Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Originally posted by undo
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

good post. so since you say it's not the banks in the real control seat, how many big names that we tend to blame as being the top guys, are really not the top guys? which names are eliminated from being directly responsible (and by directly i mean, they aren't the real masterminds)?

Indirectly involved at the Shadow Government Level you have about 200 people, and about 10-12 core planners with a smattering of advisers. The bulk of the 200 provide the seed money.

At the Government level you have a couple hundred members of congress involved, with about 8-10 sitting on key committees as head or a senior member who actually introduce any needed legislation to pass on down the line where a couple hundred members will vote on simply by first saying "This is for the Powers that Be".

In the executive level you have about another 16 people, a couple of those were they smattering of advisers to the core planners.

Everyone below is just following orders.

On the Bank Level you have the CEO's but often some of the 200 members of the shadow government are on the board of the bank, but most often through a foundation they control. For instance the President of Russel Trust sits on the Citi Board, the Russel Trust is Skull and Bones, Johns Hopkins Medical and University, and a half dozen pharmacutical companies.

On the Congressional level most of the Cheifs of Staff are actually the primary conduit with the Powers that Be.

There are almost always 1-2 layers minimum of cut outs.

All in all you have about 500 -700 guys involved who knew what time a day it was, everyone else was just following orders from above.

Above the banks, and the politicians and government, you have maybe tops 330 some odd people in the U.S. directly involved in and comprising the shadow government here, each owns or controls a vital resource or service, and my best advice is to sneak up behind them in the dead of night somewhere, because if they see it or you coming, well you don't have much of a chance.

Political appointees not include Department Heads but Judges, and they have so many ways to skin a cat, black cats think it's unlucky to cross their path.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


oh you're saying the entire house of reps and congress, president, vp, and things like the tri-lateral commission, bilgerbergs, etc? maybe i misread what you just said, but it sounds like you just described most of the government. that's alot of data, so it just may be that i'm having trouble absorbing it all at once.

are these all white people you're talking about? are there people of color in the upper eschelons? various ethnic groups? what about various religious groups? for example, if we were to look at the list of the top 10 richest people in the world, would any of your shadow government people be on it? any hindus, muslims, buddhists? or is it just jews, christians or atheists? any nazis? marxists?

Originally posted by undo
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

oh you're saying the entire house of reps and congress, president, vp, and things like the tri-lateral commission, bilgerbergs, etc? maybe i misread what you just said, but it sounds like you just described most of the government. that's alot of data, so it just may be that i'm having trouble absorbing it all at once.

are these all white people you're talking about? are there people of color in the upper eschelons? various ethnic groups? what about various religious groups? for example, if we were to look at the list of the top 10 richest people in the world, would any of your shadow government people be on it? any hindus, muslims, buddhists? or is it just jews, christians or atheists? any nazis? marxists?

The core players are always White Anglo Saxon Protestants, don't expect them to be in church or thumping bibles, but you can expect them to belong to one, to put on their Bio.

No it's not about politics, most of them espouse the Republican party line, but they simply play a game of making you first tire of Repulicans, selling you hope in Democrats until you tire of them, and then sell you hope in the Republicans, in a process that just repeats over and over again.

Yes some of them attend the Bilderberger meetings, but you would find all of them in places like the Johnathon or Bohemian Club and the other Gentlemen's clubs, for blue bloods, that date to the late 1800's and early 1900's as their founding.

Most of them are from families that arrived here no later than revolutionary war, though their are few European transplants who cam later in the 1800's.

Now this is what's going to be very hard to wrap your brain around, not you personally but most people.

Why it's not about the money is because the money doesn't actually physically exist, they have issued 4 times more in the amount of credit than there is money to pay it all back.

There is only 3 Trillion dollars in U.S. Currency in circulation, and in fact there is NO WAY...let me repeat there is NO WAY to pay back all the money the banks have loaned out, because all they were actually doing was using phony credits to get you to title property into their names.

You see in most cases if you bought the house for 300K the person who sold it to you turned around and used that to title another house in their name using the same 300K, it looks like money changed hands, but cash never changed hands, just instruments of debt, in fairly short order, so the cash never really came into play except in fractional amounts.

So in order to hide the fact that no there is not enough currency to pay back the debts they had to steal all of what you thought you had in currency, your 401K in the stock market was just credits, when the market tanked your credit was wiped out, so in other words the money you thought you had didn't exist in the first place, and because it doesn't exist, they had to steal it from you, before you actually asked for it in cash.

