Fortis Bank SA/NV was a large Dutch-Belgian banking and insurance conglomerate, the 20th largest revenue-generating company in the world in 2007. It assumed a conspicuous degree of debt-driven ‘underwater status’ during the global financial crisis – and ended up receiving billions in bailouts from various government entities, including the U.S.
Bloomberg Nov 28, 2011 : “Fortis Bank SA/NV, the banking unit of Brussels-based Fortis, was broken up after getting 7.2 billion euros ($10.3 billion) of capital from the governments of Belgium and Luxembourg in September 2008. It was later nationalized. Belgium sold a 75 percent stake in the bank to Paris-based BNP Paribas SA in an all-stock transaction that took seven months to complete. In a 2009 report, Fortis disclosed borrowing as much as 58.7 billion euros from the emergency liquidity lending facilities of the Belgian and Dutch central banks in October 2008. Data show Fortis Bank also tapped the U.S. Federal Reserve’s discount window, taking a $7 billion overnight loan on Sept. 29, 2008, and as much as $26.3 billion in February 2009 from the Commercial Paper Funding Facility and Term Auction Facility.
Peak Amount of Debt on 2/26/2009: $26.3B _____________________________________
The Federal Reserve’s “secret liquidity lifeline” bailouts of U.S. and foreign banks set the stage for a gradual, long-term erosion of the U.S. Dollar.
American citizens indirectly financed those massive ‘free money’ Wall Street financial sector bailouts through a loss of U.S. Dollar purchasing power.
American families deserve nothing less than the same access to credit that U.S. and foreign banks received during the global financial crisis of 2007-2010. It is time to restore American families to economic “health.”
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
“Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends. And whoever has sole control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served, which values are to be rated higher and which lower-in short, what men should believe and strive for.” ― Friedrich Hayek
The United States ranks an embarrassing 20th, globally, in economic freedom. Our U.S. Congress and Federal Reserve have been facilitating economic and social policies which have us rated lower than countries like Estonia, Lithuania, United Arab Emirates and Chile.
The U.S. needsa powerful and dynamic new plan – one which will vault America up into the #1 position.
How would you define a country’s economic freedom?
The cornerstones of economic freedom by most measures are personal choice, voluntary exchange, independence to compete in markets, and security of the person and privately-owned property. Simply put, it is about the quality of political and economic institutions in countries.
Based on the Index of Economic Freedom by the Heritage Organization, we mapped the economic freedom of 178 countries worldwide.
Measures of Economic Freedom
The index uses five broad areas to score economic freedom for each country:
Size of Government: Greater government spending, taxation, and bigger government agencies tend to reduce individual choice and economic freedom.
Legal System and Property Rights: The ability to accumulate private property and wealth is a central motivating force for workers and investors in a market economy, and well-functioning legal frameworks protect the rights of all citizens.
Sound Money: Does earned money maintain its value, or is it lost to inflation? When inflation is high and volatile, individuals can’t plan for the future and use economic freedom effectively.
Freedom to Trade Internationally: Freedom to exchange—in its broadest sense, buying, selling, making contracts, and so on—is considered essential to economic prosperity. Limited international trading options significantly reduce the potential for growth.
Regulation: When governments utilize tools and impose oppressive regulations that limit the right to exchange, economic freedom typically suffers.
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The Leviticus 25 Plan will dramatically reduce the ‘size of government,’ elevate the levels of financial security and property rights for all Americans. It will eliminate federal budget deficits promote sound money policies for the U.S., and it will reduce the necessity of oppressive policies and regulations related to government-driven social policies.
The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens. It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.
The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
In January, Democrats plan to bring back the so-called Build Back Better Bill. If your Congressman, your Senator vote for it, that vote says everything you need to know about who she/he represents. And it is not you.
Here is what your Congressmen and Senators say the bill costs: $1,750,000,000,000.
However, the permanent cost—as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office—to fund this pork-filled so-called Build Back Better Bill is up to $4,730,000,000,000.
So much for the president’s claim that this bill is “free” or “costs nothing.” Do the politicians really think we are that stupid?
Try to even imagine what $1 trillion—$1,000,000,000,000—is. We all know what a day is, what a year is. Instead of dollars, let’s think in terms of trillions of days. How many years are one trillion days?
