It all started in 1977 during the Carter administration, with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), mistakenly listed originally as the "Community Redevelopment Act." to require banks, thrifts, and other lenders to make capital available in low and moderate-income urban neighborhoods, thereby boosting the nation's efforts to stabilize these declining areas. Then, 15 years later, came the Clinton administration which thought it could do better. With the mistaken premise that every American should be able to own a home, they turned the little used CRA into a monster used to strong arm banks into providing sub-prime, low interest, high risk mortgage loans to low income minorities who really couldn't afford to buy houses.

Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Christopher Dodd spearheaded the program and still do to this day. ACORN built a pipeline to Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac to finance their Community Organizing and funnel high risk buyers to Fanny and Freddie. By the end of the Clinton administration, the Glass Steagel Act, which kept commercial banks separate from mortgage banks, was repealed and money started crossing over between home mortgage lenders and Wall Street. Problems developed with the accounting practices of Fanny and Freddie and over the past 8 years, the Bush administration has called for hearings and reforms to address the problem. Every time, Congressional action was blocked by Frank and Dodd and the rest of the Democrats in Congress. After being elected (by default resulting from lawsuits against his competition) to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama became one of the most active advocates of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and ACORN. The stage was set for disaster.

Under the direction, and threat of severe penalties for non-compliance, banks were ordered to lower their credit standards for prospective minority home buyers by the Clinton Administration. The proof is in this 1999 article from the New York Times

September 30, 1999

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

By STEVEN A. HOLMES

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders. The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

A second warning went up in the year 2000 with this article in the New York City Journal.

Winter 2000

The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities

Howard Husock

The Clinton administration has turned the Community Reinvestment Act, a once-obscure and lightly enforced banking regulation law, into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities�and, as Senate Banking Committee chairman Phil Gramm memorably put it, a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks.Under its provisions, U.S. banks have committed nearly $1 trillion for inner-city and low-income mortgages and real estate development projects, most of it funneled through a nationwide network of left-wing community groups, intent, in some cases, on teaching their low-income clients that the financial system is their enemy and, implicitly, that government, rather than their own striving, is the key to their well-being.

The Bush Administration realized the problem 5 years ago and tried to get Congress to fix it. Congressional action was blocked by Democrats who were happy with the way things were. Again, the New York Times tells the story.

September 11, 2003

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

By STEPHEN LABATON

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

President Bush finally got his hearing in 2004 but Democrats wanted none of it. They attacked the regulators and told them their investigative evidence was worthless, as the problems continued to mount. Again, Democrats blocked any legislative action to address the problem with Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac.

BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE

Easy-to-Understand Video Explanation of What and Who Caused the Financial Meltdown

This video was taken down from YouTube by the "Obama Goons" for copyright violations in the sound track.

A new sound track has been applied. If you don't like the music, try the one below.

THIS VIDEO IS ALSO AVAILABLE HERE BUT WITH A ROCK MUSIC AUDIO TRACK:

BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE

Was the video too fast for you? Let's slow it down. Here is a Power Point Presentation that tells the story of how we got into this mess. The presentation names politicians and how much money they each got to protect their Fanny and Freddie. It gives dates of the events that lead to where we are today in a large font, simple to read and understand slide show.

SHOT IN THE FANNIE MAE

And finally, to tie it all together, this New York Post article chronicles the roll ACORN has played in all this and its ties to Barack Obama.

O'S DANGEROUS PALS

By STANLEY KURTZ

September 29, 2008 --

WHAT exactly does a "community organizer" do? Barack Obama's rise has left many Americans asking themselves that question. Here's a big part of the answer: Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit. In the name of fairness to minorities, community organizers occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes - and thereby force financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers. In other words, community organizers help to undermine the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans. And Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it.

I hope you have found this page helpful in understanding how the country has come to this point, and why government reform is so desperately need, especially in the Congress.
Remember what you've learned when you go to the polls to vote next month.

JR Dieckmann - Editor

GreatAmericanJournal.com