A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
A new report shows the Obama administration has been just as protective as its Republican predecessor of bank robo-signing: forging the signatures of millions of homeowners in order to foreclose their homes. “Theft and fraud were standard practice on Wall Street, and both the Bush and Obama administrations knew it, and protected the criminals.” Obama didn't just “inherit” Bush's entanglement with Wall Street robo-gangsters. He joined the criminal enterprise.
Obama and Bush Administrations Complicit With Bankers’ in Massive Foreclosure Scheme
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“The robo-signers kept stealing as a matter of routine, while the Obama administration pretended it was on the side of the people.”
Both the Bush and the Obama administrations are complicit in the gargantuan and ongoing corporate conspiracy to unlawfully foreclose on the homes of millions of Americans. The U.S. government, through its quasi-private housing corporation Fannie Mae and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which is supposed to oversee the millions of mortgages guaranteed by Fannie Mae, collaborated in the so-called “robo-signing” scheme
That’s the scenario that emerges from a new report The report shows that the Bush administration was made aware, back in 2003 that banks were engaged in wholesale fraud and theft of properties of American homeowners. The housing bubble had not yet burst, but the banks were gobbling up properties, especially defaulted sub-prime mortgages that had been targeted at Blacks and Latinos. But, because of the banks own practices of bundling mortgages into securities and then immediately passing them on to suckers down the line, the banks did not have clear title to the properties. They sold them anyway by forging signatures by the millions. Theft and fraud were standard practice on Wall Street, and both the Bush and Obama administrations knew it, and protected the bankster criminals. Law firms did much of the criminal dirty work. At least one legal outfit in Florida processed 75,000 robo-signed signatures a year for Fannie Mae.
“It is an indictment of the clear complicity of two administrations – one Republican, the other Democratic – in the total abrogation of the rule of law as it pertains to Wall Street.”
The Bush administration was alerted to these activities eight years ago, but did nothing. And, after Fannie Mae became bankrupt and was absorbed Relatively few
The robo-signers kept signing, and they are still at it, with the full protection of the Obama administration. The Inspector General of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who issued the damning reports, says the agency still claims to be deciding what to do about the robo-signers, eight years later. The agency issued a statement that it would do something by September of 2012 - just before the presidential election.
To apologize for President Obama by claiming that he “inherited” the housing mess from George Bush is like saying that Al Capone inherited his criminal enterprises from previous gangsters. Obama is just as much a conspirator with Wall Street as Bush, and he has signaled he intends to keep the mega-crime going right up till Election Day. He's a gangster, pure and simple.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, to go BlackAgendareport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
Roger McKenzie speaks with us about the wave of Islamophobic and racist attacks in the UK. We also discussed his Morning Star Online article, “Only Class Solidarity Will Defeat Racism.”
The United Kingdom’s ugly history of subjugating people in the global south has created a deeply racist country. The criminal ruling class exploits, but white racism blames the desperate newcomer.
It cannot be said that the U.S. has free and fair elections. Yet, the country regularly uses the false virtue of democracy to enact regime change when its interests are threatened by a…
To commemorate Black August, read Safiya Bukhari's essay on political prisoners and political movements. Her words resonate today.
Kamala Harris’s vaunted “environmental justice unit” prosecuted only the most trivial violations in San Francisco’s toxic Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood.
