Judge Napolitano: Obama & McCain Both Ignoring the Constitution

Judge Napolitano: Obama & McCain Both Ignoring the Constitution

Peter Morici: "Hubris" of New York Aristocrats Hasn't Been Seen Since Just Before the French Revolution

Peter Morici: "Hubris" of New York Aristocrats Hasn't Been Seen Since Just Before the French Revolution
NationBuilder, 10/30/2008

Professor Peter Morici from the University of Maryland was on Lou Dobbs tonight and reminded America that such blatant corruption like the FED Bailout Bill last preceded the Revolution of Revolutions.

Professor Morici:

We haven't seen hubris on the part of aristocrats like those in New York since just before the French Revolution...They took half the profits of Lehman Brothers, put it in the pockets of the executives and essentially declared the place bankrupt. It's obscene. It's beyond reproach.

Steve Forbes Blames the FED for the Financial Meltdown

Steve Forbes Blames the FED for the Financial Meltdown
NationBuilder, 10/27/08

Steve Forbes correctly identifies the Federal Reserve (over and over) as the main cause of the financial meltdown.

FED Chairman Ben Bernanke: "Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry."

The FED Admits Causing Great Depression
NationBuilder, 10/26/08

Remarks by Governor Ben S. Bernanke (11/8/02):

The brilliance of Friedman and Schwartz's work on the Great Depression is not simply the texture of the discussion or the coherence of the point of view. Their work was among the first to use history to address seriously the issues of cause and effect in a complex economic system, the problem of identification. Perhaps no single one of their "natural experiments" alone is convincing; but together, and enhanced by the subsequent research of dozens of scholars, they make a powerful case indeed.

For practical central bankers, among which I now count myself, Friedman and Schwartz's analysis leaves many lessons. What I take from their work is the idea that monetary forces, particularly if unleashed in a destabilizing direction, can be extremely powerful. The best thing that central bankers can do for the world is to avoid such crises by providing the economy with, in Milton Friedman's words, a "stable monetary background"--for example as reflected in low and stable inflation.

Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again.

Best wishes for your next ninety years.

Milton Friedman quotes:

The Federal Reserve definitely caused the Great Depression by contracting the amount of money in circulation by one-third from 1929 to 1933.

[and]

...One unsolved economic problem of the day is how to get rid of the Federal Reserve...

Milton Friedman on the purpose of the Federal Reserve and how they intentionally caused the Great Depression:

CIA Agent & Watergate Mastermind, E. Howard Hunt, Says LBJ Helped Murder JFK

CIA Agent & Watergate Mastermind, E. Howard Hunt, Says LBJ Helped Murder JFK
October 25, 2008

Who killed JFK? LBJ according to E. Howard Hunt (as well as LBJ's former attorney, Barr McClellan). Rolling Stone did an article last year on Hunt's audio taped confession but no media has yet to cover the recently released video of his deathbed bombshell revelation.

Jim Rogers vs CNBC

Jim Rogers vs CNBC

George Lilly for US Congress

If you live in Denver (Congressional District 1), please vote George Lilly for US Congress. He's been endorsed by Ron Paul and he'll fight for your liberty.



Diana DeGette is a criminal (or idiot) who voted for the FED bailout bill. A few days ago at a debate at Johnson & Wales University, DeGette said that the Federal Reserve wasn't the cause of the financial meltdown.

Here she is saying she's worried about inflation but then she rudely walks away when told the FED is what causes inflation.

Bob Schaffer on Investigating the Federal Reserve (5/19/08)

Bob Schaffer on Investigating the Federal Reserve (5/19/08)
October 25, 2008

If Bob Schaffer wins the US Senate race 10 days from now, citizens of Colorado need to encourage him to continue to ask question of our debt-based Federal Reserve system and work with others (e.g. future Senator Bob Conley) to investigate, audit and eventually repeal the FED.

Schaffer often says he was the second most fiscally conservative in the House next to Ron Paul. He likes to talk about inflation and monetary policy, so let's hope as the new Senator from Colorado that he asserts the blame of the financial meltdown on the prime cause -- the banksters who own the FED.



