So now it’s all the banks’ fault?

October 23rd, 2011 LAIGLESFORUM Posted in Banking and Finance, corruption, Economics, The Left No Comments »

All of a sudden, the CRA never happened and no banks were forced to give loans to the insolvent. And no banks were induced to follow suit to make a quick buck.

 

Don Hank

When the banks crashed in 2008, people on the Right figured out that the CRA (Community Reinvestment Act, which forced banks to lend more money to the “underserviced communities”) had something to do with it.

A lot was said and written about the CRA and the case against it looked pretty airtight.

But then leftwing analysts issued damage control statements supposedly showing that the CRA played only a minuscule role. They argued, among other things, that the CRA was enforced only on certain large banks while others did not have to comply.

Conservative observers bought into this story without further examination, and all of a sudden, everyone was looking elsewhere for a culprit: And they found blood on the hands of the Fed, the corporations, the lobbyists, etc, all of whom certainly had played a role.

I must agree, of course, with the libertarians and even the OWS crowd that corporations and banks contributed in no small way to the crash.

And I agree with Ron Paul, Alex Jones, Steph Jasky, Karl Denninger, Bill Stills and others that the Fed, with its inflationary policies and cheap credit in the midst of a housing bubble, had a huge hand in the crash. There is a lot of political hay to be made off the anger of many in the Occupy Wall Street crowd who can see only corporate greed as the culprit. Conservatives who spell out the entire narrative, including the role of leftist government, risk losing their constituency and their followers.

So with all these individuals and groups jumping on the anti-corporate and anti-Fed bandwagon, should the CRA get off Scott free?

Amidst the lynch crowd fervor, should we really let the government off the hook?

I go on the theory that the truth is always best, even if it is bad for one’s popularity at times.

Thus, one side of the rather complex discussion has been muted, and yet, that is the message we all need to focus on right now, if for no other reason than that it is a blind spot that could cause many to think the private corporations are solely to blame, when the government was the culprit that got the ball rolling toward the housing crash and subsequent subprime crisis by enforcing horrendous wealth redistribution law that was doomed to fail from the start. After all, exonerating a truly guilty party can only induce devious characters to do more mischief.

Case in point: taking advantage of the blackout regarding the seminal causes of the crash, Barney Frank, one of the most heinous offenders in the run-up, hypocritically teamed up with Chris Dodd after the crash to write tighter banking regulations, slyly dissimulating that his own support for the CRA had contributed to the economic/financial downturn in a way that some are now calling criminal.

So let’s be honest and let the chips fall where they may. The government played a seminal role in the crash with its CRA enforcement, as aided and abetted by ACORN, even though a superficial analysis may suggest it was not that big a role. So how did this devastating law do its dirty work in the shadows?

It pulled off this feat because it was not the government forcing banks to make loans to the insolvent, which was just an initiator or catalyst. It was rather the less visible effect of the CRA’s policy allowing (force was soon no longer needed) the banks to make bad loans with the tacit guarantee that the loans would be guaranteed by government.

See, if a law forces some people to use unsound banking policies, i.e., deliberately lending to the insolvent, then it can hardly prosecute banks that do this, even if they were not the ones originally targeted by the legislation. Thus the CRA opened the flood gates for horrendous banking practices never seen before on this scale by providing a huge incentive for banks to make money hand over fist at taxpayer expense.

All of this is further compounded by the fact that neither banks nor most (if any) American corporations can be thought of as representing true free market capitalism. So for the OWS activists or anyone else to blame the crash on capitalism is like blaming saber tooth tigers for making the outdoors unsafe.

But we aren’t talking about any of this now. Somehow, the narrative of the CRA as an insignificant contributor to our woes has assumed the status of settled science.  We’ve been led down a rabbit trail by both the far left and the well-meaning right that got lost and started seeing only the role of the banks.

But you know what? This topic of government culpability is much too young to die. Let’s drag it back onto the table again and take a longer look this time.