The scheme is just to get everything titled into the banks name, the bank and the state, because as long as they own everything of significant value you want to buy, and there are just a handful of major banks, and the smaller ones all working through the Fed, they never have to produce the cash to balance the ledger entries.

Of course the draw back is they can't give you the cash you thought you had earned and saved in equity in your home, or the stock market either, they can only give you the illusion that over the course of time you have built some up, sure they pay a little out to those cashing in at the right time, but in the long run they will steal what ever you thought you had, because it never existed in the first place, and the only way to keep you from realizing that is to steal it.

All they want to do is control all the resources, so they can make all the rules how you can get some of the resources, and when they make it look like the process doesn't work (it does but just for them) then they can get you to pass even more laws that will still make it work even better for their total control, but not for yours.

It's all just part of an elaborate illusion undo, and where you are ultimately going to do yourself and the people a diservice is imagining their is some god, discipline, or universal power that causes them to do it, they do it for the same reasons any of us do things that are untoward to gain control, they just seek control of a whole lot more than a thread on ATS or what the Bible means, but they appreciate those who do set their sights so narrow.

Thanks.

sooooooo, White Anglo Saxon Protestants own the banks and starve the population into submission, but they don't reallly believe in god, they just make it up as they go along, for the power it provides?

I must say that I have only read 3 pages of the thread. I will go back and finish the rest later. But, I had to say Thank you all of you, All your posts have given me a sense of such pride, accomplishment, and superiority. Wow!!! I am sitting on top of the world to now know I am in a very small percentage of human beings that are not labeled "SCUM" or "lowlifes". Why? Because I am not a banker, trader, CEO, Lender, borrower, credit card company, credit card consumer (I have a prepaid, but we all know that don't count as the money has to be there to use, therefore I can't go into debt), oh yes I am not a debtor, and here I thought my day was lousy. I feel so much better now. I am TOPS!!! Woohoo!!!!!

To the OP:
No one will go to jail, they have their scapegoat, he will be the Martyr, If you may. Well now I can't even recall his name, but there he sits in jail, and taking full responsibility saying he was alone and the banks had no idea what he was doing. The public asked for the lamb, and they delivered now they want us to be happy and STFU

O.K., You want to know why they are not in jail, or prison for that matter? The simple reason is the American people. That is why all these shisters are not locked up. I mean please, just once admit it. You are the ones, Americans, that keep going along with the burden of their weight. You keep letting them get away with what every they decide. Why don't you stop complaining and grow a pair? Stand up for what you think is wrong. Face the facts, you put these people in the very position they hold. Now if things are so bad for you, drop the axe on them. You have seen with your own eyes what Egypt has done (for better or worse). Now it's your turn. Grow a set of nads and stop your whinning. Do something about it.

reply to post by dolphinfan

Well, what about the gent who bought a house he could not afford and then walked away from it? Or the person who could afford it but walked away from it because they could? There are people right now who can afford to pay their loans, but who are upside on them who are just walking away from them.....

You are missing the WHOLE point. Those people have a MORAL right to walk away because there contract was a FRAUD in the first place! The banks NEVER NEVER lent them any wealth to buy that home. All the Banksters did was pull some fraudulent fiat fairy dust out of thin air.

In other words you exchanged thirty years times a thousand hours per month of YOUR labor for a couple of keystrokes on a computer that instantly created the FIAT money. Fractional Reserve Banking is nothing but a system that creates free range serfs ESPECIALLY when the blasted reserve is ZERO as it has been for years!

...First National Bank of Montgomery vs. Daly (1969) was a courtroom drama worthy of a movie script.3 Defendant Jerome Daly opposed the bank's foreclosure on his $14,000 home mortgage loan on the ground that there was no consideration for the loan. "Consideration" ("the thing exchanged") is an essential element of a contract. Daly, an attorney representing himself, argued that the bank had put up no real money for his loan. The courtroom proceedings were recorded by Associate Justice Bill Drexler, whose chief role, he said, was to keep order in a highly charged courtroom where the attorneys were threatening a fist fight. Drexler hadn't given much credence to the theory of the defense, until Mr. Morgan, the bank's president, took the stand. To everyone's surprise, Morgan admitted that the bank routinely created money "out of thin air" for its loans, and that this was standard banking practice. "It sounds like fraud to me," intoned Presiding Justice Martin Mahoney amid nods from the jurors. In his court memorandum, Justice Mahoney stated:

Plaintiff admitted that it, in combination with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, . . . did create the entire $14,000.00 in money and credit upon its own books by bookkeeping entry. That this was the consideration used to support the Note dated May 8, 1964 and the Mortgage of the same date. The money and credit first came into existence when they created it. Mr. Morgan admitted that no United States Law or Statute existed which gave him the right to do this. A lawful consideration must exist and be tendered to support the Note.

www.webofdebt.com...

