Obama’s early Chicago rise brought African-Americans foreclosures, bankruptcies

As team Obama continues in their attempts to tarnish Romney's record during his years working in the real world/private sector the MSM continues to ignore Obama brief career in the private sector. Once again they do not want to expose his record.

The following expose is quite detailed in its efforts to open the layers of Obama's history in Chicago.

President Barack Obama wants his 2012 re-election campaign to focus on Gov. Mitt Romney’s private-sector record, but his own private-sector history shows that he promoted and profited from the nation’s disastrous real-estate bubble. One striking example comes from the president’s 1995 housing-discrimination class action lawsuit: It provided him with legal fees, greased his political donations and boosted his role in Chicago politics.

The article continues to reference Selma Buycks-Roberson, Obama's lead client at the time who has since filed bankruptcy twice and filed a foreclosure. She is like many of us and many of those who live in Chicago. She is Underwater in her mortgage. The statistics for Obama's former stomping grounds are quite staggering as compared to national averages.

By 2012, the average home equity in Chicago’s African-American neighborhoods had shriveled to $6,800, according to a March report from the Woodstock Institute, a liberal Chicago housing advocacy group. The average equity in homes in the city’s white neighborhoods is $108,000.

Fully 44 percent of homes in Chicago are underwater, compared to a national average of 31 percent, according to a Zillow-generated map.

The zip code located five blocks south of Obama’s house at 5046 S. Greenwood Avenue has an underwater-mortgage rate of 56 percent, slightly above Detroit’s famously depressed 55 percent rate. Zillow’s map shows that the wealthier neighborhood just four blocks north of Obama’s has an even more stunning rate of underwater mortgages — 72 percent – one percentage point above that of worst-in-the-nation Las Vegas.

n Buycks-Roberson’s inland neighborhood, 57 percent of homes are underwater.

Reporters have aggressively sought more information from Romney about his business record, but there is no sign that a single reporter has ever asked Obama about his role in Chicago’s housing disaster.

The closest Obama has ever come to admitting his role in the scandal came in a September 2007 speech to a Wall Street audience.

“Subprime lending started off as a good idea: helping Americans buy homes who couldn’t previously afford to,” he said.

But “as certain lenders and brokers began to see how much money could be made,” he said, “they began to lower their standards. … Most everyone knew that some of these deals were just too good to be true, but all that money flowing in made it tempting to look the other way and ignore the unscrupulous practice of some bad actors.”

Obama the lawyer

The lawsuit had its beginning in 1994 when Fay Clayton, a progressive, Democratic-aligned lawyer, claimed that Citibank Federal Savings had discriminated against Chicago resident Selma Buycks-Roberson.

In 1995, Clayton merged her legal action with a second lawsuit filed by another progressive lawyer, Judson Miner, a founding partner in the firm now known as Miner, Barnhill & Gallard.

Obama had joined Miner’s firm in 1993 because it pursued civil-rights litigation and represented progressive non-profit political groups, Miner told The Daily Caller.

“We combined two things he was interested in,” said Miner, a former chief of staff for Harold Washington, Chicago’s first African-American mayor.

Obama volunteered to work on the Buycks-Roberson lawsuit, and was named in a court docket as Miner’s lead lawyer for Buycks-Roberson and two other plaintiffs. “We all represented all of them,” Clayton told TheDC, when asked if Obama deserved credit for the case’s settlement.

Obama volunteered for several other political lawsuits, including three filed on behalf of the controversial ACORN community organizing group. He also defended landlords from tenants in two cases, according to a 2008 article in the Los Angeles Times. Obama was elected in 1996 to the part-time job of state senator, but stayed at the firm until 2004, Miner said. The firm paid him by the hour or compensated him according to a set fee schedule.

Chicago's Housing Lobby

The Buycks-Roberson lawsuit was just one small part of national campaign by progressives to force banks to increase their lending in poor African-Americans neighborhoods. Chicago was an early battleground in that campaign because it had an influential community of progressive lawyers, community organizers, developers and politicians working on housing issues.

This community had emerged from the urban wreckage caused by 1970s federal housing regulations, which rewarded real-estate “blockbusting” practices that encouraged white, affluent homeowners to sell their properties at a loss after poor people of color bought homes in middle-class neighborhoods.

Whenever poor buyers defaulted, average home prices declined — spurring additional purchases by low-income buyers.