Bob Schaffer is a former US Congressman and currently the Republican nominee for US Senate in Colorado. At the CD7 Convention in Colorado, Mr. Schaffer was asked about inflation, monetary policy and the Federal Reserve.

Mr. Schaffer said: "Asking basic fundamental economic questions about the validity of debt-based currency, yah those questions ought to be asked all the time."

The CFR's "controlled disintegration of the economy"

The U.S. Import Bubble Is Bursting
January 19, 2001, Richard Freeman - Executive Intelligence Review

During the past few decades, but especially the past five years, the United States has attempted to disguise and compensate for a physical economy that is contracting at the rate of 1 to 2% per annum, and producing a falling living standard, by a simple expedient: using its overvalued dollar to import—suck in—goods from other countries. What the U.S. does not produce, and in many crucial instances, is no longer capable of producing, it imports from abroad. As a result, imports have soared far above exports, leading to record trade deficits, with each year's deficit successively dwarfing the previous year's. In turn, the rising trade deficit is the leading element that swells the current account deficit.

To cover the current account deficit, Wall Street and the City of London have rigged the world financial system so that large flows of foreign-held dollars are attracted back into investment in the United States. What the United States pays in dollars for its physical goods and other items that make up the current account deficit, and more, is brought back into the United States.

This entire system of foreign goods flowing out of other countries and into the United States is held aloft by the U.S. financial bubble. Foreigners will bring dollars across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans into the United States, for investment in the U.S., only as long as the dollar is seen as a sound currency, and as long as dollar-denominated investment instruments—such as U.S. Treasury bonds, corporate bonds, stocks, derivatives—pay a relatively higher rate of return than the comparable instruments of other nations in the world. Thus, the bubble of the U.S. investment market has to be maintained, in order for the Anglo-American financier oligarchy to keep its grip on power.

This is not a healthy arrangement for any of the nations concerned. The United States is importing such a huge amount of physical goods, mostly, not because its economy is expanding, but because it has impaired or permanently destroyed the capacity to produce these goods by its own productive facilities. The exception is the increase of imports of luxury goods, in particular cars, by the upper 20% of the population by income rank, whose income has come in significant measure from the financial bubble.

De-Leveraging Is Imminent

This bubble's imminent explosion, in the worst breakdown crisis in 300 years, ends this system. The recent halving of the value of the Nasdaq stock index over the past 10 months, wiping out over $3 trillion in market capitalization, indicates the direction this will take. As the value of the bubble falls, various foreign investors, for safety reasons, will yank their money out of the United States, and act to get out of dollar-denominated investments altogether. This will send the dollar plummeting: A 40% fall in the value of the overvalued dollar—whose strength rests upon the "strength" of the bubble—is likely. At that point, the effect will spread to cause a lightning de-leveraging of the highly leveraged U.S. financial system. The dollar-centered financial system as a whole will shatter.

There will be a simultaneous pulverizing of physical economies, given the way world trade is presently constituted. Without the flow of foreign-held dollars into the United States, the U.S. will not be able to finance its current account deficit, which consists primarily of its trade deficit.

This will have consequences from two sides. On the side of the United States, from consumer goods, such as clothing and household appliances, to capital goods, such as machine tools and electrical equipment, this country imports between 20 and 75% of all the goods it consumes each year. The flow of a large portion of these goods will be cut off.

On the side of the rest of the world: Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Nigeria export between 25% and 40% of all their physical goods exports to the U.S.; China exports 41.9% of its physical goods exports to the U.S.; Ibero-America, not counting Mexico, exports 36.5% of all its physical goods exports to the U.S.; Ibero-America, when Mexico is included, exports 56.6% of its physical goods exports to the U.S. In the case of Mexico and Canada, more than 83% of their physical goods exports go to the United States.

The effect of the contraction of this trade will be non-linear. In the midst of the financial disintegration of the past decade, for many nations in Asia and Ibero-America, exports to the U.S. represent all that allows them to keep certain factories open. The removal of this trade will force shutdowns of large swathes of manufacturing in their economies, which will impact the non-export domestic economy.

