The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.

He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away.

Matthew 16:1-4

Economic lies, lies and more lies

Indeed, until the collapse of the U.S. economy, the most intense focus for millions of Americans, including many political leaders, was the crisis of global warming. While media and political leaders over the past decade turned our attention to debating and then finding the cause of changing weather patterns, our government was busy committing perhaps the biggest fraud in history against the people of the United States.

Financial media giant Bloomberg sought the disclosure of securities the Federal Reserve was accepting on behalf of American taxpayers as collateral in order to loan banks more than $2 trillion. Bloomberg was stonewalled from March until November 7, 2008 when it sued the Federal Reserve. On Dec. 12, the Fed responded to Bloomberg. The message: Take a long walk off a short plank. We don’t have to tell you anything … and we won’t.

It’s not easy to get the attention of an American Idolized nation. But if the Federal Reserve’s proclamation that it owns the right to do as it pleases with America’s money with total authority, zero oversight and complete impunity is correct, shouldn’t you and I have at least one eyebrow raised?

“If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that’s what they don’t want us to know,” said Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York-based ICP Capital LLC, which oversees $22 billion in assets.

OK, So we don’t know what the Fed doesn’t want us to know. But there is a lot we do know. And it is all troubling.

Economic War

We now know that President George Bush, along with a complicit Federal Reserve and tacitly complicit  Congress, waged economic war against the people of the U.S. in his first year after taking office. All 50 states banned together to fight the White House and U.S. Treasury in an effort to protect each state’s residents against predatory lending practices from the Federal Reserve and its member banks. The Federal Reserve, along with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are all constructs of Congress, and therefore all come under the authority of Congress. But Congress did nothing to intervene in the battle between all of the states combined against the Bush administration and Federal Reserve. Not only did Congress do nothing, it said nothing, thus contributing to the deliberate fraud being perpetrated by the Treasury and Federal Reserve that has now become the foundation upon which the mortgage crisis house of cards was built.

NASDAQ Chairman and common thief

We now know that Bernard Madoff, the former chairman of the NASDAQ Stock Market, was a crook by his own admission, defrauding many and stealing more than $50 billion in a stupifying Ponzi scheme only eclipsed by the monumental fraudulent practices of the Federal Reserve itself. Congress, which has authority to investigate, legislate and request the Justice Department to incarcerate, did nothing over the many years Madoff was bilking investors.

Thus far, few have dared ask the question, “Is Madoff the only one?”

Congress hasn’t launched an investigation to determine how many more companies may be involved in the same setup. The Justice Department hasn’t made efforts to hold accountable all of the folks who had to know fraud was being committed. The White House isn’t seeking to bail out the folks who invested in good faith in the NASDAQ and the company Madoff presided over. And the church isn’t elevating the voices of the masses calling for truth.

The bottom line is that many leaders are hoping that one guy (or perhaps just a few) can pay the penalty for literally thousands of crooks, liars and thieves. Are those words too harsh for those who abused the trust of thousands of innocent victims who have lost everything they worked their whole lives to attain? Am i being to hard on elected and appointed leaders who frivolously abuse the wealth of this nation while leaving the most vulnerable of us all holding the bag when the schemes come crashing down?

Executive thieves

If you haven’t seen this eye-opening expose by the Miami Herald, you should. When you see how many previously convicted criminals are in the mortgage industry in south Florida alone, it will make your head spin. How can thousands of criminals be given direct access to the most private of personal and financial information? How can so-called good people look the other way while empowering crooks to deceive and defraud millions of dollars from the most vulnerable of citizens?

And if you think that’s bad, ask yourself how can the former Treasury Secretary, former White House spokesperson and the Senate Intelligence Committee, along with numerous journalists and authors all scream that the Bush administration deliberately misled this nation into war and actually sought ways to convince the public to allow him to invade Iraq before Sept. 11, but when that same liar screamed at Congress to hand over America’s children’s future earnings, Congress quickly complied?

We now know that the pleading White House, which said anything and everything it needed to say to convince Congress to hand over $700 billion, failed to follow through with its stated intentions and instead, has decided it will do as it pleases with the money that Congress used to mortgage the future of our grandchildren. In the 60 Minutes interview below, Barney Frank laments over how he could not force the Treasury to comply with the terms he explicitly laid out in the bailout plan. If the rest of Congress has the attitude of Congressman Frank, then there is considerable reason to clean the entirety of both houses.