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Global “leaders” want felons decriminalized

June 2nd, 2011 LAIGLESFORUM Posted in corruption, Crime, Drug abuse, Global governance 5 Comments »

Fling open the gates of the Bastille! Free them all!

by Don Hank

The title of the report linked below, and appearing on the Yahoo home page under the innocuous sounding title “Global leaders call for major shift to decriminalize drugs,” is part of a sinister propaganda campaign, relying on unbacked statements by out-of-work politicians who want to legalize criminals.

The first prong of this campaign is to promote global governance by suggesting that there are such things as “global leaders,” i.e., unelected self-anointed technocrats, who play an important role in the lives of ordinary people. Actually, there is no such thing as a “global leader” because, so far, the world does not have a sovereign global government. Nations are, so far, still free and sovereign, but are threatened by such propaganda as this, which is a subtle suggestion that a global central government (a technocracy) is acceptable. Actually, the experiments with global government have all failed or, as in the case of the latest attempt, the EU, are in the process of disintegrating (triggered by the Greek collapse) and lead inevitably to dictatorships because the people pushing global governance are not democratically minded. To understand why I say that, just read this article by UK politician Sonya Porter. They also lack technical and real-world knowledge needed to solve problems, all the while displaying exceptional persuasive skills — obviously a dismal set of circumstances for everyone whose lives they touch with their ineptitude.

The second prong of the campaign is aimed at decriminalizing criminals. Drug dealers have waged war on their own people in Mexico and Colombia and kill indiscriminately (but note: only stable, anti-terror leaders in the Middle East are condemned by Western “leaders” for doing this). The cartels have grown so much in power that the government fears them. In Mexico, they have infiltrated major sectors of the national police and armed forces. These are inhumanly cruel, savage thugs who must be caught and dealt with harshly. Yet “world leaders” want to set them free. Regarding decriminalization and its results, Holland is a prime example of the failure of this plan. Holland’s experiment, initiated under the banner of legalization as a way to reduce drug use, has actually led to increased crime and drug use. Permissive drug policies in the US, beginning under Carter, also led to increased drug use, including among young people who should be studying. The result was a crackdown in the 80s.

The third prong is support for open borders. The subtle suggestion is that the real culprit in the cartel crime and gang violence that has swept the US Southwest and threatens major US cities everywhere, is not the notoriously porous border with Mexico but rather the fact that foolish Americans continue to criminalize drugs, which in fact are perfectly harmless for us and our children.

The linked Yahoo article tells only one side of the story and includes none of the results of the drug legalization experiments alluded to above. Gullible people reading the Yahoo article will reason that Obama’s open border policies are not a factor in America’s burgeoning crime rate, blaming instead our insistence on criminalizing drug sales. Yes, if only these benighted Americans could accept these drug shipments and the consequences of drug use on their children, then everything would be fine.

What the mainstream media, as well as the elitists in “education,” the universities, professionals and, yes, the churches (not only are they not an exception, they are ringleaders in stealth propaganda) have done is not only criminal, it is an assault on independent human cognition (thought) itself.

The article linked above, omits any detail on the consequences of drug legalization, presenting instead the opinions of supposed leaders who are nowhere quoted as providing evidence of their views.

And this article is typical of today’s editorials. Westerners everywhere are being trained not to think but rather to imitate a consensus of pseudo-scientific “thought” or rather propaganda. Thus, what many “educated” professionals in the schools, colleges, pulpits, media and so on have taught you to do over the last 50 years or so is not to think but to accept without question the opinions of so-called “scientists” and “experts” who themselves only regurgitate the opinions of their bosses and the rest of their community using thinly veiled pseudo-scientific language and psycho-babble.