As for the United States, only by stealing goods from the rest of the world, through the strong dollar, has it been able to keep certain industries open, albeit at reduced rates of production. Now, the sharp contraction of goods trade between the U.S. and the rest of the world will step up the production collapse. This will create a worldwide interacting downward spiral, also affecting Europe, which will see the markets for trade in Asia and the Americas drastically fall.

By selecting key representative sectors of the economy, we will see just how extensive America's import dependency is. The high degree of U.S. import dependency emerged from the implementation of the "post-industrial society" policy, a deliberate policy of shutting down manufacturing and agriculture.
History of the Crisis

Emerging from World War II, the U.S. was an exporting nation, which exported many capital goods to war-torn nations of Europe, and elsewhere around the world. This is what an industrial nation should be: a capital goods exporter, exporting machine tools, tractors, electrical generating equipment, etc., with an emphasis on the developing world. Based on that, for the most part, it will run a trade surplus. The United States continued in that manner, in modified form, up through the end of the 1960s. Even as late as 1975, the U.S. ran a physical (merchandise) goods trade surplus of $8.9 billion.

But during the 1960s, the City of London-Wall Street financier oligarchy imposed a post-industrial society policy. This policy closed down manufacturing, agriculture, and infrastructure, and built up non-productive services and a large speculative bubble. In 1971, this policy reached a catastrophic turning point, when President Richard Nixon took the U.S. dollar off the gold reserve standard. This divorced financial flows from productive flows, and set the basis for the build-up of the speculative Eurodollar market.

In October 1979, under the Administration of Jimmy Carter, then-Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker instituted a policy that he explicitly called "the controlled disintegration of the economy," as an extreme variant of the post-industrial society. Volcker began forcing upward the prime interest rate charged by commercial banks, so that by November 1980, the prime rate had reached 21.5%. Interest rates were held at double-digit rates for five years, through the end of 1984. As a result, in the period 1980-84, this killed off a layer of the U.S. manufacturing base, causing companies to shut down partially or completely. A surge of imports began, in order to replace the manufacturing capacity America had lost. The machine-tool industry makes this case in a particularly dramatic way.

During the decade of the 1990s, the focus of the post-industrial society policy was to extend the process of "globalization," one of whose key features is that manufacturing is outsourced to some of the poorest countries. Goods are produced where workers—frequently children—are paid from 10¢, up to $2 per hour. The 1993 passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with its slave-labor maquiladora system, was carried out with this purpose in mind (see article, p. 24). During the 1990s decade, a second surge of imports was fostered.

Figure 1 shows that the level of physical goods imported into the U.S. rose dramatically during the period 1960-2000. In 1981, the United States imported $265.1 billion worth of physical goods; by 1990, this had risen to $498.3 billion, a near doubling, which is already a sizeable amount. But between 1991 and 2000, the level of U.S. physical goods imports surged from $491 billion to a projected $1.215 trillion, which is an explosive growth of 2.5 times. But even this understates the actual growth: The forced devaluation of many currencies against the U.S. dollar during the latter part of the decade of the 1990s, meant that the dollar could buy more physical goods. Thus, whereas $1,000 worth of imports may have commanded and represented 50 goods from Mexico in 1990, because of the devaluation of the Mexican peso, the same $1,000 worth of imports may have commanded and represented 100 goods from Mexico in 2000. EIR is investigating further this added volume of goods imports commanded by an overvalued dollar.

Figure 2 shows that the surge in imports pushed forward the U.S. trade deficit in physical goods. In 1995, the U.S. physical goods trade deficit had already reached a record $173.6 billion, but by 2000, it had skyrocketed to a projected $444.1 trillion, an increase of more than two and half times in only five years. (For the same reason that the dollar amount understates the size of the U.S. physical goods import level, it also understates the size of the U.S. physical goods trade deficit.)

Figure 3 presents the U.S. current account deficit, in which the trade deficit is the principal force. There are two main differences between the current account deficit and the physical goods trade deficit. First, the current account is comprised of three main elements. Two of the elements are the balance on investment income, and the balance on unilateral transfers. Second, while the third element of the current account deficit is the trade deficit, the current account utilizes the trade deficit on goods and services, whereas above, we concerned ourselves only with the physical goods trade deficit and excluded services. But, given its overwhelming size, the trade deficit in physical goods drives forward the deficit of the current account. (For a more detailed explanation of how the current account balance works, see "U.S. Current Account Deficit Could Rupture Economy," EIR, April 21, 2000).

