Laigle’s Forum

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.

The following was posted by Laigle’s Staff writer Anthony Horvath at his blog:

I understand that Cain’s 9-9-9 plan is just phase one in a more powerful overhaul, but I am leery about any plan that cannot be attained within a single term of the presidency.  Moreover, we cannot count on the legislators to get behind it, or sustain it once it gets going.

So that’s a pickle, right?  There pretty much isn’t a plan out there that can be rolled out within a single term with the assurance that the legislative branch will implement it as proposed (and not load it with 2,000 pages of caveats).

So what to do?

And consider a different plan that actually tackles these issues head on and effectively ensures that the plan comes to fruition.

The plan is simply this:  deny the Federal government the right to collect individual and corporate taxes, period.  Instead, the Federal government would collect funds from the states.  The states in turn would be in charge of collecting the taxes that would then be sent along to the Federal government.  How the states collect that revenue would be entirely up to each individual state.  Each state would be assigned an ‘amount due’ based on some kind of objective and reasonable criteria, like for example, on a per capita basis and a calculation of that state’s particular burden on the Federal budget.

Read the whole proposal

Are corporations torch bearers of the free market?

Not even close – despite what the “conservative” media and politicians are telling you

Don Hank

There is a certain resistance among the public to admit that it is not you and I but the corporations and their lawyers, partnering with the Federal Reserve, that run America. Many conservatives hate to hear anyone “malign” corporations because to them, corporations, including banks, bear the torch of sacred capitalism. The GOP bosses are content with this situation.

On the other hand, since most big corporations donate mostly to the Democrat party, Democrats — especially those in the media and politics – are also loathe to broach the subject of corporate control over government.

Besides, the same corporations lobbying for open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens are also helping build Democrat power. Everyone knows how Latinos tend to vote.

And when it comes to “green” boondoggles, all the fat cats want in on them. They will of course mean a net loss of jobs and enormous subsidies for the most inefficient technologies known to mankind, but “green” subsidies flow freely from government coffers, as anyone following the Solyndra story knows.

Now, many of these corporate lobbyists are pushing very hard for open borders. They donated big bucks to pliable candidates and expect some bang, like more illegal alien labor, for example, and better legal conditions for sending your job overseas. Big corporations and Big Politics want precisely what you dread.

So what about us little people down here?

I wonder what people would say if they knew that the power of their vote is negligible compared to the pressures brought to bear by Big Business lobbies, which effectively dictate policy to your elected officials. I wonder how many have ever figured out that it was your senator’s and congressmen’s utter subservience to corporate lobbyists that made them vote for the TARP bailouts even after receiving phone calls begging them not to vote for it at the rate of 300 calls against the bailouts per 1 call in favor.

I wonder what will happen once the cat is out of the bag.

Maybe We the People will assume our rightful place in this great nation again.

Maybe.

But not unless we put our thinking caps on and realize what is really happening. Try asking yourself honestly: would corporations spend billions of dollars lobbying if they weren’t getting a financial “kickback” in some form or other? And are these kickbacks free or do they cost you money? 

It’s not that long between now and election time. Will your candidate discuss this with you in town meetings or will he mutter something snide, look around and say “next question”? If he isn’t leveling with you on the economy, fire him. You’re his boss and can’t afford another sluggard on your staff.

Where does your presidential candidate stand? I don’t recall the Fox moderators asking about the power of the corporate lobbies. And yet, business as usual in Washington brought down the world economy and cost millions of American jobs.

It’s time to wake up and make the economy and your job the front-burner issue this time around.