But note that accepting the opinions of people wearing an aura of “science” (many of whom are not scientists at all but in fact, journalists, psychologists and the like “professionals” who are trained chiefly in the art of propaganda) isn’t the only problem. The problem is the public, which still accepts this propaganda as the genuine article, without question. And they are very good at persuading the public. Or rather, I should say, they have trained the public to follow them to such an extent that the public no longer knows how to think independently of them.

And yet, like an old college pal I ran into recently, people quote these propagandists and claim that in so doing, they are using “science” to reach conclusions and make decisions. Ordinary people are duped into believing that they are intellectuals, superior beings at the top of the evolutionary chain, when in fact, they haven’t used a scintilla of independent thinking. Thus, they substitute a consensus of the “educated” for science. My pal told me he uses science to refute Christianity and suggested I was unscientific. Yet when I asked him by what cognitive mechanism he had arrived at his conclusions, and why he thought my thinking was inferior, he was stymied.

If he could have articulated his cognitive method, it would no doubt have been something like this:

Academics said it, I believe it and that settles it.

And yet, for him I was the fanatic because I believe in God.

The “experts” tell us that if we disagree with Obama’s policies, we are racists. If we don’t accept the “climate change” theory, we are polluters and enemies of the earth.

And many believe this tripe because they don’t know what independent scientific thinking (human cognition) is. They haven’t a clue.

Well, for those who don’t know, true scientific thinking, in a nutshell, is always based on the scientific method, which has been developed in some form or other since Aristotle and was perfected in the Middle Ages. Simply put, this method of thinking, consists of

1—observation,

2—deriving a hypothesis (guess) based on that observation (using inductive reasoning),

3—testing the hypothesis by further observation (in the lab, this means experimentation) under controlled conditions.

4—drawing conclusions from this testing (using deductive reasoning) to derive a working theory that can be verified independently by others.

Before this method was developed, the sophists would sit around and argue issues without ever consulting the evidence. They believed pure reason (with no supporting facts) was superior to facts. This supremely unscientific method is illustrated by the parable of wise men arguing about the number of teeth in a horse’s mouth. The debate went on for years and the participants whose reasoning power was the most brilliant vaunted their skill and patted themselves on the back for their oratory excellence.

Until one day, an humble laborer brought them the news: he had actually counted the number of teeth in a horse’s mouth.

That was the end of the erudite discussion.

In real life, you can apply this in a modified form, for example, by on-line research, personal observations, or reading results of testing or observations of unbiased reporters.

For example, to test the hypothesis that opposing Obama’s policies makes people racist, you can find writings by blacks who oppose Obama’s ideas and see what they say.

You can also choose from among your friends or famous people individuals you know not to be racist and look at what they say about Obama’s ideas and policies.

Finally, you can easily find reading matter about how socialism has failed in the past everywhere it has been tried, including in black African countries like Zimbabwe, or how welfare and affirmative action, for example, have hurt blacks in inner cities.

You can look at unemployment statistics, crime rates, school dropout rates, etc, for black people before and after the institution of welfare.

All of these methods are scientific because they depend on your skills in analyzing raw data and not on a consensus of the “educated.”

It is almost surrealistic that mankind is returning to those primitive sophist methods where brilliance of oratory is replacing actual scientific research in the most vital areas of our lives and where the most polished politicians with the greatest skills in mendacity rule over intelligent people.

As evidence of this sinister development, modern philosophers and propagandists tell us that we are in a post-modern world where traditional methods of scientific inquiry are obsolete. They further tell us that there is no such thing as objective truth.

But they fall into a trap of their own making, for if one can say with certainty that there is no such thing as objectivity, then the universities lose their raison d’être and may as well shut their doors. No statement made by anyone amounts to a hill of beans. Indeed, as universities are completely taken over by “progressives” who deny the existence of objective knowledge, it is getting harder and harder for them to find enough gullible students to pay the bills.

Without government largesse, many would no longer be standing.

I say let them close their doors until they restore the missing ingredient: independent human cognition.