Meanwhile, on Dec. 10, 2008, Frank got into a public playground quarrel with Rep. Darrell Issa of California. Issa (recently elected to head the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee), who inadvertently said into an open mic that he didn’t want to “get screwed” by Frank, who is head of the House Financial Services Committee and known for being quite confrontational. Frank responded on the floor.

In the 60 Minutes interview, Frank’s confrontational side is quite evident. Unfortunately, he seems only willing to confront congressional colleagues and veteran journalists, like Leslie Stahl. But he’s quite the pussycat when it comes to confronting the executive branch for defrauding Congress and the American people.

Economic crisis? These are relative good days with bad times ahead

We now know that the mortgage industry, propelled by authority to create and sell bad loan packages through liars, many of whom were previously convicted criminals (see Miami Herald link above), was intent on attracting as many Americans into bad debt as it could, secure in the fact that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would buy any and all bad loan packages upon default.

We now know that the subprime loan crisis is just the tip of the iceberg, as adjustable rate loans adjust upward, many with skyrocketing rates set a few years out from the origination of the loan coming due. The 60 Minutes report on this subject (at least a year late and billions of dollars short on information) disclosed that this part of the mortgage crisis is just now hitting and projected to get exponentially worse.

In short, we’ve watched how bad it was for subprime and those who got caught in loans they couldn’t afford, and now we’re preparing to watch quality loans and homeowners (along with small businesses) lose everything when the loans they could afford become unaffordable as interest rates balloon.

It’s difficult for the average person, like me and you, to understand the complexities of the economic system … we are told by the so-called experts who caused this crisis and/or participated in it. There is no truth in that statement.

The truth is that without all of the facts, it’s like we are trying to learn how to read Chinese with an English textbook. And the truth is the Federal Reserve will not provide insight by giving us information we need to understand what’s going on. The Fed placates media and the masses by claiming it is protecting trading secrets. Is that true? Since when did the Fed become the keeper of secrets from the very public it was created to serve? Since when has the Fed ever been a trusted source of truth?

Who can we hold accountable?

In the midst of this economic crisis, when everyone is seeking answers (unfortunately, not accountability), the Fed has the audacity to simply deny major media the answers it legitimately seeks from a government agency! And given the fact that the Fed was created by Congress, one would assume Congress would be just as interested in the same information that the people of this nation are seeking, right? Wrong.

Congress is protecting both the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Why? Because Congress was in on the whole scheme. It just gave the Treasury $700 billion. It hasn’t held the Treasury accountable. It protected George Bush and Dick Cheney from two full years of efforts on behalf of some members of Congress to impeach them both and remove them from office. Then Congress hands the same untrustworthy executive branch $700 billion.

President-elect Barack Obama, who is apparently determined to bring the entire Clinton administration back to the White House, is among some of the chief suspects in why Congress refuses to hold anyone accountable in the massive bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Both Obama and Clinton were recipients of donations from Franklin Raines, the man atop the mortgage industry giants created by Congress. This former Clinton administration cronie leaves disaster in his wake wherever he goes. And as an advisor to Obama, he apparently will go far … as will his wake of disaster.

What do you think?

I’m interested in knowing how you might perceive the most corrupt financial processes in the history of this country … all committed with the implicit, complicit or simply tacit approval of virtually every elected leader in Congress and the White House in my lifetime.

And for the past three years, I have been asking over and over … where is the church?

Why do I not know anything about how my own government intentionally deceives its own citizens? Why am I allowed to trust in government, and at times, even encouraged to do so? Why is there no investigative truth-seeking media with the explicit purpose of exposing government lies? Certainly there are church-funded media (i.e. The Washington Times and Christian Science Monitor) but can I find information in either of those media or others about the 50-state economic battle over predatory lending? Can I find truth about how the Federal Reserve works and how it wheels and deals on the open market with American securities? Can I find out how many political leaders have been placed under investigation, indicted, arrested, tried and convicted each and every year in each and every state including Washington D.C.?

