Commentary
Feedback to ‘Protecting banks not borrowers’
By Jerry Mazza and Walter Burien
Online Journal Associate Editor and Guest Writer


Aug 6, 2008, 00:20

In my article Protecting banks not borrowers, I reported, “Fannie [Mae] and Freddy [Mac] hold about half the country’s $12 trillion in housing debt. So giving the helm [of both] to the government, the taxpayer, and not a private entity is great idea,” referring to William Greider’s idea of doing that. My reader and friend Walter Burien wrote back that I’d missed the real Big Issue. Well, I’m never too old to learn or listen, so here’s Burien’s astute appraisal . . .

Important feedback from Walter

Fanny and Freddie are federal “enterprise” operations. That means they are owned by the federal government as quasi private government operations and as such their equity and accounting are not included in the general government accounting. They are listed as such in the federal Consolidated Annual Financial Statement appendix section at the bottom.

Here is the big point you missed: being that Fanny and Freddie are government enterprise operations, they were almost exclusively used to funnel massive amounts of “local” and “federal” government investment funds into a “place” where the funds became “invisible” to the public (some six trillion dollars). Also, with these funds (as well as the profits or losses generated from them) being invisible to the public, the potential for abuse was wide open for government players on the inside track.

Shaky real estate spec ventures and conflict of interest transactions (valued at hundreds of billions of dollars) were rolled over for the quick buck made by many of the inside players, leaving Fanny and Freddie holding the bag along with a few trillion dollars of standing local and federal government investments hurting. So, the real questions you and the rest of the public need to ask are:

1. What is the complete comprehensive listing of “end-line” investors with Fanny and Freddie?

2. Who was behind the quick money speculative rollover grab that profited from inside track trading within Fanny and Freddie that effectively raped equity from the funds? The senators, judges, congressmen, and other politicians involved in setting up or involved with the easy plunder of Fanny and Freddie need to get their butts thrown into prison. Especially for those transactions involving international spec ventures that defaulted, allowing the culprits to directly or covertly walk with millions.

3. What and where is the comprehensive listing of defaults over the last five years that shows the most suspect fraudulent transactions, so that the investigation list of players involved can be tracked down, indicted, arrested, and prosecuted?

The above three questions are the core issues involved in Fanny and Freddie.

One last question: I wonder how many times the names of Bush, Rumsfeld, Chaney, Wolfowitz, Haliburton, and the like appear within the listing of large default transactions wherein they were directly or covertly involved and profited?

Plunder is sweet to the plunderer, unless there is accountability and consequences to those involved. So far those involved with the plundering since September of 2001 have been laughing their a--es off all the way to the bank, each and every day, without noticeable consequences.

We all should not feel too guilty for allowing this to happen since 2001. The plundering, death, rape, and stripping of the treasury taking place here, there, and everywhere unabated, has happened, seeing how we have all been so masterfully entertained and media-sound-bite-managed to not have had the comprehension to stop it from happening.

When real consequences occur for the plunderers, then it will stop. Talk will not do it. False reliance on someone else will not do it. Financial plunderers from within government or outside of it are the same ilk of punks, no matter how intelligent or influential they may be.

By their acts, they establish what and who they are. If the honest man can or will not stop them from their acts, then the plunderers will continue unabated. They have done so, so far, to greater and lesser degrees for millenniums. Easy money taken over the centuries is truly the root of all evil.

The next target in the crosshairs of the plunderers, as they play out “the sky is falling” entertainment routine on the public, is Iran. If and when they move on that next step for plunder, it is do-wha-ditty time for consequences to them. Dealing out those consequences should become a very personal issue for all of us. No other issue is of greater importance.

True consequences to the plunderers should have been levied years ago but were not. So the beat goes on unabated. When it is stopped cold in its tracks is when it will end. When you let the weeds grow in your garden, in no time you no longer have a garden, just very big weeds. These financial weeds have grown at our expense and learned to laugh their a--es off all the way to the bank as they trample over what used to be our garden.

Don’t blame the weeds. Weeds will be weeds. Take responsibility as the owner of the garden. A good gardener knows how to eliminate weeds from his garden’ a bad one does not. Time for all of us to stock up on weed pullers and most importantly, have the will and knowledge of how to use them . . .

And there’s more . . .

Let me note for you one more big point that I did not put in my first email. Enterprise operations are established in places where they do not have taxing authority to make good on any pledges. Thus per these financial enterprise operations, the investments are “unsecured” to the government investors. The risk of total loss is thus assumed.

Through this tactic, local and federal governments write off the investment when made and thus the investment “disappears” from their balance sheets. This is a very convenient way of hiding money, big money. The annual investment income though must be disclosed in their balance sheets. An audit of the standing end-line investors is a big MUST-DO. It is all so telling in many an aspect, and that is why they never will allow it to happen.

Back to Jerry

So you know who Walter Burien is to be sounding off about these issues, here is a bit of his resume: Former CTA (commodity trading advisor) 1978-92; traded the futures market 1978-2008 (for30 years) . . . former tenant, WTC-1, 1978-90. National Sales Manager - Money Managers Verified Ratings; US Trading Championship; US Investing Championship 1982-1992 . . . Owner of three US Patents in Telecommunications and Energy Production . . . Incorporator 1990 of: Hands Across New Jersey, a political action group . . . Founder of: CAFR1.com, a site devoted to bringing forward disclosure as to government’s takeover of our wealth, and how it was done. Government now owns it “all” by investment, 1998-2008.

Still breathing and presently living in Arizona after almost 20 years of rocking the boat for exposure of severe financial corruption, which includes confronting bullies, liars, corrupt politicians, judges, attorneys.

Bottom line

Walter Burien, as a seasoned and accomplished member of the financial community, makes some startling accusations about Fannie and Freddy. They bear your investigation, if not some congressional committee’s. You can find out more about his thinking and his evidence at his site linked above. I thank him for writing and amplifying our knowledge.