Yahoo Propaganda: 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110601/ts_yblog_thelookout/global-leaders-call-for-a-major-shift-to-decriminalize-drugs

Holland experiment

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/GovPubs/solom2.htm

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They’re still catching up to Laigle’s Forum

May 4th, 2011 LAIGLESFORUM Posted in corruption, Immigration, Political Correctness, Uncategorized 3 Comments »

by Don Hank

As I have said before, the world is slowly catching up to Laigle’s Forum.

I have written a fair amount about the hypocrisy of US policies that coddle Mexican illegal aliens and treat the corrupt Mexican government with exaggerated respect instead of standing up to it as it should.

It is therefore always gratifying to see at least the alternate media focusing on this hidden issue.

COPS magazine is the latest to show such courage, and I include the following link for those who do not regularly read Laigle’s Forum, and for whom this COPS report will therefore seem like news:

http://www.examiner.com/public-safety-in-national/mexican-military-police-brutalize-illegal-aliens-from-central-america

Having been in the Peace Corps in El Salvador in the late 60s, I have come into contact with enough Central Americans to know that Mexican police are practically an arm of the cartel they purport to oppose, and Central Americans passing through their country fear them with good reason.

It is well known in the US Central American community that male illegal immigrants in Mexico are routinely robbed and female illegal immigrants are almost routinely raped by these defenders of law and order.

I have reported on this before and have posted a commentary on the condemnation of the Mexican authorities by the Mexican Diocese, which had the cojones to stand up and condemn them shortly after the massacre of over 70 immigrants:

http://laiglesforum.com/mexican-church-confirms-immigrant-abuse-by-authorities/1754.htm

Ironically, our government’s coddling of Mexican “immigrants” and its refusal to confront the Mexican government over gross human rights abuses is perhaps the prime factor in the perpetuation of this abuse. Victims of abuse by Mexican authorities have no voice and in fact, feel betrayed by us. To state it plainly, the US government is the best friend of Mexican criminals and the most fearsome foe of law-abiding Mexicans and Central Americans. 

Our open borders policy and tendency to want to grant amnesty to all Mexicans, regardless of any criminal past they may have is harming America to a great extent but Mexico and Central America even more.

The Mexican and Central American people desperately need a US government policy with guts — or as they say, cojones.

Instead, they get mush brains in Washington tripping all over each other to please the far left, and hence the criminal element, in the Mexican community, opening up our country to increasingly dangerous criminals, while encouraging the cartels in Mexico, even supplying them with guns.

Finally, let me point out that a recent online exchange I had with a group of libertarians (Sons of Liberty) and an opinion expressed by the chairman of the Utah LP (“there is not such thing as an illegal”) demonstrate to me that libertarians are running with the progressives in this issue (and also in many others).

Ron Paul identifies with the libertarians and, sadly, he too apparently does not believe in protecting our borders and making immigrants present documents.

Conservatives must stand up and be different, even if it means standing alone at times. We are truly the only ones who insist that right is right and wrong is wrong, an insistence on absolutism that has held America together since the very beginning.

More on Libertarians:

http://www.aim.org/aim-report/probe-the-progressive-libertarians/

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I Wish the GOP was the Party of No

September 14th, 2010 Anthony Horvath Posted in abortion, corruption, Freedom, Global governance, Government, Human Rights, The Revolution 4 Comments »

by A.R. Horvath

Obama has been on a tear, raging against the Republicans that they are the ‘party of no.’  From a recent speech:

“There were no new policies from Mr. Boehner. There were no new ideas. There was just the same philosophy that we had already tried during the decade that they were in power — the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place: Cut more taxes for millionaires and cut more rules for corporations.”

If only this were true!  If only the GOP were eschewing new ideas and holding tenaciously to the perfectly good old ones!  If only.   Not that I am conceding Obama’s argument, here.  Either he is an idiot or we are- or he thinks we are.  The Bush tax cuts had nothing to do with the housing bubble.  Barney Frank (D) and Chris Dodd (D), did, and let us remember that this ‘inherited’ recession came only in the last few months of an 8 year term.  Shame, shame, Mr. Obama.  But I digress.