DEMAND:

CONGRESSIONAL CONTROL OF THE MONEY (NO MORE FEDERAL RESERVE)

STRICT CONTROLS ON LOBBYING, ESP CORPORATE LOBBYING

Now recall that the mainstream “conservative” media keep reminding you that the Occupy people are all a bunch of Marxists. So what about Alex Jones and Ron Paul’s followers? They aren’t Marxists and they have attended the Occupy rallies in significant numbers all over the country, teaching independents about the issues, making converts. So have people like Steph Jasky and Karl Denninger, who played a key role in founding the Tea Party, as well as a ton of other top-notch people. All while you stayed home, paralyzed with fear by what you read in the “conservative” press and blogosphere about being tainted by the lefties supposedly in charge. Like that photo of a young anarchist backed up against a police car, pants at half-mast, in an act of defiant defecation. Think anyone follows him? All in all, whatever Marxists may be participating in the rallies out in the cities and towns across the country are clueless non-contenders and will have almost no power in this movement if we play our cards right for a change. As I have said before, the movement is ours for the taking. Why do you think the Republican leaders and their minions in Big Talk Radio are all bad mouthing the movement?

Clue: Many of these people on the street are on to the lobbying games that the corporations – as well as the Fed — are playing, and threaten to spoil things for Big Politics by returning the power to you.

That is the main factor in all the negative press on the right. So why do leftwing politicians high five these young protesters? That’s easy. So far, they’ve been smarter than us. They know they can control the movement and its narrative if they act like they are behind it all. But they’re bluffing.  Yes, ACORN, Soros, Van Jones and other shadowy types with Obama links have in fact dreamed up schemes like this and undoubtedly had a hand in it, just as they no doubt had a hand in the Egyptian riots. But this isn’t Egypt now. It’s our turf, and no one can control it unless we let them. So far, the Left is spinning its wheels as its power slips away. Protesters interviewed on camera, for example, have ripped Obama mercilessly for his failures. The End the Fed movement is all over these rallies and for whatever faults they may have, they are vehemently anti-Obama and pro free market.

So if people like you can start thinking – and acting – outside the box, the whole football can be stripped from the hands of the corporatist elites and, with God’s grace, you can have your country back.

Sure, it will be hard work. And the propaganda aimed at making you think you are in bad company among the protesters will be non-stop. That’s a given.

Some of my Christian brethren are saying that to join the protests would mean being unequally yoked.

But consider this: If a bunch of atheists lobbied to make churches accountable for the actions of pedophile church workers, you wouldn’t side with the pedophiles, would you?

Voting against the pedophiles would not make you an atheist and it would not make you look like one. It would be doing God’s work because pedophiles not only harmd children, they are a stumbling block to the unsaved and give the churches a bad name. Let’s be real: For every candidate you have ever voted for, some unsavory characters also voted for him. So what?

Don’t be afraid to join forces with new people who are starting to get it and are just as mad as you, but maybe don’t have as clear a grasp of the issues. You may be the person who reaches a wishy-washy fence rider.

After all, I can’t think of a single election cycle when people on both sides of the political spectrum have been so mad for the same reasons – irrespective of their ideologies.

What a gorgeous opportunity!

If you let the political elites who stole your country steal the election this time around, don’t blame it on me.

Some statistics to consider:

http://allthingsd.com/20101223/what-tech-companies-are-spending-in-washington/

Verizon spent $3.83 million lobbying on several issues, including taxes and texting while driving, at numerous branches of the federal government, including the White House, Congress, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Trade Commission. It spent $2.96 million in the same period a year ago.

AT&T spent $3.47 million, up from $3.18 million a year ago. Its agenda items included legislation on calling cards, broadband buildouts and distracted driving.

Hewlett-Packard spent $1.6 million–nearly double the $970,000 it spent in the third quarter of last year–chatting with members of Congress and officials at the Department of Justice and the Commerce Department about taxes, immigration and how government agencies use technology in the areas of health care and law enforcement.

Microsoft spent $1.63 million, an increase from $1.49 million a year ago. It visited Congress, the Pentagon and the Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security to talk about computer security, how the government buys software and the competitive state of online advertising. It also lobbied the Federal Communications Commission on net neutrality.

Oracle spent $1.6 million, up from $1.3 million, lobbying Congress, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security on patent litigation and the government’s technology spending plans.

Google spent $1.2 million in the third quarter (which TechCrunch noted in October following a press release by Consumer Watchdog), an increase from $1.08 million in the same period a year ago.