Based on the trend of Commerce Department data, the U.S. current account deficit for 2000, would be projected to a record $440 billion. But even that disguises the deficit's real magnitude, which, due to the reason cited above and other reasons, is, in fact, significantly larger.

Thus, the imposition of the post-industrial society policy fed the rising U.S. physical goods trade deficit, which in turn, swelled the current account deficit.
Rising Consumer Goods Imports

We now look at key sectors of the U.S. economy, to see how extensive America's dependency on imported physical goods has become. A large portion of everything we consume, from the clothing on our backs, to home appliances, to machine tools, is imported. To depict this point, EIR has selected representative sectors from the consumer goods market basket, the producer goods market basket, and intermediate goods.

In each case, we examine America's total consumption of a particular good, and what percentage is supplied strictly by imports. Start with consumer goods.

Figure 4 documents that in 1990, 26.1% of all the men's/boys' trousers that America consumed were imported. By 2000, 48.3% were imported. This near doubling indicates just how strong the policy of the overvalued dollar was during the decade of the 1990s, in flooding America with imports. (In many instances, consistent U.S. Commerce Department data only extend back to either 1989 or 1990, and therefore our graphs only go that far back. However, in instances where either Commerce Department or industry trade association data permitted a longer timeframe, EIR utilized those data.)

Figure 5 shows that between 1990 and 2000, the percentage of all shirts that America's men and boys consumed, which were imported, rose from 42.9% to 71.9%. Figure 6 shows that between 1990 and 2000, the import content of all the outerwear garments (that is, all clothing that is not underwear) which America's men and boys consumed, rose from 28.3% to 53.7%.

Figure 7 shows a similar story for women's/girls' blouses. Figure 8 documents that between 1990 and 2000, the import content of all the outerwear garments which America's women and girls consumed, rose from 31.5% to 51.1%.

Thus, between 1990 and 2000, the import content of all outerwear garments consumed by all Americans, rose from 29.9% to 52.5%. Today, half of all clothing that every man, woman, and child wears, is imported. But consideration of this arrangement, shows how America exists through looting. The imported clothing is produced in slave-labor conditions in countries such as Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, and Thailand, where workers—often children—are paid as little as 10 to 25¢ per hour. A large retailer, like Wal-Mart or K-Mart, will buy a finished shirt, for example, for perhaps $3, and sell it for $8 in its store in America. Had the shirt been produced in America, with the garment worker paid a decent wage, it might cost $15 to $20 to make, and sell for $25. Inside the United States, as a result of the post-industrial society policy, real living standards are falling. But through this arrangement, the American family, whose living standard would not permit it to buy a $25 shirt, may be able to purchase it for $8. Thus, even with the imports, America's total level of reproductive economic activity is falling; but remove the imports, and the economy would be in a free-fall.

Figure 9 shows that in 1990, 21.1% of all household cooking equipment that Americans consumed, was imported. Today, the figure is 35.3%. Figure 10 shows that the same process is under way for housewares and fans.

Figure 11 documents that in 1972, 2.5% of all the motor vehicles that Americans purchased, were imported. Today, the figure is 34.2%. (EIR is investigating what percentage of parts that go into American motor vehicles, is imported.)

Intermediate Goods

But the dependency of America's economy on imported goods, even to function at a declining level, extends beyond the consumer goods sector to all other processes of the economy.

There is a whole range of intermediate goods that are necessary for the production process. Figure 12 shows that in 1972, 35.4% of all the ceramic tile that America consumed, came from imports. By 1997, 61.8% came from imports. Ceramic tiles are used on floors and walls in houses, for example.

In the cases of steel, and sawmill and planing products—different types of cut lumber—which are shown in Figures 13 and 14, respectively, the import dependency has grown.

Figure 15 shows that in 1972, 8% of all industrial fasteners which America consumed—consisting primarily of a basic product, screws—were imported. In 1999, 22.2% were imported.

Capital Goods

But most fascinating, is the way that imports have moved into a domain in which America had long been a leading force: capital goods.

