I couldn't quite get my head around it all. Even the Declaration of Independence originally stated Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property. How in the world did we go from real estate boom to bust so fast? I talked to countless numbers of people who are upside down on their homes and simply can't get out. I suppose better to have one than not, but only in some cases because the upside down amounts are so astronomical some people may be better off without them. With those continual thoughts, I started digging. I didn't want to hear from CNN, MSNBC, FOX (FUX as some call it), NBC, etc, I wanted to dig a little deeper and boy did I find what I was looking for or perhaps what I wasn't looking for thanks to Charles Gasparino's Bought and Paid For: The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street.

Going back to 1998, I was 24 and had only recently become a home owner. I never focused much on high ranking lawmakers, although several of my Ivy League class mates told me I should get into politics. I did however recall President Clinton saying he wanted to increase home ownership in America from 60 to 70%. I figured that sounded really nice and at a then number of 270 million people, about 100 million of them owning homes, a 10% increase would mean about 10 million more homes. When homes are bought, it puts people to work because home owners go to Home Depot, Lowes, Wal-Mart, Bed, Bath & Beyond, etc but we're getting off track, you get the point. So Clinton created legislation that helped put people, especially minorities in homes by guaranteeing home loans based off the full faith and credit of the USA with the goal of increasing the American Dream of home ownership. Wall Street salivated by saying, "Borrow the money from us so we can make huge fees."  With organizations like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guaranteeing loans to help Little Suzzie who makes $18K a year become a homeowner, banks were much more willing to lend. What they didn't account for was every bank getting in on sweeps week and new mortgage companies popping up out of nowhere or the fact that Little Suzzie was being coerced into a $300k home.

With so many new homes being sold, that squeezed the competition which drove prices through the roof. Meanwhile, back in Lower Manhattan, investors said I have another money making idea. Since Suzzie has to pay $2k a month, or $24k a year (forget she only makes 18k annually for the moment), why don't I sell her stream of payments from her brick house to investors in another BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) house. That way they will get 24k a year for thirty years. I'll sell it to them for let's say $100k. I will call the investment a mortgage backed security and China will be my biggest buyer. A few years later Jun Tao of China realized instead of getting $24k a year, Suzzie wasn't making all her payments and he was only getting $3k. Angry, he called back to Wall Street and this is what he heard, "doo-dooo-dooooo, I'm sorry, the number you have dialed has been temporarily disconnected. If you feel you have reached this recording in error". Now Jun Tao wants to karaticize Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bear Stearns, Bank of America, etc but he's too late because they're protected under a clause called Too Big to Fail.

So we fast forward a few years and now it's Dubya Bush's helm. Instead of his administration putting a stop to the madness, his policies greased the skids in favor of the superrich and as a final departing act, he wrote the code to bail out Wall Street of all those long distance angry callers.   That brings us to President Obama. In order for him to win the White House, he needed big money which we all know he didn't have because as I understand it now First Lady Michelle was carrying the load. Big government loving Wall St didn't like Hillary Clinton because she wouldn't totally commit to them. John McCain "publically" hated Wall St and they hated his brilliant running mate who could spot Russia from her house and that left super intelligent, great orator of our time, Senator Obama. Stuck between a rock and a hard place he allowed Wall Street to fund his campaign as many politicians do which essentially was making a deal with the devil unfortunately but he did and he won. Today, the country and your mortgage is in a mess because Little Suzzy defaulted, the Wall Street greedy now sleeps on Capitol Hill and the banks got another round of billions, either that or have President Obama be responsible for the second Great Depression.

They were supposed to help Little Suzzie get her mortgage back in order but since the government gave them billions of tax payer dollars, they said Little Suzzie's living with her mother now so she doesn't need the money. We'll just give ourselves a few billion in bonuses, devalue our assets so we have to pay less taxes, and instead of helping out small businesses which are the driving force of the economy, we're going to do something else. We will invest the money in ourselves again and say screw the cash cow, tax paying middle and poor classes. We borrowed government money at close to zero percent interest so we're going to put the money into the Treasury bond market where we'll get higher interest rates which will fund our yachts. No, no, not that yacht, we paid for that one in 04', this one which has two helipads is for our summer home, not the one in the Hamptons, the one in Monarch Beach, CA the place where we caused Orange County to go bankrupt in 94' and now home to people like Kobe Bryant who was a kid while the real ballers were balling.  

OK, Mr. Mickle, that sounds great but when the heck is my house going to come from underneath all this water so I can move?   Well, I'm not sure. What I can tell you is when you don't understand something follow the money trail. That trail doesn't start on Wall Street, it starts in Washington and regardless of how much they bash each other in public, they are a lot chummier than you may think. My best advice is to do what billionaire business mogul Ted Leonsis and I did which is make a dream sheet and work diligently towards crossing off each item over time.  Meanwhile, I have an upcoming meeting with the Wall Street elite to rap about riding the next wave before it hits the beach.   I like President Obama but he's going to have to be even more astute about his Wall Street advisors if he wants another term.  It's best that I stay away from politics because somebody might offer me a lot of money...and I might just take it:>).