In other words every blasted mortgage out there is ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL!

Here is addition proof of the fact US banks operate without a reserve and therefore lend out nothing but fairy dust and not Mary Schoolteacher and Joe Sixpack's savings as we are lead to believe.

US Banks Operating Without Reserve Requirements

Banks typically have 3% of their assets in cash in order to meet customer needs. Since 1960, banks have been allowed to use this “vault cash” to satisfy their reserve requirements. Today, bank reserve requirements have fallen to the point where they are now exceeded by vault cash, which means lowering reserve requirements to zero would have virtually no impact on the banking system. US banks are already operating free of any reserve constraints. The graph below shows reserve requirements falling to zero over the last fifty years....

reply to post by dolphinfan


I was a loan officer during the mortgage peak. Out of hundreds of loans I processed I never once had one that was like you mentioned.

If they were risky loans it was ALWAYS someone that the debt to income ratio was where it needed to be. The risky loans had credit problems and were on an ARM that usually started out at about 7% interest adjusting in two years.

Even getting a loan at 7% it was what they could afford. They made those payments onetime for the two years, then when the bank would not give them the loan promised at a fixed rate after paying on time for two years and it adjusted to 10-16% the family could not afford it.

You have listened to the think tanks propaganda they put out so selfish greedy people would say things like you did. Inform yourself, do not listen to the propaganda and support your fellow American family, dont be just another evil ignorant American pig.

reply to post by undo

oh you're saying the entire house of reps and congress, president, vp, and things like the tri-lateral commission, bilgerbergs, etc? maybe i misread what you just said, but it sounds like you just described most of the government. that's alot of data, so it just may be that i'm having trouble absorbing it all at once.

Here are some articles that explain the history and the means used for taking over not only the US but other countries. We are talking about a group of very wealthy people capable of long range planning with a single goal in mind. By long range I mean over one hundred years. These people think in terms of family dynasties like the Rothschild and Rockefeller Banking dynasties.


The Fabians, the Round Table, and Cecil Rhodes and the Rhodes Scholarships‎
Part 2: Secret Organizations and Hidden Agendas
Part 3: Days of Infamy
Part 1: Different Ideologies

A completely separate history that documents a plan made 65 years ago coming to completion with the new Food Safety Law just passed in December. The writer is unaware of who was actually behind the scenes but accurately documents the moves. History, HACCP and the Food Safety Con Job

You can not read those articles and not see the connection to what has happened to our country.

Here is the Icing on the Cake: Part 4: The War on Terrorism

There's an idea here going on that everyone's solely responsible for there own actions, which is exactly the case in a dog eat dog world I mentioned earlier. Just proves my point. Loans, credit ratings, derivatives, liabilities, insurances, betting schemes etc. etc. are NOT taught at elementary schools because they are designed to profit from one's ignorance - ignorance is money therefore ignorance is good, ignorance is nourished and promoted. That's the purpose of advertising and marketing business, to promote ignorance because it means profit.
How can some people not see anything wrong in that? People are by their nature easy to lead and when you intentionally lead them into an abyss they WILL jump and saying "oh but they could chose not to" means nothing.

In a PERFECT world nobody would buy into the Porsche advert (mentioned earlier) but this is not and will never be a perfect world, people will always be susceptible to exploitation by the weasels. You can keep "I'm just doing my job" to yourself, one day someone else will be doing his job too and you won't like his job one bit....

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
It's pretty simple, these are the guys who work enrich and are protected by the Shadow Government.

You are correct.
Trick is that this protection is suit and tie protection, this means that they are safe from legal proceedings.
But i do not wear a tie myself, and if "they" are not careful they could crash our economy.
This WILL bring upon wrol or shtf. I considr this a crime against my nation. no matter how small the part may be.
If this happens then we begin the rule of the blue collar, and we do not observe suit and tie law.
We do not forgive and we certainly don't forget, criminals will be pursued to the ends of the earth if need be.
Start making your list of criminals, as hunting season may be upon us soon.

There is only on answer to you question. It's an old cliche but...Money talks and BullSh!t walks. unfortunatly. In the world we live in now, you can litteraly get away with murder if you have the cash to back you up. If you're a billionaire and you go to jail for murder, it only means that you're a threat to TPTB and it's a set up. I'm sure of it.

Because if Wallstreet is indicted by congress, congress included and the FED all would indict themselves in the process as the truth comes out.