My friend Vikki asked me two questions that are monumentally important ones for every Christian in this nation:

1. Where can we turn to find truth about what’s happening in our country?

2. What can we do about it?

The first question is truly complex. Americans are accustomed to being spoon-fed information. Thus, whatever information they receive, they ingest and swallow whole without question, regurgitate or dismiss altogether, or accept partially with strong opinions and debate over the partial information they’ve been given.

The problem is that Americans don’t know the WHOLE truth. And without all of the facts, we are left to squabble over insignificant ideas and information that sound good and perhaps may actually have truth within them. But without all of the truth and an understanding of the big picture, we are talking ourselves in circles and taking opposing sides of the same coin.

For example: We can debate the issue of bailouts. Who should the government provide bailouts to and who should it not. But none of that matters if the government truly has no value or actual money with which it can provide anyone else value or money. So, the argument is moot without knowing whether or not the government is actually solvent. We just assume it is because the lights are on.

Is our government solvent?

To whom does our government owe any debt?

What is the relationship of our government with its debtors and do we even have the ability to pay … ever?

What is LIBOR and why does it have a significant stranglehold over our government’s ability to borrow or lend?

What is the crisis of credit?

What are derivatives and which government entity sold packages of worthless derivatives backed by mortgage securities to overseas investors?

How does the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury remain the authorities over the nation’s finances when these two entities are central to the deliberate fraud perpetrated via predatory lending practices and re-packaged derivatives absorbed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

How can banks receive the bulk of the $700 billion bailout given to the Treasury by Congress when the Treasury was given that money with the explicit directive to use it to bailout the mortgage industry? (See Barney Frank’s video above).

How can the American people remain silent while the entire government is involved in one tremendously huge Ponzi scheme and none of our top leaders are held accountable?

Is it possible that the American taxpayers were duped into handing over $700 billion that may also be used to bail out banks in foreign countries?

If I could see the pattern of George Bush defeating Congress on every battlefront over the years, ignoring its declarations, demands and requests for documents, dismissing Senate investigations and thumbing its nose at subpoenas, all the while making demands of its own for more cash to finance its illegal and immoral wars, do you not think at least one member of Congress may have noticed this administration could not be trusted with one red cent of America’s future, let alone $700 billion? With all due respect to Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who did notice, there doesn’t seem to be an appetite in Congress to hold anyone accountable, including itself.

There are 535 members of Congress. There are two top leaders in the Executive Branch. Will any of them be held accountable for what has occurred?

Should the church have something to say about this? Ought not the church seek to inform its members and shelter them from the deceit that devours the livelihoods of families across the fruited plains?

My friend Vikki asked, “Where can we turn for truth of what’s happening in our nation?”

The answer is in what Jesus said, “Seek and you shall find.”

We do not have a clearinghouse of information, that I know of, which helps us understand what is going on in our society. Most media reports are partial and sometimes misleading. Thus, it takes hours of research, considering all the reports from all sources one can find. Then there’s the necessary whittling down of those sources, plus perhaps some phone calls, visits to Web sites of original sources just to garner the truth about one issue.

In other words, Vikki, it takes an institution determined to sift through the minutiae daily to deliver plain-spoken truth that provides insight and understanding. That institution doesn’t exist in this country, yet.

My hope and prayer is that the church will become that institution.

Until then, news reports outside of this nation offer a lot of information you will not see here. But that cannot be simply accepted. It must be cross-checked with corroborating sources, both here and abroad.

No one has time for such research. Not even me. That’s why it takes an institution. Professionals who are good at their jobs and work full-time to bring you the truth should be employed by institutions that have the sources and ability to produce relevant daily information on topics of critical interest to the public.

My hope and prayer is that will be the church.

Truth is not relegated solely to Christians, but Christians are committed to truth. Thus, it seems that when truth cannot be found, the task of seeking it out falls to the people for whom it is most important. Individually, that could be all of us. But few institutions are in the business of delivering truth daily.

My hope and prayer is the church is such an institution.

Posted on December 15th, 2008 by MikeGreen
Filed under: Election 2008, The Economy, Truth about the economy, thebook

Bookmark - del.icio.us | Digg it | Furl | reddit | Spurl | StumbleUpon |