This process is most clearly elucidated by the machine-tool industry, which forcefully makes a general point that applies to most industries throughout the United States: that the primary reason that America imports most goods, including machine tools, is that the corrosive post-industrial society policy had been implemented to destroy America's internal production capacity first. The flood of imports came only secondarily.

In October 1979, Jimmy Carter's Federal Reserve Board chairman, Paul Volcker, sent the prime interest rate into the stratosphere, so that it reached 21.5% by November 1980. He held the rate at double-digit levels through the end of 1984. This crushed all manufacturing, but is most exemplified by machine-tool production. Figure 16 shows that after an 18-month delay following the start of the policy, Volcker's policy caused a straight free-fall collapse in production. America's machine-tool production has never remotely recovered, either in units produced or in dollar volume of shipments, to the level that it had in the period prior to Volcker's action. The catastrophic effect of Volcker's policy is that it forced the permanent shutdown of America's capacity.

The Midwest and New England are America's two main regions for machine-tool production. Between 1977 and 1992, the number of operating machine-tool plants in the Midwest fell from 567 to 317, a reduction of 44.1%; the number of machine-tool plants in New England fell from 275 to 155, a reduction of 58.2%. Most of these closings occurred by 1984.

America compensated for the loss of productive capacity by importing; overwhelmingly, it was not the level of imports that caused the loss of production, but the other way around. Figure 17 shows that in 1970, 9.5% of all machine tools that America consumed, were imported. Even by 1979, the year that Volcker imposed his interest rate action, only 23.3% of all the machine tools that America consumed, were imported. However, by 1986, as a consequence of Volcker's action, the percentage of all machine tools consumed, which were imported, shot up to 49.8%. Today, 59.4% of all machine tools used in the U.S. are imported.

Figure 18 shows that import dependency has struck another U.S. capital goods industry, that of electrical equipment. This category includes such crucial machines as specialty transformers; steam, gas, and hydraulic turbines; and and turbine generator sets. In 1972, 3.2% of all electrical equipment in use in America was imported. By 1999, imports accounted for 25.1%.

The tremendous dependency, fostered by the post-industrial society policy of the United States, to loot physical goods imports from other countries, extends across the American economy, from consumer goods to intermediate and capital goods. On the opposite side, there are nations that send a large percentage of their exports to the United States. This relationship has become unsustainable, as the financial bubble that held this relationship together, is bursting. This will collapse the world financial system, and pulverize world trade.

The First Ever Ron Paul Internet Post from March 1985 was on "Bank runs etc."

The First Ever Ron Paul Internet Post from March 1985 was on "Bank runs etc".
NationBuilder, 10/7/08

Why is it the FBI, SEC and the Federal Reserve cannot "connect the dots" mere months before the US financial collapse but Ron Paul could in 1981 during the Presidential Reagan's Gold Commission? The result of the Commission was Ron Paul's and Lewis Lehrman's legendary book "The Case for Gold" [free PDF].

And now the first ever Ron Paul Internet Post-

Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1985 17:21 EST
From: Dean Sutherland
Subject: Bank runs etc.

Those of you who have followed the Ohio Svaings and Loan closings may be interested in the following.

For an excellent history of banking in the United States (with examples from other countries) read "The Case For Gold" by Rep. Ron Paul and Lewis Lehrman. The book is the minority report of the US Gold commission of a few years ago. The authors purpose in writing the book was to convince the congress that the US should be on a hard money standard.

Although their arguments on that front are not entirely convincing (ie. they did not win me over to their position without reservation), their history of banking and monetary policy will take what you thought you knew and set it on its ear. Since what they had to say disagreed completely with what I learned in school, I did a fair amount of extra reading on the subject and discovered that their facts (and probably their interpretation) are entirely correct.

All in all a good read.

Dean F. Sutherland

------------------

ABC's Brian Ross needs to investigate the Federal Reserve-

The Second Ron Paul Internet Post from 1985

The Second Ron Paul Internet Post from 1985
NationBuilder, 10/7/08

(NOTE: This is the second newsgroup posting of Ron Paul on the Internet but it's the first that quotes him via his newsletter. However, his newsletter, as confirmed below, was largely written by aides and the purpose of it was political fund raising. Here's the first Ron Paul post on the Internet.)