IBM spent $1 million, up from $850,000 a year ago, talking about transportation, the power grid, funding for research and the military, on visits to Congress and the Departments of Transportation, Defense, and Health and Human Services.

Intel spent $830,000, which is notable because the amount decreased from $1.1 million a year ago. Intel was the target of both a private antitrust lawsuit from rival Advanced Micro Devices and a government antitrust investigation by the Federal Trade Commission, both of which were intensifying in the fall. Both cases have since been settled. Its efforts were in immigration, government research funding and issues related to trademarks and education.

Yahoo spent $540,000, up from $510,000 a year ago.

Apple, easily the most influential company in consumer technology today, spent relatively little on lobbying efforts: Only $340,000 [BUT they had Al Gore on their board of directors. How cozy. 90% of their political donations went to the Democrats. Did you know that Steve Jobs “invented” mostly cosmetic changes in devices? Can you name an inventor who actually devised the really high-tech stuff like the iPod itself or the Apple computer and monitor electronics? Didn’t think so. They didn’t have dinner with Al Gore—Don Hank].

Facebook spent $120,000.

For a little more on what companies spend on lobbying efforts in Washington, it’s always enlightening to peruse the database maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks not only lobbying expenditures but campaign contributions.

As you can see, the CRP shows that, among computer and Internet companies, Microsoft was the leading lobbying spender for the first nine months of the year. The wireless industry’s trade association, the CTIA, led the pack in the telephone equipment and services category, spending more than $6 million. Meanwhile, Verizon and AT&T each spent more than $12 million.

http://www.alternet.org/story/146643/hightower:_washington_overrun_by_11,000_corporate_lobbyists_and_$500_million_in_corrupting_donations

• 11,195. That’s the number of corporate lobbyists who are presently plying their nefarious trade day and night in Washington’s hallways and back rooms.
• $2.95 billion. That’s the amount that corporations spent on lobbyists last year alone (a sum more than six times greater than the total spent by all consumer,environmental, worker, and other non-corporate groups combined).
• $473 million. That’s the sum of money that corporate executives and lobbyists have slipped into Washington’s many political pockets–so far–for the 2010 election cycle, including donations to candidates, leadership PACS, and party committees. We are still seven months from the 2010 elections, and already corporate spending has reached the record-breaking total of $475 million shelled out for the entire 2008 cycle.

Don Hank

Answer: only if you let them

I received an email from a friend, incl several warnings about the Occupy [somewhere] movement, written by well-known conservative authors and exhorting conservatives to shun the Occupy Wall St. [or wherever] movement because it is linked to Obama groups and pals like ACORN and Van Jones and is a false flag movement.

Now I agree that we must be careful whom we stand with, because we may be suggesting to people that we agree with the Left – unless we are perfectly clear where we stand!

Consider this: The Left has been pretending to stand with good people ever since day one, while in fact standing with Satan. Stealth is their middle name.

I believe it may be time to turn the tables on them.

Yesterday, I got an email from a TX friend with an attachment showing a pamphlet on the “Occupy Houston” movement.

His point seemed to be that their literature was not well written and that it wasn’t clear what their goals were, so maybe they are bad guys to be avoided.

Ya know what? To me, that is a perfect opportunity for us to go to work. Because they can’t control the sidewalks and there’s no way they can control me.

If I lived in that part of the country and had a few extra hours, I’d make up a large poster reading “BRING BACK THE FREE MARKET” or “NO MORE SOCIALISM, MR. PRESIDENT,” or “SOLYNDRA, THE FRUITS OF ‘STIMULUS’ ” or the like, and I would unabashedly bring it along to the rally and hold it high. Look, if this is a false flag movement and they are just pretending to be on our side, then who would dare to stop me?

This morning I was listening to NHK News from Japan, and they had an international segment featuring the Occupy Wall St. movement in the US.

Unsurprisingly, the people they interviewed said nothing remotely suggesting they were socialist sympathizers, quite the opposite.

I almost fell off my chair when one lady said:

“When Barrack Obama was elected, we assumed that because he was a black man, he would do all he could to help the poor and underprivileged. He has done none of that.”

