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Posted on 09/24/2008 2:31:49 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
My syndicated column today tackles the bailout angle no one wants to talk about: Open borders and the home loan debacle. You’ve heard a lot about Fannie/Freddie and the minority lending shakedowns, but you haven’t heard most commentators/analysts on either the left or the right talk about the massive illegal alien mortgage racket — a topic I’ve reported on for the past five years. That’s because fault lies at the feet of the crime-enabling banking industry and the ethnic lobbyists and the illegal alien-enabling Bush administration.
They screwed us. Now, they want us to fork over a trillion dollars.
Screw them.
Kill this bailout.
And I second Mark Krikorian: Credit is not a civil right. It’s not a civil right for illegal aliens. For foreign banks. For American banks. For anyone. The bailout proposal, as I noted earlier, now includes student loans and auto loan debt. Will our tax dollars next cover foreign student loan debts? Illegal alien in-state discounted college tuition debt? Where and when will it end?
Oh, but pardon me. I’m just being, you know, an ideological purist.
***
Illegal immigration and the mortgage mess by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2008
The Mother of All Bailouts has many fathers. As panicked politicians prepare to fork over a trillion dollars in taxpayer funding to rescue the financial industry, they’ve fingered regulation, deregulation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, both Bushes, greedy banks, greedy borrowers, greedy short-sellers, and minority home ownership mau-mauers (can’t call ‘em greedy, that would be racist) for blame.
But there’s one giant paternal elephant in the room that has slipped notice: How illegal immigration, crime-enabling banks, and open-borders Bush policies fueled the mortgage crisis.
It’s no coincidence that most of the areas hardest hit by the foreclosure wave – Loudon County, Virginia, California’s Inland Empire, Stockton, San Joaquin Valley, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, for starters — also happen to be some of the nation’s largest illegal alien sanctuaries. Half of the mortgages to Hispanics are subprime (the accursed species of loan to borrowers with the shadiest credit histories). A quarter of all those subprime loans are in default and foreclosure.
Regional reports across the country have decried the subprime meltdown’s impact on illegal immigrant “victims.” A July report showed that in seven of the 10 metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates, Hispanics represented at least one-third of the population; in two of those areas – Merced and Salinas-Monterey, Calif. – Hispanics comprised half the population. The amnesty-promoting National Council of La Raza and its Development Fund have received millions in federal funds to “counsel” their constituents on obtaining mortgages with little to no money down; the group almost succeeded in attaching a $10 million earmark for itself in one of the housing bills past this spring.
For the last five years, I’ve reported on the rapidly expanding illegal alien home loan racket. The top banks clamoring for their handouts as their profits plummet, led by Wachovia and Bank of America, launched aggressive campaigns to woo illegal alien homebuyers. The quasi-governmental Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority jumped in to guarantee home loans to illegal immigrants. The Washington Post noted, almost as an afterthought in a 2005 report: “Hispanics, the nation’s fastest-growing major ethnic or racial group, have been courted aggressively by real estate agents, mortgage brokers and programs for first-time buyers that offer help with closing costs. Ads proclaim: “Sin verificacion de ingresos ! Sin verificacion de documento !” — which loosely translates as, ‘Income tax forms are not required, nor are immigration papers.’”
In addition, fraudsters have engaged in massive house-flipping rings using illegal aliens as straw buyers. Among many examples cited by the FBI: a conspiracy in Las Vegas involving a former Nevada First Residential Mortgage Company branch manager who directed loan officers and processors in the origination of 233 fraudulent Federal Housing Authority loans valued at over $25 million. The defrauders manufactured and submitted false employment and income documentation for borrowers; most were illegal immigrants from Mexico. To date, the FBI reported, “58 loans with a total value of $6.2 million have gone into default, with a loss to the Housing and Urban Development Department of over $1.9 million.”
It’s the tip of the iceberg. Thanks to lax Bush administration-approved policies allowing illegal aliens to use “matricula consular cards” and taxpayer identification numbers to open bank accounts, more forms of mortgage fraud have burgeoned. Moneylenders still have no access to a verification system to check Social Security numbers before approving loans. In an interview about rampant illegal alien home loan fraud, a spokeswoman for the U.S. General Accounting Office told me five years ago:
“[C]onsidering the size of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston, and other large cities throughout the United States known to be inundated with illegal aliens, I don’t think the federal government is willing to expose this problem for financial reasons as well as for fear of political repercussions.”
Chickens coming home to roost. And law-abiding, responsible taxpayers are going to pay for it.
IF they don’t do the bailout and we have a complete meltdown of housing prices and financial institutions, pension funds, and mutual funds, will Michelle cover the losses?
