There’s nothing like seeing a president who has nothing to do with the success of the US economy despite his impotent measures come to Elkhart, Indiana and do his laughable victory lap. President Obama proclaimed in front of a small crowd of supporters that it was the policies of the current administration that had been responsible for the recovery of Elkhart and the supposed most durable US economy in the world. Really? As in most cases, one must look past the intentionally misleading statements of the president and to the facts of which he rarely cares to consult.
The telling truth
According to the city fathers at Elkhart the city currently thrives due to policies instigated by the state itself and local efforts, not the intervention of the White House. As one business owner said in spite of the administration’s influence Elkhart recovered economically due to lowering taxes, balancing the state budget, and pushing back against stifling regulations. These methods of achieving fiscal well-being are diametrically opposed to the bloated interference of big government that has stifled US economic growth for the last 7 years under the Obama regime.
Mythical recovery
Mister Obama has the distinction of orchestrating an economic recovery that never even reached 3% in one fiscal cycle and instead has averaged .7% over the last 7 and a half years. This kind of growth is actually negative. Add the current 30 year labor participation rate while the population has grown considerably since then and you have nothing more than a political assessment made by a president who is unconcerned with the truth.
More lies
At one point Obama said that it was crazy to go back to the very system that had caused the financial crisis of 2008 before. The Dodd Frank legislation which has continued to strangle potential economic growth is only one aspect of the great Obama legacy, but let us look at the true cause of the real estate bubble that launched a literal depression in 2008. As President Obama touts his great economic achievements let us also take into consideration that we are at record food stamp recipient levels, welfare subsidies, and continued unemployment. There is a cryptic anachronism, the very origin of the crisis, who and when this malady cast a shadow upon the land. The CRA, the Community Reinvestment Act.
Held Hostage
Originally forged by bungling President Jimmy Carter in 1979 the CRA was contrived supposedly to stimulate rural real estate business and housing. It became a tool, a driving force in which to bully and blackmail the banks into making high risk loans to minorities and low income borrowers who could not qualify for mortgages under conventional guidelines. In doing so, the Democrats to buy votes urged government loan backers Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to insure millions of potentially bad loans in order to buy the minority vote. Demonstrations were organized by people like Barack Obama at banks, and even at the homes of local banking officials to pressure them into making these ill-advised mortgage loans. President Bill Clinton pushed the agenda and used the CRA like a hammer to force a housing market into potential disaster.
The true cause
By the late 1990’s the real estate bubble was in the making as minority defaults amounted to 90% within the first few months of new housing loans while the false narrative was continually repeated that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were too big to fail. In 2004 Barack Obama sat on the board of the two federal government lending guarantee giants and lied to the people and Congress and along with Dodd, Franks, and Franklin Raines, telling us that there was no danger everything was fine as defaults continued at alarming rates and losses increased to the hundreds of millions. Meanwhile, Wall Street, investor firms, and banks now unfettered by the dismantling of the Glass Steagal Act has bundled bad real estate loans into investment products known as the subprime mortgage debacle. With the false assurances by banks and other entities that bad loans could be overshadowed by the more numerous profitable ones, a massive bubble began.
End Result
Home owners in California lost equity in their over -priced residences and could not afford to absorb the loss in value and inflated property taxes that went along with it. In cities like Chicago, Illinois and elsewhere in the Midwest minorities who could not afford their mortgages to begin with and blamed predatory lending practices staged rallies hoping that banding together would elicit another government bail-out to keep them from being evicted. Once again, another Democratic Party ploy to social engineer and to buy votes only caused economic despair. The resulting collapse of real estate backed securities ensured the failures of Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Royal Bank of Scotland, and many more. In the aftermath, major banks left standing such as Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo were forced by the US Treasury Secretary to buy the losses of the insolvent institutions who participated in selling the toxic securities even when they knew massive failure was imminent.
Please rephrase that Mister President
If President Obama wants to refer to the crazy business practices that preceded his presidency he need only look back to a crisis that he and his own party created if we are to appraise history based upon the truth rather than another falsely concocted leftist narrative. In terms of a legacy, the resurgence of Elkhart, and whatever part of the US that has survived the travesty of the Obama White House one can only allow the events as they really happened to paint a true perspective for us about who and why. Things are as they exist today without the need for ascribing to the fairy tales being told by the president as he once again departs from the truth to take us down another path of lies and misrepresentation.