Chicago activists believed more federal regulation would cure the blockbusting problem by boosting lending to African-Americans within so-called “redlines” drawn — often literally – on maps around poor African-American neighborhoods. A redlined city district was one where banks had made a categorical decision not to invest.

Obama was right in the middle of it.

Obama's law firm kept 70% of the payout!! The rise of Obama!!

The Buycks-Roberson settlement was a jackpot for Obama and his political allies.

“When you follow the civil-rights law, it makes the pie bigger for everyone,” Clayton told TheDC.

The deal provided $360,000 to a few hundred African-American plaintiffs who got payouts ranging from $770 to $3,250 each, plus a promise of Citigroup’s help when seeking new mortgages. Buycks-Roberson and two other lead plaintiffs got an extra $20,000 each.

The law firms split $950,000.

Obama worked 138 hours on the case and billed a fee of $23,000, at $166.67 per hour, according to a December 2007 Chicago Sun-Times article. His salary as a part-time senator was roughly $60,000 in 1998.

But Obama got much more from the lawsuit than just a paycheck. City records show that he got a share of his legal colleagues’ earnings via their Illinois political donations.

The Back scratchers!

From 1995 to 1997, he had received $3,250 from colleagues at Miner’s law office. In 1999 and 2000, he took in another $12,300 from his colleagues for his successful state race and his unsuccessful race for a federal House seat.

By Chicago campaign standards, that was a lot of cash. In his two 2000 state reports, Obama claimed $2,150 and $0 in donations from individuals. In total, he raised $471,932 for his three state races, mostly from unions, trade associations and companies.

By the time of Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate race, Miner and his wife had donated roughly $22,000 to Obama, according to online campaign finance records. For that federal race, the firm’s other lawyers added $21,000, and Clayton contributed $1,500. Clayton also hosted a December 3, 2003 fundraiser for Obama. He received $17,500 from 20 Chicago donors that day, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

dailycaller.com...

More on Obama's personal role in tapping the CASH COW!

“We got to know the fair-housing groups … [and Obama] developed some respect among the people who believe in housing and civil rights,” Clayton said. “That’s why he joined [Miner’s] firm, from what I understand.”

Obama was invited to give an agenda-setting speech at a 1996 meeting of city officials and progressive housing activists. The 1996 Futures Forum “really brought together all of the key stakeholders across the city,” said Joel Bookman, director of programs for a critical foundation-funded group, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Chicago.

Obama was invited to speak because people were saying he “is really bright, he’s really thoughtful [and] he’s done some work as an attorney in these communities,” Bookman told TheDC.

And on and on it went as the tentacles began to ensnare more mortgage applicants and financial institutions such as Countrywide and Ameriquest who were essentially created to capitalize on the subprime market.

The Banks were making money hand over fist and Obama in turn raked in the cash from those recipients of new found wealth. Mainly Citigroup (who Obama once sued) and Freddie and Fannie

Between 1998 and 2007 Citigroup doubled its stock-market value to $900 billion. In turn, Citigroup executives shared their earnings with their government partners.

In 2007 and 2008, Citigroup gave Obama $736,771 for his presidential race, according to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Obama got $126,349 from the two huge taxpayer-backed mortgage traders, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, between 1989 and 2004. Only Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who chaired the powerful Senate banking committee, got more cash from the two subprime lending giants.

Once in the Senate himself, Obama joined with Dodd to block a 2005 bill that would have curbed Fannie Mae’s funding of the high-risk mortgage bubble. By 2005, nearly 20 percent of new U.S. mortgages were subprime loans.

Interesting!!

Truth is stranger than fiction... Follow the mind numbing money trail

The banks also spread the money around to progressives in Chicago and other Democratic-run cities.

In addition to the $115 billion in anti-redlining loan investment it promised in order to win regulators’ approval for its 1998 Travelers merger, Citigroup offered at least one more incentive to progressives. The mega-bank announced in August 1999 that it had picked one of Bookman’s LISC Chicago executives to distribute $6 billion in loans and aid to housing organizations and community groups.

The new chief, Andrew Ditton, had worked at LISC Chicago for 13 years and ran his own Chicago-based operation in 1997 and 1998. And he was well known to Citigroup.

The company directly “provided $900 million in investments, loans and grants to LISC over the past 20 years,” according to a May 2010 video appearing on one Citigroup website.