Newsgroups: net.invest
From: dave@cylixd.UUCP (Dave Kirby)
Date: Thu, 12-Sep-85 14:31:52 EDT
Local: Thurs, Sep 12 1985 11:31 am
Subject: More on the coming currency recall

(Note: My system doesn't allow posting only to USA; it's either the
world or nothing. So skip this if you're not interested, with my
apologies for the dinky system we're running.)

First, thanks to all who responded by mail to my posting on the
coming currency recall. I found the mail most informative. It has
turned out to be a lively subject.

I knew if I searched long enough that I would find a source (other than my doom-sayer junk mail) that would tell me what the big sinister reason is behind the currency exchange. Well, here it is, folks. Are you sitting down? (If you stand up while reading a CRT, you need more help than I can give you anyway.)

The July 29, 1985 issue of Barron's has an article about former Congressman Ron Paul, who left Congress to form his own doom-sayer newsletter. From the article, Ron Paul appears to be just another doom-sayer crackpot, but since he is a former Congressman and haspresumably had access to more reliable information than my other doomsayer sources, I read his comments with interest. Here's what he says:

"Dear friend, will you survive the 'new money?' You must be prepared, because within one year, the U.S. Treasury will impose a radically different currency on the American people. Government officials won't tell you the truth about this ominous development, and most of your neighbors will be caught napping."

I'm shaking in my boots already. Paul goes on to say that in his last term in Congress he got a glimpse of the "ugly new bills," which had, along with pink and blue tinting, holograms, diffraction gratings, and other unmentionable horrors such as metal threads and chemical alarms.

Professor Claude Martin, he says, was hired by the government to test consumer reaction to the bills; but, when he was pressed for details, he "sounded frightened and refused to talk." (Prof. Martin, when asked about this allegation, said, "He's a nut. I'm not afraid to talk to anybody." Paul later admitted he had not actually tried to talk with Martin personally; an aide had reported Martin's supposed reluctance to talk.)

But back to the conspiracy. Paul figures the real reason behind the currency swap is to force all sorts of people in the cash-only underground economy (which Paul supports vehemently) to surface for identification so the IRS can clamp down on them.

The underground economy, set up to avoid having to pay income taxes on wages, is clearly illegal, but Paul is still in favor of keeping it alive. It is a "very worthwhile thing" that is good for the country. With a government that debauches its currency, overregulates the economy, and ruins the money system, people who feel desperate for survival are forced into the underground economy. Now the bad old IRS is going to break in and spoil the party.

Dear friends of net.invest, are YOU ready for the coming currency recall? One year from now all those bills in your wallet are not going to be worth a single cent. The government is about to confiscate all the hard-earned money you depend on for your survival, to enslave you to the forces controlled by the big banks and the Communists.

Will you be among the survivors, or will you plunge into the economic abyss along with the uninformed public? Will you join now with other patriotic Americans who oppose the American government, the IRS, and our Communist economic system, and commit to fight these destructive policies which threaten the very backbone of this great country of ours?

Or will you just say "hogwash" with the other scoffers, and be caught by the great government robbery when it hits? Dear friends, the choice is up to you. Now is the time to act. Send me 10 dollars (in good old- fashioned American greenbacks) NOW before it is too late! Even better, call me and give me your credit card number, and I'll send you a receipt.

(Forgive the above. I'm practicing to start my own doom-sayer newsletter. There must be money in it, since so many people are putting them out, and a former Congressman is getting into it.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Kirby "There is no great genius without
RCA Cylix Communications some touch of madness." - Seneca
Memphis, TN ...!ihnp4!akgub!cylixd!dave

(The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect
those of RCA Cylix. They may not even reflect my own.)

Barney Frank's Boyfriend was Fannie Exec for 7 Years While Frank's Committee Oversaw Fannie

Barney Frank's Boyfriend was Fannie Exec for 7 Years While Frank's Committee Oversaw Fannie

Lawmaker Accused of Fannie Mae Conflict of Interest
Friday, October 03, 2008
By Bill Sammon

WASHINGTON — Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.

So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.

Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.

Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.