I say lock up Washington, the FED and wallstreet and lets start over.

The real issue at hand is there is not enough actual $ in circulation to pay off the debt so now what do you do ?
Bank holidays, lopping off zeros and devaluing currency, instate a new currency, IE trade in 10 of your old dollars for one new dollar..

The youtube videos from Salbuchi - Global Financial Collapse - makes it pretty clear what is happening.
Part 1
www.youtube.com...

When banks are issuing credit at 20-50X their reserves, its no wonder we are in the crapper.

I just want to know who is behind trying to bankrupt America.

Lets us not forget, that the crimes committed by wall street, AIG, B of A, ( and others), as well as the politicians, have been a scheme of the highest degree, but not only that, its a riddle, rolled into an enigma, ......no one is suppose to know " who done it ", officially. We all have our ideas of whom are all the shysters, but because this country is of " due process", we the citizenry can't " pin " with valid and substantiated proof of those who would be deemed the masterminds behind the ordeal...thus plausible deniability.

We can go on for days discussing this topic, we all know whom are guilty, but do any of you have proof? I know I don't! Point is, who would be able to find a lawyer that would be willing to take them on....knowing that that very lawyer may wake up and find himself extinct. Case in point: All the mysterious deaths of past prominent figures, found in the dump, their cars blown up in their very own garages..etc.

The only thing I see, ( keep in mind this based off my opinion, and a couple of books written by Ron Paul ) the only thing I see that would be a game changer, is if we the people did the very same damn thing that occurred in Egypt. A massive uprising with the the enforcement of the Declaration of Independence, removing the governing govt, and establishing a new one.

Other than that...its just talk~ And I fear, that's all it ever will be.

reply to post by fishy6


Old videeo, but none the less important.
Excellent example for the ley minded.

Some CEOs of the housing crisis did get called to the carpet; Anthony Mozzilo of Countrywide. And other scammers have gone to jail for previous misdeeds (well connected Ken Lay of Enron, unless his death was faked; the head of WorldCom, etc). And then we have the largest Ponzi Scheme operator in history, Bernard Madoff, in jail serving "150 yrs"....the question w Bernie, however, is why wasnt his suspicous scheme discovered sooner?
As to hedge fund operators like John Paulson who made billions betting on the downdraft in CDS on housing debt - on the surface it seems that he made a good call and speculated appropriately but further investivation reveals that he and Goldman among others conspired to package and price the debt for him to short....certainly a conflict of interest that faults Goldman much more so than Paulson as it was the broker that had a fiduciary responsibility to its investor clientele that the debt bundles were sold to. But then again Goldman is in bed with the federal government.....

The top 1% of the population of North America...Own 50% of all the wealth!
The top 10 % qwn 90% of everything!
Its egregious!Egypt has better wealth distribution and for longer than the US!
Look what they are doing! Whats the matter with people?
Is the psychological warfare being used against us THAT successful?
It is aparent that the time has come for justice to be placed BACK into the hands of the people!

Originally posted by buddhasystem

Originally posted by dolphinfan
Why isn't the bleeding heart government official who mandated that banks give loans to folks who could not afford them in jail?

I would really like to see the document where the government MANDATES that banks loan money to insolvent people. I'm all ears.

You're liberal mind is kidding right?:
Pick one:

* 1933-1939 The New Deal is a group of new laws created to fix problems in the Great Depression economy, including methods to increase home ownership.
* 1934 The National Housing Act of 1934, part of the New Deal, makes more affordable housing and home mortgages. It creates the Federal Housing Administration (FHA)(later HUD) and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation.
* 1938 Fannie Mae is founded by the government under the New Deal. It is a stockholder-owned corporation that purchases and securitizes mortgages in order to ensure that funds are consistently available to the institutions that lend money to home buyers.