The victims!!

n 1999, minorities got “9% of all of Citigroup’s 1999 mortgage-related lending,” according to Citigroup’s post-merger report, “Diversity at Citigroup.” In 1998, the report noted, “all bank and bank affiliated lenders disbursed 4% of their total mortgage lending to these borrowers.”

The report also said Citigroup boosted mortgages to Hispanics from 3,000 in 1997 to nearly 24,000 in 1999.

Shortly after, the bombs began to drop...foreclosure filings began to increase at an alarming rate.

“In the Chicago area, foreclosure starts rose 238 percent from 1995 to 2002 … [and] neighborhoods with 90 per cent or greater minority populations experienced an increase of 544 percent,” according to housing experts Dan Immergluck and Geoff Smith, writing in the November 2006 issues of Housing Studies.

Those minority neighborhoods “accounted for 40 percent of the 1995-2002 increase in conventional foreclosures,” they wrote. But those properties “represent[ed] only 9.2 percent of the owner-occupied housing units.”

I think you get the picture. Please read on as this article goes deeper in the underwater problem, the destruction of $1 trillion in equity, and the continued cronyism between the Banks and the progressive element. This is Obama's record in the private sector as it began to merge with his career in politics. A career he built on the misfortune of others who believed in his two faced rhetoric. DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO.... Defines Obama and his record. Don't forget it!!
Read more: dailycaller.com...

We have been over this.

Poor people caused the housing bubbles, Wallstreet was the victim.

Ok. If that is the case, how did they force AIG and only AIG to go into 10:1 leverage on CDS?
Why didn't they force other insurers to do the same?
Or at least force all of them to go 6:1, instead of having 1 lobby for relaxing the rules, so they could go 10:1, and then have only that one go 10:1 and only that one require a bailout, and all the others stay at sane 4:1 or 3:1 levels, and not needing a bailout.

Oh yes...Obama caused the housing market collapse


Why should I be surprised, you guys think he is responsible for every negative thing in history...I'm sure he is partially responsible for the slave trade as well.


It's funny how hard people have to try to pin a negative on Obama...and trying to do this to make Romney look better

reply to post by OutKast Searcher


OMG...The crazy desperation gets wierder every day...

Yes...Chicago community advocate Obama was responsible for the housing crisis!

reply to post by OutKast Searcher


Yeah everyone has to try SOOO hard to make anything negative about obama, right.
Also I dont know how someone's negative qualities make another persons same negative qualities seem better, but there is a lot i dont understand about criminal defense so.......

reply to post by OutKast Searcher


I Never said he caused it. He was merely a part of it. This is the Obama we never hear about and you could care less about his record. Surprise Surprise!! Feel free to take those blinders off after the election.

The msm puts Romney under the scope they need to apply the same standard to Obama because they somehow forgot to do it in 2008.

Obama got $126,349 from the two huge taxpayer-backed mortgage traders, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, between 1989 and 2004.

That is mess up considering both those are Government owned. They gave Obama money and both Fanny and Freddy have received bailouts to this day.

Talk about really messed up it is criminal.

reply to post by OutKast Searcher

Oh yes...Obama caused the housing market collapse

Well we know it sure the hell hasn't recovered in the 3 and half years since he has been on the job

Why should I be surprised, you guys think he is responsible for every negative thing in history...I'm sure he is partially responsible for the slave trade as well.

Why not? blaming Bush sure worked last time hey if people have problems holding the current potus to the same standards that were set for the last one,well tough.

Yes handing out a free government check for a vote is slavery.

It's funny how hard people have to try to pin a negative on Obama...and trying to do this to make Romney look better

Obama does the best job of making Obama look bad rather easy to link and make a thread exposing him for the fraud he is,.

The Buycks-Roberson settlement was a jackpot for Obama and his political allies.

“When you follow the civil-rights law, it makes the pie bigger for everyone,” Clayton told TheDC.

The deal provided $360,000 to a few hundred African-American plaintiffs who got payouts ranging from $770 to $3,250 each, plus a promise of Citigroup’s help when seeking new mortgages. Buycks-Roberson and two other lead plaintiffs got an extra $20,000 each.

The law firms split $950,000.

This is a clear example of how they take economic prisoners by the millions and only release one at a time !!

All that grief and BeeEss for a few hundred dollars worth of pigeon splat.

All while the Marxist / Corporatist hierarchies make big lump sums.