Yes, yes, I understand Van Jones and ACORN may have ties to the movement.

So what?

When I was in Lancaster, I attended a Tea Party rally and there were some people there who obviously were trying to infiltrate. I suspect they were from ACORN.

Here is what I don’t get: The LEFT infiltrates us all the time and we can see it happening and take it for granted.

Yet if a conservative wants to do the same back to them, all of a sudden, that “taints” us. Funny thing. The Left isn’t “taintable,” but conservatives are? Are we really that weak minded that getting too close to a lefty will rub off on us?

Well, look, if being around a bunch of lefties taints you — that is, influences you — then you are not well enough grounded in your conservatism and your Christian faith to leave your home.

As for me, I say with Paul: I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that day.

I mean that with regard to both my Christian faith and my political views. They are intertwined. Jesus’ view on socialism is clearly enunciated in John 6: http://laiglesforum.com/the-religious-left-in-bible-times-part-1/57.htm.

But if you are so timid in your faith and politics, and afraid of being misled by some half-baked Marxists who don’t know even a tenth of what the average conservative knows about history and economics, here is what you need to do:

Don’t ever have anything to do with a leftist. He’ll rub off on you.

Don’t go to town hall meetings and express your views. These meetings are full of lefties. It might rub off.

And don’t take part in surveys, online or off. The other respondents may be leftists. Ooooh, creepy!

Don’t write letters to the editor. The publication in which they are published is probably left of center and you might be thought of as a lefty. What would your conservative friends think of you?

Don’t go to the polls to vote. The polls are full of lefties and might persuade you to pull the wrong lever.

On the other hand, if you know what you believe and why, then go right ahead and attend any meeting or rally you darned well please and let people know how you think. Go ahead and listen to their misguided statements but be prepared to counter them – without fear, without anger, with love. You are dealing with the lost – with the weak, the ignorant. They’re in a much more precarious position than you will ever be. You can be their lighthouse. Why would you want to miss that opporunity? So, assuming you are educated on the issues (don’t try until you are), don’t be afraid to speak your mind and don’t be afraid to hold a poster advertising your view of why America is in a mess. These misguided lefties are the very ones you need to minister to, lovingly, compassionately and in God-given faith and wisdom. The chances are, many, maybe even most, will agree with you by the time you have told them what you think and why.

Consider that one of the main reasons they are in the dark is that conservatives have left them there.

We are the ones who have failed America. It’s time to grow a spine and do our job.

Sodahead wants you to think so. Read this and then take their poll.

by Don Hank

Sodahead wants us to think of Steve Jobs as an example of American exceptionalism and their readers seem convinced that he was, as their poll shows:

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/steve-jobs-has-died-was-he-an-icon-for-american-exceptionalism/question-2202383/?link=1969583&uuid=0da4ddf2760946d8971a06b44c9becf1

But in fact, he is one of the best examples of a corporatist. 91% of his donations were to the democrats, as we see here: http://www.newsmeat.com/billionaire_political_donations/Steve_Jobs.php

and he strongly supported gay marriage to stay on the good side of the radical Left. Look, if Steve had come out strongly in support of the traditional definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman back when “gay” marriage became the rage, his business would have come to a screeching halt immediately. I know how this works better than most. My brother in Christ Julio Severo lost his ability to receive donations through PayPal because he supported this now-obsolescent definition that was unquestioned for millennia in every region and every culture of the entire world.

Why would Steve support the Democrats, who clearly hate free market economics and strongly favor Keynesianism? Because no major corporation can succeed on its own any more, and Steve knew that he would not get to first base in business without Democrat support. If he had succeeded without government acquiescence and support, that would be real free market capitalism. But there is no longer a free market. Corporations depend on government to pave the way to riches for them. Those who don’t go the way of Gibson Guitar Corporation.

One hand washes the other. Corrupt government supports corrupt business.

There is nothing exceptional about Steve Jobs. He was just another rich oligarch who knew how to stay on the good side of the corrupt power base.

Please take the Sodahead poll and leave a comment as you are led to.