I hear her point loud and clear, but Obama and the Dems are going to DO NOTHING about any of this. So, the bailout may be the last chance to kickstart the housing market before Obama kills the economy with taxes and regulation.
I drive a thirty two year old vehicle, live in a house just shy of 100 years old, and live within my means, and they want me to bail out the McMansion/SUV driving crowd?
STUFF IT!
We have had meltdowns before. Most recently in 1997. And before that, in 1987. And before that... We're still standing. Propping up prices is something we as a nation have never done successfully. It prolonged the Great Depression and led to stagflation in the 1970's. The Japanese tried it in the 80's, and have had two decades of economic stagnation.
The handout plan as envisioned requires the purchase of toxic waste assets from financial institutions (a category now broadened to include companies like IBM, GE and H&R Block) at a significant premium to what they would fetch today based on the fanciful idea that government officials have a better (in my view inflated) idea of what they're worth than prevailing market prices. This is the biggest non-entitlement-related boondoggle in American history.
I support doing whatever is necessary to ensure that the markets stay liquid. What the Paulson handout wants to do, however, is take money from us and give it to people who bet the wrong way with too much borrowed money. That isn't simply morally wrong, it's disastrous economics.
>>Oh, but pardon me. I’m just being,
>>you know, an ideological purist.
Greetings, fellow Luddite.
;-)
The bailout, in its original form, seems to be pretty much toast. Now, the question becomes: how much crap will the Regress load into some sort of ''compromise'' plan that can get enough votes to pass?
Either way, we're screwed.
The housing market doesn't need to be kickstarted - it needs to be liquidated. Because of this massive credit bubble, we have too many homes selling at twice the ratio (of home prices to income) of what has historically been considered affordable. That bubble needs to deflated. We don't need high home prices along with all the other costs that a Democratic administration will saddle us with.
I refuse to participate.
There should be _NO_ bailouts.
We've given more than _enough_ to these folks and the politicans and the business which help them.
Michelle Malkin for President!
Glad someone has not lost their nerve, in all this pandering for Juan McAmnesty.
I will not support this bailout. If businesses and the Boosh Administration value the rights of illegal aliens over the rights of American citizens, then they should suffer for their anti-Americanism
Of course, there is no guarantee that the bailout will actually help the economy. It definitely will not help Americans.
Any support of illegal aliens, in any way, is anti-American
The you-tube I’d like to make (can anybody help me?):
The scene is group of family members, from Monterey county or Merced county, many more than an ordinary living room is designed for, all packed together with a reporter sitting next to them.
Reporter: Now you’ve all come together to buy this house, and now you’re in danger of losing it, because your mortgage payments have gone up, and you realize the house is not worth what the balance is on it as of now. So you’re thinking of walking away from it.
illegal: (in Spanish) Yes, we fudged a little bit on the mortgage app, but the enabler/salesman, said no one would check, and we have phony documents coming out our ears. We thought the house would go way up in value and we could cash in on the new equity.
2nd illegal: Yes and now the banks are in trouble because so many loans were made like this and we only have four families living in this house, not counting two more in the garage.
3rd illegal: Isn’t this the land of free medical care? I learned the word “emergency”. We have no such magical word in the country I am from and will, of course, eventually return to when I’m rich. And free education and food stamps and the opportunity to buy a house and that house here in California had better go way up in value in a hurry or I’m hitting the road.
4th illegal: But now we have hope, because of a new word we all learned in English: BAILOUT!
In unison, everybody in the living room, in broken English:
BAILOUT! BAILOUT! BAILOUT! BAILOUT! BAILOUT! BAILOUT!
Good luck with it!
Exactly!!
What they should put into this bill is that any member of Congress and any employee of any level of government or community organizations must return all funds given to them in the last year and if that member/employee is worth more than he was given in the last 5 years, then all monies must be returned. That way, we will have lots of money to loan!!
...another honest hardworking American citizen who is bending over yet again for illegals so others can enjoy a cheap way to live and enabling those who do wrong never to suffer. I cannot see the positive outcome except to suffer and learn.
Thank you, Michelle. I couldn't have said it better myself, except to add that Bush started enacting these policies a mere three weeks after his inauguration in 2001 when he met with Vicente Fox to discuss terms of the Partnership for Prosperity Agreement (with Mexico). This led to the New Alliance Task Force, which led to the changing of bank policy to lend money to Mexican illegal aliens and that led us to where we are today.
I'm with you, Michelle. No bail-out for Bush's banker buddies.
bump
ping
Tell us, if the system is in such dire straits, how anyone of these guys can afford to refuse the bailout in order to save his bonuses or pay?
My surmise is that they are not that desperate. They see a payday coming and are perfectly willing to pretend to be in trouble in order to get their hands on our money.
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