This was going on all over the country at that time.

The public got set up.


A new rattle segment grows each time the rattlesnake sheds its skin

Obama is just a better educated and more polished group division shake down merchant than the likes of Sharpton

reply to post by OutKast Searcher




pathetic, good little serf- have you taken the time to study Obama, his record in these things is abysmal, worse than any piddling over whether Ron Paul believes in evolution for crying out loud

This thread actually made me chuckle out loud. I think what Obama has done is turned everyone on their heads. Looking on from the outside it's hilarious. If a republican had done this democrats would be outraged and republicans would say so what he's a lawyer and that's how it goes. But because he carries a (D) the republicans are suddenly the working poor champions and admonishing someone's ability to earn a high wage and the democrats are all so what that's how it goes.

Originally posted by Kali74
This thread actually made me chuckle out loud. I think what Obama has done is turned everyone on their heads. Looking on from the outside it's hilarious. If a republican had done this democrats would be outraged and republicans would say so what he's a lawyer and that's how it goes. But because he carries a (D) the republicans are suddenly the working poor champions and admonishing someone's ability to earn a high wage and the democrats are all so what that's how it goes.

So no opinion regarding Obama's involvement in Chicago's mess?? Your post is a little misleading because you say dems. would be outraged if this was a republican in Obama's shoes. So, Dems are NOT outraged because this is Obama with D next to his name. Are you defending Obama's record? None of you have yet to take a stab at defending it. Why is that??

Your post is quite amusing. The evidence is quite clear regarding Obama's involvement and the paybacks that he cashed in down the road. Reality is bitter! Obama is a Charlatan.

Did you even read the article? 8 or so pages of well documented evidence...

reply to post by jibeho


What I think is that banks will never really be held accountable for the horrible things they do. I remember writing threads or participating in threads when Occupy was new and trying to bring attention to these issues and several of you taking the position of no one forced anyone to sign mortgages or home loans even when it came to cases where loan officers copy/pasted signatures on false financial statements that would cause lending to those who had no hope of paying when after a few years and tens of thousands of dollars later they had no hope of making those payments when the interest rates would skyrocket.

You didn't seem to have an issue then, nor did you and others have an issue with how much the lawyers made when they won the class action suit for 25 billion which equaled to about 2500 dollars per family involved. But now that Obama's appeared to have done it you have an issue. I don't think should the story be true, that Obama did anything illegal, he was a lawyer.

The banks however...but that's a dead end street isn't it? Obama and every other level of government protects the banks and that is not okay in my book and that ultimately is the real issue to me. You're not interested in the real issue though, it's only a new bone to squabble over. Democrats and Republicans both suck and both are dirty. I guess I find feigned moral outrage amusing.

reply to post by Kali74


I don't have to support Occupy to be disgusted with the housing/mortgage collapse that has crippled this nation. I lost a good job back in 2006 as a result of the collapse. To this day there are still very little signs of recovery in my former line of work. I just moved forward and will never look back.

On that same angle, my lack of support for Occupy does not mean I support what happened in housing either. Occupy is irrelevant in regards to what Obama has built his career on. Perhaps Occupy can take this evidence to DC and march on the WH. Is Occupy still around? or are they saving what little the have left for election season?

The purpose of this thread is to illuminate Obama's record and his do as I say not as I do approach to running this nation into the ground. All of this was either buried or ignored in 2008. Obama perpetuated the subprime mortgage scam throughout his Chicagoland stomping grounds and cashed in his chips in the aftermath.

reply to post by jibeho


You think Occupy didn't highlight Obama's protection of the banks? It's amazing to me that after all this time people are still so thickheaded as to believe we're really just a re-election outfit. The MSM and the right wing media circuit are true masters of their craft. That's okay though it's a good new light on an old dog, I'll give you that and at least you were angry about it before this came out.

reply to post by Kali74


Early on they did, but that message was soon lost when the focus shifted to individuals and bankers and executives etc etc The focus got personal when the focus should have been on the govt from day one. The govt. created the atmosphere that allowed all of this to happen in the first place. It was the govt. that strongarmed the buyouts of specific banks by other banks while the govt. made the decision to close other banks altogether. The govt. got into the business of picking the winners and losers. The govt. pushed the subprime packages etc etc

Then of course the focus kept morphing with the passing of each and every day. Now nothing is left but a blur.