"It’s absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?

"If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have - or at least what’s not in the stock market - that this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard."

A top GOP House aide agreed.

"C’mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?" the aide told FOX News. "No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank’s political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley’s wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain’s wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation’s housing and banking laws."

Frank’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Frank met Moses in 1987, the same year he became the first openly gay member of Congress.

"I am the only member of the congressional gay spouse caucus," Moses wrote in the Washington Post in 1991. "On Capitol Hill, Barney always introduces me as his lover."

The two lived together in a Washington home until they broke up in 1998, a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie Mae, where he was the assistant director of product initiatives. According to National Mortgage News, Moses "helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs."

Critics say such programs led to the mortgage meltdown that prompted last month’s government takeover of Fannie Mae and its financial cousin, Freddie Mac. The giant firms are blamed for spreading bad mortgages throughout the private financial sector.

Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants. In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively.

Three years later, President Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to impose a new regulation on Fannie, but was thwarted by Frank. Clinton now blames such Democrats for planting the seeds of today’s economic crisis.

"I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Clinton said recently.

Bill Sammon is FOX News' Washington Deputy Managing Editor.

The Criminals in Congress

The criminals who voted YES to the FED Bailout Bill.

Abercrombie
Ackerman
Alexander
Allen
Andrews
Arcuri
Baca
Bachus
Baird
Baldwin
Barrett (SC)
Bean
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Bono Mack
Boozman
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boustany
Boyd (FL)
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Braley (IA)
Brown (SC)
Brown, Corrine
Buchanan
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carson
Castle
Clarke
Cleaver
Clyburn
Coble
Cohen
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Cooper
Costa
Cramer
Crenshaw
Crowley
Cubin
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Tom
DeGette
DeLauro
Dent
Dicks
Dingell
Donnelly
Doyle
Dreier
Edwards (MD)
Edwards (TX)
Ehlers
Ellison
Ellsworth
Emanuel
Emerson
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Everett
Fallin
Farr
Fattah
Ferguson
Fossella
Foster
Frank (MA)
Frelinghuysen
Gerlach
Giffords
Gilchrest
Gonzalez
Gordon
Granger
Green, Al
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Hare
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Herger
Higgins
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Rep. Brad Sherman: Congress told that Martial Law would be Declared if They Don't Pass the Bailout Bill

Rep. Brad Sherman: Congress told that Martial Law would be Declared if We Don't Pass the Bailout Bill
NationBuilder, 10/3/08

According to Rep. Sherman, Congress was threatened with a plausible reality of the Dow Jones losing 4000 points in 2-days and Martial Law being declared in America if they didn't vote to pass the FED Bailout Bill.

Barney Frank: Not my fault! We tried to stop the FED from subprime lending in 1994.

Barney Frank: Not my fault! We tried to stop the FED from subprime lending in 1994.
NationBuilder, 10/3/08

In the video below, Bill O'Reilly goes off on Barney Frank over the financial crisis. This is the O'Reilly I used to like back in the late 90s. He is a bit over the line but he is absolutely right.

Even after O'Reilly played videotape and read the transcript of Barney Frank's previous statements on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Rep. Frank denies suggesting that they were good investments.

However, Rep. Frank clearly says it is a solid investment going forward. And Rep. Frank's obvious lie that he didn't say "solid" shows you how dishonest our Congress has become. He clearly said "prospects going forward are very solid" and gave an overall impression that they were safe investments.

Obviously I think O'Reilly should go further and attack the FED itself. However, Barney Frank does reveal the true cause of the crisis saying:

The fact is it was in 1994 that we passed the bill to tell the FED to stop the subprime lending. We tried to get them to do it. The first time we were in power again in 2007 we passed a bill to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Bill O'Reilly vs Barney Frank:


Edited right to the confrontation:


Back in July, Barney Frank showed his true colors in a short exchange with Ron Paul. At the 1:00 mark in the Don Harrold video below, Rep. Frank says:

We are talking about giving the Federal Reserve the power to not just get information but to deal with various things which could include capital requirements and other factors

I have to say when people say well they’ll have this or that question about whether the Federal Reserve should do it -- I invoke, as people have heard me do, the wisdom of a great 20th century philosopher, Henny Youngman.