[edit] 1968 - 1991

* 1968: The Government mortgage-related agency, Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) is converted from a federal government entity to a stand-alone government sponsored enterprise (GSE) which purchases and securitizes mortgages to facilitate liquidity in the primary mortgage market. The move takes the debt of Fannie Mae off of the books of the government.
* 1970 Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) is chartered by an act of Congress, as a GSE, to buy mortgages on the secondary market, pool them, and sell them as mortgage-backed securities to investors on the open market. The average cost of a new home in 1970 is $26,600 [2] ($140,582 in 2007 dollars). From 1960 to 1970, inflation rose from 1.4% to 6.5% (a 5.1% increase), while the consumer price index (CPI) rose from about 85 points in 1960 to about 120 points in 1970, but the median price of a house nearly doubled from $16,500 in 1960 to $26,600 in 1970.
* 1971 The gold-dollar exchange is eliminated. The gold standard is abandoned. There is no restraint on the creation of money and debt by the banking system. The government starts to print potentially-unlimited amounts of cash in the trillions. This causes a drop in the value of the U.S. dollar which continues today.
* 1974: Equal Credit Opportunity Act imposes heavy sanctions for financial institutions found guilty of discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, or age.
* 1977: Community Reinvestment Act passed to encourage banks and savings and loan associations to offer credit to minority groups on lower incomes or owning small businesses 12 U.S.C. § 2901 et seq.).[3][4] Beforehand, the companies had been engaging in a practice known as redlining.
* July, 1978: Section 121 allowed for a $100,000 one-time exclusion in capital gain for sellers 55 years or older at the time of sale.[5]
* 1980: The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 granted all thrifts, including savings and loan associations, the power to make consumer and commercial loans and to issue transaction accounts, but with little regulatory oversight of competing banks; also exempted federally chartered savings banks, installment plan sellers and chartered loan companies from state usury limits.[6] The cost of a new home in 1980 is $76,400 [7] ($189,918 in 2007 dollars).
* 1981: The Section 121 exclusion, allowing for a one-time exclusion in capital gain for sellers 55 years or older at the time of sale, was increased from $100,000 to $125,000.[5]
* 1981: Each Federal Reserve bank establishes a Community Affairs Office to ensure compliance with Community Reinvestment Act.[8][9]
* 1985–1991: Savings and Loan Crisis caused by rising interest rates and over development in the commercial real estate sector, and exacerbated by deregulation of savings and loan lending standards and a reduction in capital reserve requirements from 5% to 3%.[citation needed]
* 1986: The Tax Reform Act of 1986 eliminated the tax deduction for interest paid on credit cards, encouraging the use of home equity through refinancing, second mortgages and home equity lines of credit (HELOC) by consumers.[10]
* 1986–1991: New homes constructed dropped from 1.8 to 1 million, the lowest rated since World War II.[11]
* 1989: One-month drop in sales of previously owned homes of 12.6 percent.;[12] Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act ("FIRREA") enacted which established the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), closing hundreds of insolvent thrifts and moved regulatory authority to the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS); required federal agencies to issue Community Reinvestment Act ratings publicly.[13]
* 1990: The average cost of a new home in 1990 is $149,800 [14] ($234,841 in 2007 dollars).
* 1991–1997: Flat Housing prices.
* 1991: US recession, new construction prices fall, but above inflationary growth allows them to return by 1997 in real terms.

[edit] 1992 - 2000

* 1992:Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to devote a percentage of their lending to support affordable housing increasing their pooling and selling of such loans as securities; Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) created to oversee them.[15][16]
* 1994: Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994 (IBBEA) repeals the interstate provisions of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 that regulated the actions of bank holding companies.
* 1995: New Community Reinvestment Act regulations break down home-loan data by neighborhood, income, and race; encourage community groups to complain to banks and regulators by allowing community groups that marketed loans to collect a brokers fee;[17] Fannie Mae allowed to receive affordable housing credit for buying subprime securities.[16]
* 1997: Mortgage denial rate of 29 percent for conventional home purchase loans.[18]
o July: The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 repealed the Section 121 exclusion and section 1034 rollover rules, and replaced them with a $500,000 married/$250,000 single exclusion of capital gains on the sale of a home, available once every two years.[19] This encouraged people to buy more expensive first homes, as well as invest in second homes and investment properties.
o November: Fannie Mae helped First Union Capital Markets and Bear, Stearns & Co launch the first publicly available securitization of CRA loans, issuing $384.6 million of such securities. All carried a Fannie Mae guarantee as to timely interest and principal.[20][21]
* 1998:
o September 23, 1998: New York Fed brings together consortium of investors to bail out Long-Term Capital Management.
o 1998: Inflation-adjusted home price appreciation exceeds 10%/year in most West Coast metropolitan areas.[22]
o October: "Financial Services Modernization Act" killed in Senate because of no restrictions on Community Reinvestment Act-related community groups written into law.[23]
* 1999:
o September: Fannie Mae eases the credit requirements to encourage banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is not good enough to qualify for conventional loans.[24]
o November: Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act "Financial Services Modernization Act" repeals Glass–Steagall Act, deregulates banking, insurance and securities into a financial services industry allow financial institutions to grow very large; limits Community Reinvestment Coverage of smaller banks and makes community groups report certain financial relationships with banks.[23]
* 1995–2001: Dot-com bubble.
o March 10, 2000: NASDAQ Composite index peaked, Dot-com bubble collapse begins.
* 2000:
o October: Fannie Mae committed to purchase and securitize $2 billion of Community Investment Act-eligible loans.[25][26]
o November: Fannie Mae announced that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) would soon require it to dedicate 50% of its business to low- and moderate-income families" and its goal was to finance over $500 billion in Community Investment Act-related business by 2010.[27]
o December:Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 defines interest rates, currency prices, and stock indexes as "excluded commodities," allowing trade of credit-default swaps by hedge funds, investment banks or insurance companies with minimal oversight,[28] and contributing to 2008 crisis in Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and AIG.[29][30][31]

