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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 8/25/10

Why Is Anyone Surprised Anymore? The Housing Market Is Being Sunk On Purpose. We'll All Drown In It Before It's Over

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Message Sam Hamod
Sam Hamod, Ph.D.

Why is anyone surprised by the bad economic news in America? Clearly, the government and the economists they chose to "help rescue the economy," lied at every step of the way. Today, it was announced that housing sales were down 27%; this was trumpeted on all the news media, TV and in print--and Wall Street and the administration all claimed they were "surprised" and "taken off guard by this news." Nonsense, the administration and Wall Street all knew this was coming, as did anyone who has been watching the unemployment numbers, the small number of decent paying jobs, the growing number of offshoring of jobs, and the way banks have made it harder for people to get loans to buy houses.

Let's start with the beginning; the advent of the big debt policy for "star wars" and "let's outspend on military to beat the Russian, " Reagan. He took us from a small national debt into the trillion dollar range, all in his first 4 years, then he compounded it in his second term. This big national debt led to higher taxes. Reagan also pushed the idea of allowing banks to cross state lines, in violation of the prevailing laws against such moves; thus, the banks got bigger, fatter, bought the smaller banks out so that the large became enormous, and their power and lobbying became even more influential, so much so that they were almost a branch of the government, especially with their power in the Federal Reserve. Volker at least kept it somewhat in check, but with the advent of Greenspan (but that came a bit later, esp. under Clinton), the fed became a giant power in the American economy,so that it was out of control and even congress and the president were afraid to tackle their policies.

Then, Bill Clinton, not satisfied that George Bush Sr. had not passed WTO or NAFTA that Reagan had "left on the White House desk," pushed hard to pass them to make it easier for firms to leave the U.S. and still be U.S. firms and get subsidies from the U.S. Government, this created the Megaladora complex with so many companies moving to Mexico, and then further offshore, then with WTO, America gave up its sovereign power to this amorphous world body of governors called, The World Trade Organization, which tells you what you can grow, or not grow, and interferes in other matters within coutries. Clinton also ran up the debt by putting more foreign bases all over the world, and engaging us in attacks on Somalia, Sudan and then finally embroiling us financially and militarily in the Balkan wars, and topped it off by giving Israel the go ahead and funding for its famous, "Israeli Wall" (similar to the "Berlin Wall," but electrified and bigger as well).

Greenspan helped keep all this spending under the table with his famed "difficult language," that was nothing but subterfuge--but none in the media dared call it that for fear of being thought of as ignorant or unintelligent.

Many people talk about the "Clinton surplus, " but they never talk about how little of the national debt he paid down, or the problems he helped start with the easy borrowing instituted by Robert Rubin, Summers and crew, that helped lead to the big housing and loan bubble, and the major part that Greenspan played in it, and then later, under GW Bush.

Somehow, people have overlooked how the Fed, the banks and Wall Street went wild under Clinton, then to be followed in style by GW Bush. They've also forgotten that it was under Clinton that the exporting of jobs grew at an enormous rate; the corporations made money and American citizens lost jobs, homes and hope, but the media and Clinton made it seem as if America was in a boom. Yes, it was a boom for Wall Street and the corporatocracy but not for the individual Americans, too many of whom did not realize the truth, but believed the media that was in league with the administration and the corporations that owned the media.

Of course, when we get to GW Bush, he has no equal in spending America into the tank, no equal in helping Wall Street and corporate war companies make profits like never before, and in the process, being responsible for the deaths of illnesses of hundreds of thousands of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, expanding our overseas bases, and spending us into the toilet so that even the IMF is now looking at America cross-eyed, the way they used to look at 3rd world countries. This is most likely because America now has become a 3rd world country economically, militarily and socially with so many of our democratic Constitutional rights being stripped away, the same way they were, and are, stripped away in dictatorships--first under Bush and his strange legal counsels and now, by Obama.

Incidentally, many of those who started this downfall of the American economy under Clinton, are the same people who surround Obama today: Rubin, Geithner, Summers, Wolin, Bernanke and others, but they will hear nary a word from our Nobel Prize winning economists who disagree with them, Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman, or such independent writers such as Paul Craig Roberts, Mike Whitney or myself, or the independent words of such sites as: www.opednews.com, informationclearinghouse.info, Counterpunch Todays Alternative News

Thus, it was no shock that the housing market fell 27% today; unemployment plays a big part in it because the real unemployment is more likely 15 to 18%, and the banks are not loaning the money anyway, as they sit on the free interest money waiting to gobble up more real estate that they can sell later at good prices to overseas buyers or to their own shell companies.

Most Americans these days cannot buy houses because the prices are still to high, their jobs are not stable in the long run, and the banks, as has been shown by recent evidence, did not, and do not, want to loan the money they were given by the Obama administration to help solve the housing crisis. There has been testimony given to congress that some of the banks have lied by saying people did not get documents to them, even though people had certified copies of receipts of mailing, at other times, the banks created more paperwork after deadlines to keep the loans from going through, and many have said they were offering loans, but when it came down to it, they did not offer the loans or the rates they spoke of.

With all this in mind, and the way Obama and his friends threw money at the banks, and with the country falling apart emotionally, financially, militarily, medically and educationally, why would anyone wonder why housing sales fell. As one man put it, "How can you buy a house when you don't know if you'll have a job or not next month?"

Perhaps if our congress and senate, and the president himself, were told they might not have a job in a month or so, they would start to rethink how they are spending OUR money. They act as if it's their money, but in truth, it's not; it's ours, but we have lost control of it on all fronts. The job exporting that Reagan and Clinton began is in full swing, the job losses in America are in full swing, the hiring is at the bottom of the barrel, and the cost of living is rising while salaries are losing pace with inflation, not to mention the billions investors lost in the Wall Street scandal called "the stock market."

No, it is no wonder the housing market fell; which will help drive down other housing prices everywhere in America, because when there is an oversupply of anything, the prices are bound to be forced down. Thus, all of us are in danger, no matter where we live, because our houses will be caught in this GW Bush, Obama, bank planned depression, with only the banks having the money to buy large blocks of homes to sell to big money investors who will find buyers, most likely from overseas, so that the American people will suffer even more than ever, and certainly more than in what was called "the great depression."All of our house value will be driven down, and our taxes on our property will beraised so that we will all suffer before this is over, not just those suffering at this point. IfAmericans thought that was "the great depression," they haven't seen anything yet.
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Sam Hamod, Ph.D. is a graduate professor; he has taught courses in creative writing, politics, religion, mass media and intercultural relations. He has one of the very few PhDs awarded by The Writers Workshop of The Univ. of Iowa, has published 12 (more...)
 
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