And the maxim was, how’s your wife compared to what?

The Federal Reserve compared to what? I don’t see any alternative to the Federal Reserve.

At the 1:46 mark, the people's hero Ron Paul tries to enlighten Rep. Frank:

I would to take a minute to just challenge something he said during his questioning.

Because he made the flat statement that there was no alternative to the Federal Reserve system. Now I don’t want to take my time to explain the alternative but maybe later on Chairman Frank and I can talk and I can explain to him what an alternative might be.

Barney Frank's response was, "That’s not very likely." Keep in mind Rep. Frank and Rep. Paul serve on the same committees and have co-sponsored great legislation together such as the repeal of the unconstitutional Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA).

Andrew Jackson to the Banksters: "By the Eternal God I will rout you out!"

Andrew Jackson to the Banksters: "By the Eternal God I will rout you out!"
NationBuilder, 10/2/08

Amazing how similar 174 years ago is to today. The reason is because the FED is the oldest criminal racket in the world. They've been waiting hundreds of years for this moment. And unless the House of Representatives stops the Bailout Bill, the criminal shareholders of the FED win and win big while the American people and the US Constitution are forever maligned and redefined.

Andrew Jackson, 1836, on closing the Second Bank of the US:

Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves . . . I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God I will rout you out!

France seeks €300bn rescue fund for Europe

France seeks €300bn rescue fund for Europe
Times Online (UK), Patrick Hosking

France heaped pressure on Gordon Brown last night by floating an ambitious plan for a €300 billion (£237 billion) bailout fund to rescue crippled banks across Europe.

As the world held its breath on the fate of America’s $700 billion bank bailout plan, President Sarkozy was seeking the backing of European leaders for his own lifeboat.

Mr Brown also faced demands for action from British banks, furious that the Irish Republic’s unilateral guarantee of all bank savings on Tuesday was robbing them of precious deposits. The British Bankers’ Association, which represents high street banks, said that the move was anti-competitive and that it was raising the issue with Dublin. Some banks would like to see the UK respond with its own explicit guarantee.

The Prime Minister has begun to set up an emergency committee to take charge of Britain’s response to the crisis. The body will be similar to Cobra, which is composed of ministers and government officials and meets regularly during crises such as last summer’s floods. Its secretariat will be run from the Cabinet Office.

Mr Sarkozy, whose country holds the European presidency, is seeking Mr Brown’s support before an emergency summit, scheduled tentatively for Saturday, with Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. His proposal was greeted with scepticism in Britain and outright hostility in Germany. It appears to involve the creation of a Europe-wide emergency fund that would be used to prop up banks when national governments are unable to intervene.

Ms Merkel said that Germany could not and would not issue a blank cheque for all banks, “regardless of whether they behave in a responsible manner or not”.

Amid the confusion and bickering between governments, France denied at first that it had put forward a proposal for a fund at all and then, after admitting that it had done so, denied that it would cost ¤300 billion. Paris said that the figure had come from the Dutch Government. Officials in The Hague said that they had no idea what the French were talking about.

Mr Brown is expected to announce his new crisis committee today or tomorrow at the same time as his reshuffle to replace Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, who has asked to step down. Ed Miliband, one of Mr Brown’s key lieutenants, could be promoted. There is still a question mark hanging over Alistair Darling’s future as Chancellor.

The Honest Senators who Voted Against the Federal Reserve Shareholders

The Honest Senators who Voted Against the Federal Reserve Shareholders
NationBuilder, 10/2/08

Senators who voted No

Here's the quick list of the senators who voted NO on bailout/economic rescue.

Allard (R)
Barasso (R)
Brownback (R)
Bunning (R)
Cantwell (D)
Cochran (R)
Crapo (R)
DeMint (R)
Dole (R)
Dorgan (D)
Enzi (R)
Feingold (D)
Inhofe (R)
Johnson (D)
Landrieu (D)
Nelson (FL) (D)
Roberts (R)
Sanders (I)
Sessions (R)
Shelby (R)
Stabenow (D)
Tester (D)
Vitter (R)
Wicker (R)
Wyden (D)

[via Politico]