Despite warnings of impending financial collapse, Democrat after Democrat continued to cover up and attack the regulations to protect Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, denied the existence of the housing bubble and continued to advocate for government expansion of home ownership programs. The CEO of Fannie Mae even publicly described the “family” connection between Fannie and Democrats, specifically Barack Obama and the Congressional Black Caucus.
The proliferation of risky subprime loans, to underqualified borrowers eventually led to the financial collapse of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the mortgage industry and many of the banks forced to issue subprime loans. The Cloward-Piven strategy is the taproot that triggered the financial crisis of 2008.
Francis Fox Piven continues to encourage use of the strategy. During the foreclosure crisis, Piven advocated civil disobedience by home owners facing foreclosure as a way to leverage the crisis to their benefit. Not surprisingly, ACORN was listening.
(Note: Audio of Piven is difficult to hear without headphones.)
Seeing the opportunity to use the Cloward-Piven strategy to fulfill the Left’s ultimate agenda, in the fall of 2008 Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats positioned themselves to force the collapse of the American economy. Rushing from the campaign trail, Obama and Congressional Democrats advanced the passage of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) nationalizing the mortgage industry and a large portion of the banking industry, while implementing Obama’s planned repeal of Clinton’s welfare reform.
The rapid escalation of the downfall of capitalism and the American economy was set in motion. As the Federal Treasury outlayed billions of dollars to finance the federal takeovers of private industry, U.S. debt increased dramatically, well beyond the ability of current generations to repay. Future generations of Americans will be indentured serfs forced to repay the debt accumulated under the Obama adminstration. Despite TARP’s passage and implementation late in President George W. Bush’s term, Obama has ignored the law, as written, refusing to return the loans repaid to the American people, instead spending the money at his whim to ensure the “crisis” will remain a financial burden to the American people.
As I wrote in Wet Dreams of the Great Marxist Revolution (Part 1, Part 2), upon assuming office Obama quickly moved to consolidate power using manufactured crises to nationalize many of the major American economic sectors: Banking, insurance, transportation, energy, healthcare, finance and education. Representative Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) recently told CBS’ Face the Nation anchor Bob Schieffer,
Now we have the federal government taking over ownership or control of 51 percent of the American economy. This is stunning. Prior to September of 2008, 100 percent of the private economy was private.
President Obama’s plan to ”fundamentally transform” the American economy was evident long before the 2008 election. In a 2001 Chicago Public Radio Interview Obama was already examining how best to use of legislation to bring about a Redistribution of Wealth.
Seizing the chance to increase the constituency of voters dependent on big government while crippling American taxpayers with debt, Obama and Congressional Democrats rushed a conveniently prepared 1073 page $819 billion Stimulus Package through the House of Representatives within eight days of President Obama’s inauguration. The “emergency” legislation passed the Senate eleven days later, and despite being marketed as critical to saving the U.S. economy the legislation sat on President Obama’s desk for four days before signing while he and the First Lady partied it up in Chicago.