[edit] 2001 - 2006

* 1997–2005:Mortgage fraud increased by 1,411 percent.[32]
* 2000–2003: Early 2000s recession (exact time varies by country).
* 2001–2005: United States housing bubble (part of the world housing bubble).
* 2001: US Federal Reserve lowers Federal funds rate 11 times, from 6.5% to 1.75%.[33]
* 2002–2003: Mortgage denial rate of 14 percent for conventional home purchase loans, half of 1997.[18]
* 2002: Annual home price appreciation of 10% or more in California, Florida, and most Northeastern states."Annual home-value growth at highest rate since 1980". www.allbusiness.com... Retrieved 2008-10-06.
o June 17

resident G.W. Bush sets goal of increasing minority home owners by at least 5.5 million by 2010 through billions of dollars in tax credits, subsidies and a Fannie Mae commitment of $440 billion to establish NeighborWorks America with faith based organizations.[34]
* 2003: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy $81 billion in subprime securities.[16]
o June: Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan lowers federal reserve’s key interest rate to 1%, the lowest in 45 years.[35]
o September: Bush administration recommended moving governmental supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under a new agency created within the Department of the Treasury. The changes were blocked by Congress.[36]
o December: President Bush signs the American Dream Downpayment Act to be implemented under the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The goal was to provide a maximum downpayment assistance grant of either $10,000 or six percent of the purchase price of the home, whichever was greater. In addition, the Bush Administration committed to reforming the homebuying process that would lower closing costs by approximately $700 per loan. It was said it would further stimulate homeownership for all Americans.[37]
* 2003-2007: The Federal Reserve failed to use its supervisory and regulatory authority over banks, mortgage underwriters and other lenders, who abandoned loan standards (employment history, income, down payments, credit rating, assets, property loan-to-value ratio and debt-servicing ability), emphasizing instead lender's ability to securitize and repackage subprime loans.[28]
* 2004:
o U.S. homeownership rate peaked with an all time high of 69.2 percent.[38]
o HUD ratcheted up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac affordable-housing goals for next four years, from 50 percent to 56 percent, stating they lagged behind the private market; from 2004 to 2006, they purchased $434 billion in securities backed by subprime loans.[16]
o October:SEC effectively suspends net capital rule for five firms - Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley. Freed from government imposed limits on the debt they can assume, they levered up 20, 30 and even 40 to 1.[39]
* 2004–2005: Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, and Nevada record price increases in excess of 25% per year.[citation needed]
* 2005: United States housing market correction ("bubble bursting").
o February: The Office of Thrift Supervision implemented new rules that allowed savings and loans with over $1 billion in assets to meet their CRA obligations without investing in local communities, cutting availability of subprime loans.
o September: The FDIC, Federal Reserve, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency allow loosening of Community Reinvestment Act requirements for "small" banks, further cutting subprime loans.[17][40]
o Fall: Booming housing market halts abruptly; from the fourth quarter of 2005 to the first quarter of 2006, median prices nationwide dropped of 3.3 percent.[41]
o Year-end: A total of 846,982 properties were in some stage of foreclosure in 2005.[42]
* 2006: Continued market slowdown. Prices are flat, home sales fall, resulting in inventory buildup. U.S. Home Construction Index is down over 40% as of mid-August 2006 compared to a year earlier. A total of 1,259,118 foreclosures were filed during the year, up 42 percent from 2005.[43]

[edit] 2007

Year-to-year decreases in both U.S. home sales and home prices accelerates rather than bottoming out, with U.S. Treasury secretary Paulson calling the "the housing decline ... the most significant risk to our economy."[44] Home sales continue to fall. The plunge in existing-home sales is the steepest since 1989. In Q1/2007, S&P/Case-Shiller house price index records first year-over-year decline in nationwide house prices since 1991.[45] The subprime mortgage industry collapses, and a surge of foreclosure activity (twice as bad as 2006[46]) and rising interest rates threaten to depress prices further as problems in the subprime markets spread to the near-prime and prime mortgage markets.[47]

