GET OFF OUR LAWN: How Aliens and Gerald Ford Stole Your House

It's a good thing I don't believe in conspiracy theories, because if I did I'd be tempted to think the entire subprime mortgage crash and the following "Great Recession" were engineered from the beginning as a long troll on private home ownership in America. Of course, I am sophisticated and smart enough to know that nobody would do that -- not because they are above doing it, but because nobody can think that far ahead anymore.

Still, according to this link, the results are about the same as they'd be if it were some devious master plan.

There are three narratives to this story. One, the Conservative narrative, begins in the 1990s with President Clinton's push to drive up home ownership among Americans as a way to boost economies national and local, increase civic participation, and decrease crime, among other things (maybe some shadowy organization of goddamn HOAs bought Clinton, who knows). Of course, this was all a terrible and Socialist™ thing to do, because something something poor people with nice things something something, and the Conservatives were right because ten years later, a housing crash happened which proves poor people don't deserve nice things.

The "liberal" story starts around 2001 or so with the Banksters inventing a number of insidious financial instruments based on imaginary money that could only be realized through various legal and semi-legal forms of consumer financial fraud, the largest of these being the "Sub-Prime Mortgage," which if they were made out of anything physical would be confiscated at any airport for their tendency to blow up and break things. Eventually this game of American Roulette had to end in tears, and so it did in 2007 and 2008 with the collapse of the housing market. The Banksters knew it would happen, and they did it anyway, and that's why in 2009 the Democrats had them all arrested and put them in prison for a very long time. Or something.

But the third narrative, the one the lizard people and those aliens from Planet X don't want you to know about -- the real story here -- is far worse than either one of those two tales of political and financial incompetence and botched altruism. This one starts all the way back in January 1977, the last days of Gerald Ford's presidency. See, Gerald Ford was an asshole. We know he was an asshole because he was a Republican. And he was feeling especially dickish in January 1977 because he was about to be replaced by that wimp, Jimmy Carter. A president named Jimmy? What was the world coming to? Anyway, Soon-to-be-Ex-President Ford was intent on showing the ungrateful Americans who kicked his sorry ass out of the White House a thing or two. So he set in motion a series of bad decisions that eventually ruptured thirty years later like a disgusting time bomb made out of infected appendixes.

There are people who will tell you that the great engine of American prosperity and social stability has always been our "work ethic" or our "religion" or our "patriotism." These people are wrong. Actually, they're not only wrong, they are lying, on purpose, and are most likely being paid by the Koch Brothers or the estate of Ronnie James Dio to keep those awful lies in circulation. In actual point of fact, the thing that keeps America from becoming some terrible third-world nation is our fierce belief in private property. It is our fierce belief in "I got mine, you got yours, and never the twain shall meet" that keeps us milling about our daily lives contentedly, producing and consuming and voting and donating. It is the idea that all of us having some "skin in the game" keeps us happy and committed to society that was the basis for Clinton's push for expanded home ownership, and that idea was right. It just so happens that Clinton's not-terrible idea fit into Ford's plan like a cigar.

Ford's plan was brilliant in its subterfuge. He met quietly with a number of his fellow anti-taxers and pro-poverty douchebags in the GOP and Big Business™, and they set to work sewing the seeds of the biggest land grab and legal shakedown in American history. Details of the plan at this stage are few, but we do know that by the mid 90's, someone had gotten Clinton to push for this "Partners in the American Dream" program that virtually eliminated traditional barriers to home ownership like, um, being able to afford a house. And in the decade or so the plan was in effect, banks fell all over themselves to mop up the veritable chemical spill of easy money being pumped out of government loan guarantees like sweet crude from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico.

That, of course, is where most coverage stops, more or less. Bad government encourages bad business, and all that. But the story is continuing today and nobody is really paying attention anymore. In the wake of the housing crash, newly vacated shards of the American Dream were, and continue to be, snatched up by multi-billion-dollar corporations. Now, this is probably just business on their part, but consider the implications for this new reality where Americans rarely live in anything even remotely resembling real private property. Compare the legal rights of a home owner to the legal rights of a renter. All the same liabilities and responsibilities exist, with none of the privileges.

America is now a nation of serfs and peasants, living in tenements and shacks put up by corporate lords and provided for civil use so long as we agree to 100 pages of demands in the form of a rental or lease agreement, including an agreement to forego things like your 4th Amendment rights while occupying your assigned domicile. Add to that the currently in-vogue practice of Civil Forfeiture and what you have is a government which, at all levels, has built a hyperspace bypass right through the space formerly occupied by your rights as an individual.

And it's all thanks to Gerald Ford. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why Richard Nixon should still be the President, and this is why I am writing his name in for every available office this year and every election year, until the day I die.

Who could have known?
It seldom turns out like we plan very often........S&F!

Surely you jest about that last part?
I hope so, anyway, cause from your story, you're pretty bright, and know that's just another bad, bought out choice alone the way. There are not choices. This was going to happen, regardless.

The supreme court, don't forget, legalized stealing land away from owners: it's called Eminent Domain.
Good thread.
tetra

a reply to: vexati0n

Well written, have a cigar. That reference was funny.

And it's all thanks to Gerald Ford. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why Richard Nixon should still be the President, and this is why I am writing his name in for every available office this year and every election year, until the day I die.

Don't do that, "Tricky Dick" might return from the dead.

They are all criminals.

originally posted by: vexati0n
Details of the plan at this stage are few...

I did not see any details in the links you posted regarding Ford, where are we to find them?

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: vexati0n
Details of the plan at this stage are few...