As the candidate field shapes up for the 2012 presidential election there is an opportunity to lay bare the fatal flaw in GOP ‘conservatism’ in the hopes that maybe something can be done about it.   Let me be clear, this isn’t a new development.  The problems began decades ago- even before we were born.   To help me get at what I’m talking about, let me begin with what may appear to be another digression.

Much talk has been made about Sarah Palin’s intelligence and education and her suitability to be president of these united states.  And this on the conservative side!  Have we ever wondered why we need our presidents and politicians so sophisticated?

We perceive that a high level of sophistication is necessary because the issues that our politicians will have to grapple with are so hugely complex that on no one of them could the president get away with saying, “this is above my pay grade.”    The underlying assumption, however, is that these politicians are going to have to actually navigate these hugely complex issues.

Therein lies the problem.  Constitutionally speaking, precious little is supposed to be done by the Federal government.  There shouldn’t be a thing called social security.  Or a department of education.  It shouldn’t require three doctoral degrees to balance out how taxation and distribution impacts the whole economy.  In short, the reason why ‘intelligence’ is needed in government these days is because we all take as our working assumption that the job of our politicians is to tinker, tinker, and tweak.

Now, this is to be expected from the Democrats.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Mexican Church confirms immigrant abuse by authorities

September 6th, 2010 LAIGLESFORUM Posted in corruption, Immigration 4 Comments »

Mexican Church confirms my 2006 accusation

Don Hank

In March of 2006, I wrote an open letter to President Vicente Fox in which I accused Mexican authorities of the hypocrisy of blaming the US for abusing Mexican immigrants while abusing their own immigrants – mostly Central Americans – in the most callous manner.

I wrote that the immigrant Central Americans I had spoken with consistently confirmed stories of the Mexican police and border guards stealing the money from male immigrants and raping or molesting immigrant women.

I had spoken with enough Central American immigrants about this to be convinced, but was concerned that there was no authority to cite. After all, the Mexican authorities could not be expected to denounce themselves, and the US authorities were busy supporting “immigration reform,” so the false accusations of Mexican authorities of abuse by the US, i.e., by the border patrol and by any American opposed to illegal immigration, were grist for their mill. An accusation of abuses perpetrated by Mexican authorities would have softened their argument considerably. The media said nothing about this open blight on Mexico.

Hence, information on this abuse was painfully – tragically — slow to come.

Today, however, the local papers here in Panama reported on an editorial written by the Mexican Archdioces in response to the massacre of 72 Hispanic immigrants in Tamaulipas. With previously unheard-of candor, they explicitly condemn the Mexican authorities.

Below is my partial translation of that editorial. The first part is merely a summary of the massacre:

“The 72 immigrants murdered in Tamaulipas, Central and South Americans, were apparently undocumented and were pressured by the drug traffickers to join their ranks as hitmen. When they refused, they were murdered.”

But the second part confirms my earlier accusation and alerts the world to a vile situation that has smoldered for many years:

The abuse of this group starts with the police and the immigration authorities [my emphasis]. The criminal gangs follow suit in view of the indifference and complicity of evil corrupt officials.”

Leo Tolstoy wrote a short story entitled “God knows the truth but is not quick to tell it.” (Usually rendered as “God knows the truth but waits”). He was referring to the way injustices may remain under cover for years before finally coming to the light.

How true that is. And how terribly sad that 72 innocent people had to die before the world finally got its wake-up call.

Even now, there is no guarantee that the story of government complicity in immigrant abuse in Mexico will spread far enough to have a significant impact in the sense of bringing pressure to bear on Mexico. It may come down to your simply passing this along to your friends and asking them to do the same.

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