* February–ongoing: 2007 Subprime mortgage financial crisis Subprime industry collapse; more than 25 subprime lenders declaring bankruptcy, announcing significant losses, or putting themselves up for sale.
* April 2: New Century Financial, largest U.S. subprime lender, files for chapter 11 bankruptcy.[48]
* July 19: Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 14,000 for the first time in its history.[49]
* August: worldwide "credit crunch" as subprime mortgage backed securities are discovered in portfolios of banks and hedge funds around the world, from BNP Paribas to Bank of China. Many lenders stop offering home equity loans and "stated income" loans. Federal Reserve injects about $100B into the money supply for banks to borrow at a low rate.
* August 6: American Home Mortgage files for chapter 11 bankruptcy.[50]
* August 7: Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton proposes a $1 billion bailout fund to help homeowners at risk for foreclosure.[51]
* August 16: Countrywide Financial Corporation, the biggest U.S. mortgage lender, narrowly avoids bankruptcy by taking out an emergency loan of $11 billion from a group of banks.[52]
* August 17: Federal Reserve lowers the discount rate by 50 basis points to 5.75% from 6.25%.[53]
* August 31: President Bush announces a limited bailout of U.S. homeowners unable to pay the rising costs of their debts.[54] Ameriquest, once the largest subprime lender in the U.S., goes out of business.[55]
* September 1–3: Fed Economic Symposium in Jackson Hole, WY addressed the housing recession that jeopardizes U.S. growth. Several critics argued that the Fed should use regulation and interest rates to prevent asset-price bubbles,[56] blamed former Fed-chairman Alan Greenspan's low interest rate policies for stoking the U.S. housing boom and subsequent bust,[57][58] and Yale University economist Robert Shiller warned of possible home price declines of 50 percent.[59]
* September 14: A run on the bank forms at the United Kingdom's Northern Rock bank precipitated by liquidity problems related to the subprime crisis.[60]
* September 17: Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said "we had a bubble in housing" [61][62] and warns of "large double digit declines" in home values "larger than most people expect."
* September 18: The Fed lowers interest rates by half a percent (50 basis points) to 4.75% in an attempt to limit damage to the economy from the housing and credit crises.[63]
* September 28: Television finance personality Jim Cramer warns Americans on The Today Show, "don't you dare buy a home—you'll lose money," causing a furor among Realtors.[64]
* September 30: Affected by the spiraling mortgage and credit crises, Internet banking pioneer NetBank goes bankrupt[65] NetBank Inc was the largest savings and loan failure since the tail end of the Savings and Loan crisis in the early 1990s.[66] and the Swiss bank UBS announced that it lost US$690 million in the third quarter.[67]
* September 30

rices fell 4.9 percent from September 2006 in 20 large metropolitan areas, according to Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller indexes. This is the 9th straight month prices have fallen.[68]
* October 10: US Government and private industry created Hope Now Alliance to help some sub-prime borrowers.[69]
* October 15–17: A consortium of U.S. banks backed by the U.S. government announced a "superfund" or "super-SIV" of $100 billion to purchase mortgage-backed securities whose mark-to-market value plummeted in the subprime collapse.[70] Fed chairman Ben Bernanke expressed alarm about the dangers posed by the bursting housing bubble;[citation needed] Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said "the housing decline is still unfolding and I view it as the most significant risk to our economy. ... The longer housing prices remain stagnant or fall, the greater the penalty to our future economic growth."[44]
* October 31: Federal Reserve lowers the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 4.5 percent and the discount window rate by 25 basis points to 5 percent.
* October 31: Prices fell 6.1 percent from October 2006 in 20 large metropolitan areas, according to Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller indexes. This is the 10th straight month prices have fallen.[68]
* November 1: Federal Reserve injects $41B into the money supply for banks to borrow at a low rate. The largest single expansion by the Fed since $50.35B on September 19, 2001.
* December 6: President Bush announced a plan to voluntarily freeze the mortgages of a limited number of mortgage debtors holding ARMs for 5 years. The plan run by the Hope Now Alliance. Its phone number is 1-888-995-HOPE.[71] Some experts criticized the plan as "a Band-Aid when the patient needs major surgery",[72] a "teaser-freezer",[73] and a "bail-out".[74][75]
* December 11: Federal Reserve lowers the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 4.25 percent and the discount window rate by 25 basis points to 4.75 percent.
* December 12: Federal Reserve injects $40B into the money supply for banks to borrow at a low rate and coordinates such efforts with central banks from Canada, United Kingdom, Switzerland and European Union.
* December 24: A consortium of banks officially abandons the U.S. government-supported "super-SIV" mortgage crisis bail-out plan announced in mid-October,[76] citing a lack of demand for the risky mortgage products on which the plan was based, and widespread criticism that the fund was a flawed idea that would have been difficult to execute.[76]
* December 26: Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller indexes of housing prices in 20 large metropolitan areas for October 2007 is released showing that for the 10th straight month priced have fallen, but most worrying is that the decline in home prices accelerated and spread to more regions of the country in October. "Since their peak in July 2006, home prices in the 20 regions have dropped 6.6 percent.[68] Economists' predictions of the total amount of home price declines from the bubble's peak range from moderate 10–15 percent to larger 30–50 percent price declines in some areas.[59][68]
* December 28: The November U.S. Commerce Department's "stunningly weak report" released on December 28, 2007 show that year to year decreases in both U.S. home sales and home prices is accelerating rather than bottoming out due to "eminently rational behaviour" based on "a psychological point where expectations of future price declines have become entrenched".[77]
* Year-end: A total of 2,203,295 foreclosures were filed on 1,285,873 properties during the year, up 75 percent from 2006. More than 1 percent of all households were in some stage of foreclosure during 2007, up from 0.58 percent in 2006.[78]

