22 August 2011

Why is Obama Doing This?

The New York Times has a story today regarding how the Obama Administration is pressuring the New York State Attorney General to agree to the global settlement on mortgage operations by the big banks.

Then in a follow-up I read this:

A week ago, I finally read an in-depth investigation that found that in “a staggering 92 percent of the claims brought by creditors asserting the right to foreclose against bankrupt families in New York City and the close-in suburbs, banks and mortgage servicers couldn’t prove they had the right to kick the families out on the street… By robosigning documents and pressing foreclosures without the proper paperwork, banks have attempted to steamroll their way over sometimes-outgunned homeowners.”
The investigation was done not by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), nor by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) but by…wait for it…the New York Post. The Post! If the Post is capable of pulling off this investigation and making it public and subject to democratic discussion, why can’t the Obama administration?  And this is what the New York AG’s office has to deal with: signing a deal absolving and protecting the banks when places like the New York Post are out there finding evidence of massive fraud.
Now I don't read the New York Post out of principle - it is a disgusting right wing rag as far as I am concerned, making Fox News look tame by comparison.  So if they come out with this kind of report, I gotta think making this kind of settlement is bonkers - people on both the left and the right are going to scream blue murder.

Of course, the question in the title to this post is rhetorical.  We all know why the administration is doing this.

Hang in the Eric - you're on the side of the angels with this one.

Cutting the Statistical Abstract

Read this article by Robert Samuelson.

In today's marketing age - maybe a better word is the age of propaganda - where our mainstream media seems more concerned with giving us a message rather than the facts, it is hugely important that people have a resource where they can see the facts for themselves.  Democracy depends on it.

But whoever said our elites care about democracy?