I did not see any details in the links you posted regarding Ford, where are we to find them?

It came to me in a dream.

Seriously though, it has to be somebody's fault, and ol' Gerry Ford seems like as good a scapegoat as anyone, based on the likelihood that whoever is really responsible will ever be brought to justice.

Pretty good summary. S&F

The idea was to stimulate the economy by putting all of us into debt to buy things. It took a lot of convincing of people to create a society that was indebted. My father taught me to work for things and have patients and not to buy things I did not need. Along came credit cards and the credit score. The credit score was created to make us think owing money was a good thing, if you didn't have credit cards your credit score was lower and a loan for a house was more expensive. We were set up.

Not long ago you had to save to buy a house, needing twenty percent down payment. Because it was harder to borrow money, prices of homes stayed lower and more affordable. When they changed things so that you needed little down then the prices of houses shot up. Not long ago a home cost about two years of your wages around here. Now, you are looking at about four or five years if not more. You could buy a moderate used home around here that was in pretty good shape for under twenty five grand thirty years ago. Now that same house is about a hundred and twenty five grand. Now wages have not gone up five fold here in the last thirty years, but people cannot see that.

We have allowed society to inflate things above their real value. We do not own our home, we lease the land from the government yet we have been conditioned to think property has value. We have been led to believe a lie, the raising of property values also increases the taxes, taxes have increased a lot in the last thirty years, even with the breaks they have given us. If you unlock the taxable value and it goes to the other value, your taxes will go way up. Your kids may have to sell your home because of this reason. They may not be able to afford the extra expense.

It is all about making the Economic growth look good, not about stability in our economy. Europe is trying to look at stability and the USA is yelling growth is what you want. We are trying to drag Europe down with us. We want everyone in the same boat we are, the titanic of debt.

Thanks for a great read! Star and Flagged.

This is a well written thread. S&F. Well done sir!

The only solution to this problem is to get more land. Land is one of the few rapidly shrinking commodities that people don't like to talk about. Much of the world is owned by some entity while trying to leave as much space as possible for the rest of the life on the planet.

In my opinion colonizing space should be the desire of the humans on this planet. We need more room to spread and something is going to give.

a reply to: vexati0n

Writing in Nixon's name certainly won't change anything. He was corrupt as well. We need to stay away from the status quo of Democrats or Republicans. Need new blood with new ideas.

a reply to: vexati0n

Truth be told OP the cures can be worse than the disease. Look back into history and ask yourself how do men like Hitler,Stalin,Mao gain power.



These men were in fact leaders of the common man. They gained power by people such as yourself demanding the corporate oligarchy fall. This is in fact the plan the progressives use over and over again. Make things so bad people demand change and than give it to them.



If we want a long term fix we need to follow the constitution. A republic ruled by law is the the only way to balance this. Read what Jefferson wrote about banks and Oligarchies 300 years ago. They had a much better understanding of this simple fact.

Great article. I remember those TV programs on "Complex Financial Instruments". They gave out mortgages to everyone from full time office workers to part time construction workers. Then they figured that if they sliced them up and redistributed them into little bundles, the security of the full-time workers would reduce the financial risk of mortgages owned by part-time workers. It was a win-win-win, investors get safe stock, the bank gets more customers and everyone gets a home.

But they didn't figure it was house-building program itself that was creating wealth. Once that dried up, everything blew up. Then the banks moved into robo-foreclosing of bad mortgages, simply because there were now three or more investors who had a share of each home. They would continue doing this even when the home had been auctioned off by another investor.

Great article. I remember those TV programs on "Complex Financial Instruments". They gave out mortgages to everyone from full time office workers to part time construction workers. Then they figured that if they sliced them up and redistributed them into little bundles, the security of the full-time workers would reduce the financial risk of mortgages owned by part-time workers. It was a win-win-win, investors get safe stock, the bank gets more customers and everyone gets a home.

But they didn't figure it was house-building program itself that was creating wealth. Once that dried up, everything blew up. Then the banks moved into robo-foreclosing of bad mortgages, simply because there were now three or more investors who had a share of each home. They would continue doing this even when the home had been auctioned off by another investor.

Good thread...

I'd be happy if religion™ and the NFL™ paid their taxes..

p.S. It appears that We had the same 'mentor' or are working the same program??

Looks like a typical liberal rant against Republicans and conservatives especially. How about seeing the whole poverty and tenement thing from a different perspective, one which is neither Repub or Demo, liberal or conservative, but which in it's scope is neither right nor left but a synthesis designed for a One World Government and ultimately depopulation. That would be Agenda 21, devised by elites on both sides of the aisle.

In a nutshell, the plan calls for governments to take control of all land use and not leave any of the decision making in the hands of private property owners. It is assumed that people are not good stewards of their land and the government will do a better job if they are in control. Individual rights in general are to give way to the needs of communities as determined by the governing body. Moreover, people should be rounded up off the land and packed into human settlements, or islands of human habitation, close to employment centers and transportation. Another program, called the Wildlands Project spells out how most of the land is to be set aside for non-humans.

.N. Agenda 21 cites the affluence of Americans as being a major problem which needs to be corrected. It calls for lowering the standard of living for Americans so that the people in poorer countries will have more, a redistribution of wealth. Although people around the world aspire to achieve the levels of prosperity we have in our country, and will risk their lives to get here, Americans are cast in a very negative light and need to be taken down to a condition closer to average in the world. Only then, they say, will there be social justice which is a cornerstone of the U.N. Agenda 21 plan.

www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com...