[edit] 2008

Home sales continue to fall. Fears of a U.S. recession. Global stock market corrections and volatility.

* January 2–21: January 2008 stock market downturn.
* January 24: The National Association of Realtors (NAR) announced that 2007 had the largest drop in existing home sales in 25 years,[79] and "the first price decline in many, many years and possibly going back to the Great Depression."[80]
* March 10: Dow Jones Industrial Average at the lowest level since October 2006, falling more than 20% from its peak just five months prior.
* March 14–18: Dropping valuations of mortgage securities caused by skyrocketing default and foreclosure rates forces margin calls to the Wall Street bank Bear Stearns for debts the bank used to leverage mortgage issuances, and threatens BSC with bankruptcy and causes worldwide market jitters. In a weekend deal brokered by U.S. Treasury secretary Paulson and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, JPMorgan bank agrees to purchase BSC for $2 per share, compared to their 2007 high of nearly $170, in exchange for the Federal Reserve Bank agreeing to accept BSC's devalued mortgage backed securities as collateral for public loans at the newly created Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF), effectively providing a mechanism to bail out Wall Street banks threatened with insolvency.[81]
* March 1–June 18: 406 people were arrested for mortgage fraud in an FBI sting across the U.S., including buyers, sellers and others across the wide-ranging mortgage industry.[82]
* June 18: As the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee Connecticut's Christopher Dodd proposed a housing bailout to the Senate floor that would assist troubled subprime mortgage lenders such as Countrywide Bank, Dodd admitted that he received special treatment, perks, and campaign donations from Countrywide, who regarded Dodd as a "special" customer and a "Friend of Angelo." Dodd received a $75,000 reduction in mortgage payments from Countrywide.[83][84] The Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee Kent Conrad and the head of Fannie Mae Jim Johnson also received mortgages on favorable terms due to their association with Countrywide CEO Angelo R. Mozilo.[83][85]
* June 19: Ex-Bear Stearns fund managers were arrested by the FBI for their allegedly fraudulent role in the subprime mortgage collapse. The managers purportedly misrepresented the fiscal health of their funds to investors publicly while privately withdrawing their own money.[86]
* July 30: Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 changes the $250,000/$500,000 capital gains exclusion applying to second homes and rental property.

en.wikipedia.org...

I would specifically draw your attention to:
* 1974: Equal Credit Opportunity Act imposes heavy sanctions for financial institutions found guilty of discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, or age.
* 1977: Community Reinvestment Act passed to encourage banks and savings and loan associations to offer credit to minority groups on lower incomes or owning small businesses

and:
" September: Fannie Mae eases the credit requirements to encourage banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is not good enough to qualify for conventional loans.[24]
o November: Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act "Financial Services Modernization Act" repeals Glass–Steagall Act, deregulates banking, insurance and securities into a financial services industry allow financial institutions to grow very large; limits Community Reinvestment Coverage of smaller banks and makes community groups report certain financial relationships with banks.[23]

Originally posted by DimensionalDetective

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Rich people don't go to jail unless they hurt people richer than themselves. Period end of story

so did these same shadow government people also take over britain? cause seems i recall it being run by the queen and now she appears to pretty much just a rich old lady who cuts ribbons, breaks champagne bottles, knights the occassional musician and waves at cameras.