenspan and the Republican treasury secretary warned of the impending crisis if action was not taken to reform lending practices of Fannie and Freddie. Each time, democrats voted no along party lines on reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If you need proof check the congressional record.

I apologize for the lengthy post.

12 Zeros?

In a world so quick to place blame, I would like to know why are the names of the CEOs and investment managers of failing investment banks not front page news? They grossly mismanaged, over-valued and leveraged themselves right out of business and have brought the global economy with them. Why have you not heard of the Lehman Brothers CEO that took home $34 Million dollar salary last year? Curious. His name is Richard S. Fuld, Jr. He's probably not hurting for money but I sure hope he finds it hard to find another job. In a country where money is now controlled by the government, maybe we could lobby the IRS to garnish his pension. He will probably go to the race track a leverage his earnings 30-1 on the slowest horse in the field. Oh I forgot it is all Bush's fault for letting these men be so greedy.

So it looks like the masterminds have hatched a plan to rescue the failing financial system in the United States. I have spent a lot of time myself trying to understand the plan and think most are in the same position. I will try to put it in the simplest terms possible because I think it is important for us to understand. The details are not out yet but should be next week if Harry Ried and Nancy Pelosi can postpone their vacations for a week or so.

First thing is to understand that the guy you signed your mortgage with and the credit card company who's logo graces your card is probably not the company that cares whether or not you make your payments. These companies make the transaction and then sell these mortgages and credit cards as securities on the markets. For the last 5 years, a lot of people have got mortgages and credit cards that shouldn't have and are now defaulting on these loans. These securities that were once so good have turned sour very quickly. The investment banks and other financial institutions that bought them were okay as long as this housing market stayed hot and rates low. They are now stuck with a security that is worthless right now because no one in their right mind would buy them. Thus the financial crisis you see on the news.

Is this the only cause? No. But it's a big one.

So our government has said to these big investment banks with a lot of bad debt (Lehman Brothers filed chapter 11 with $618 Billion dollars worth of bad debt) that the American taxpayer will be the buyers of these worthless securities and exchange good money that they just printed for bad securities so that these bad mortgage securities don't appear on their balance sheets any more. The government will then hold these securities until they are again marketable and sell them when the markets come back. I would hope there to be some tangible asset behind these dead securities.

The dollar amount has yet to be disclosed but is thought to be at least $500 Billion and maybe as much as a Trillion. That's a one with 12 zeros. Put that into perspective-If our treasury scattered that much money on a football field in $100 bills, it would take a person picking them up at an average on one bill per second 1180 years to pick up that much money. We are talking 20 times the net worth of the richest man in the world. I have my doubts that this will not cause a "bit" of inflation.

All being told, I find myself torn. I understand the devastation that this debt could cause our financial markets if nothing is done. At the same time, when the government is now involved in essentially a state run economy, I see something that resembles communist China where all the banks are controlled by their central government. I believe in the free markets but it scares me to know that if our government, who is already in debt $9 Trillion dollars, can write a check or extend phantom credit to whom it pleases, they can.

If i remember correctly, the problem stemmed from when people who had no business buying a home or were no good at managing their money in the first place were granted this debt. Now the federal government is extending credit in the same way. These companies can neither manage nor are they trustworthy in their "credit past."

I am not claiming to have the answer here. I will leave that to the experts. I am merely stating my claims that it seems to be a completely ironic situation that resembles a very socialist country.