2.7 billion years. 2,700,000,000. That is a lot of lifetimes!
If your trillion-touting Congressman and Senator vote for this bill, here is how they want to spend your present and future tax dollars.
This billgives tax breaks to reporters, the media, unions, and trial attorneys. The bill-voting Congressman and Senators, obviously, believe it is more important to give tax breaks to reporters, the media, unions, trial attorneys than to plumbers, truck drivers, etc.—than to you, than to cut your tax dollars. This is a clear statement of who they really represent. And Mr. and Ms. Taxpayer Voter—it is not you.
If your Congressman, if your Senator vote for this bill, they have voted to give rich taxpayers in states like California, Illinois, and New York a big tax break. Again, not you.
If your Congressman, if your Senator vote for this bill, they are targeting small businesses. The bill increasing the occupational safety penalties (this is hard to believe) 10 times to $700,000 per violation. $700,000? It would break many businesses. If you, Mr. and Ms. Small Business Owner, do not follow the vaccine regulations you’re bankrupt.
Ronald Reagan stated, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
This bill brings those terrifying words into reality. With this bill, your Congressman, your Senator voted to give the EPA $7 billion to employ a “climate corps.” Really? $7,000,000,000. That’s enough to fund an army of climate corps cops. If this bill passes, be prepared. That $7 billion climate corps army has to have something to do. The local climate cop will be on your doorstep surveying your carbon footprint.
Items as irresponsible as the above fill every page of this 2,466-page bill. All with lots of zeros. 2,466 pages… when is the last time you read 10 books?
Think of the price pain you are already feeling at the gas pump, in the grocery store. If this bill passes, that price pain will become more painful. Wait until you receive your heating bill this winter. This bill will accelerate the inflation price pain for a long time.
Your vote counts. Call, e-mail your Congressman. Call, e-mail your Senator. Ask why they voted for the bill. Will they vote for the bill? Ask them if they read this 2,466-page, 10-book bill. In all likelihood, few, if any, Congressmen or Senators read this bill, especially those who voted for the bill or will vote for it. To find your Congressman’s or Senator’s phone number and e-mail address, go to www.house.gov or www.senate.gov.
If your Congressman, your Senator vote for this bill, that vote says everything you need to know about whether they represent you. About whether they are qualified to remain in office. About whether you should ever vote for them again.
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Our Washington-based Democrat and Republican members of Congress should consider the one and only plan that favors individual citizens, rather than special interest groups… and that will actually reduce government deficits, rather than grow them precipitously… and that reduces dependence on government and restores economic liberty for all Americans
The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens. It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.
The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
Glenn Hubbard, dean of the Columbia Business School and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the George W. Bush presidency,. recently urged that financial crisis interventions should not be limited to banks.
“To be sure, recapitalizing financial institutions was an important element of the policy response. The depletion of capital buffers before the crisis reduced loan supply and exacerbated fire sales of distressed assets once the market collapsed. Cash infusions by the Treasury under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, in concert with the Fed’s bold lender-of-last-resort interventions, blunted the impact of the crisis.
That said, the perceived lack of attention to “Main Street” fed public suspicion of the bailouts. The government appeared to be more interested in addressing the decline in bank capital than the decline in home values. Millions of homeowners who were current in their mortgage payments were unable to refinance at lower interest rates because they were underwater. Yet many of these mortgages were already guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , meaning taxpayers held the credit risk. Banks and investors holding the mortgages would never receive less than par.
The government should have directed a mass refinancing of mortgages for primary homes in which the borrower was current in payments. This would have led to an increase in disposable income and in home prices totaling more than $100 billion, according to a proposal Christopher Mayer and I offered at the time. The Treasury instead offered a tepid version of this with the Home Affordable Modification Program and the Home Affordable Refinance Program. These initiatives lacked the boldness of the bank bailouts, and Americans noticed…”
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Hubbard concluded, “Ten years on, the U.S. still lacks a detailed plan for postcrisis intervention…”
What America really needs, to restore financial health to working families and ‘power up’ economic vitality throughout Main Street America – is a detailed plan for ‘pre-crisis’ intervention.
America needs a comprehensive economic plan that will insulate Main Street America from the next financial crisis and generate massive new tax revenue flows with a powerful, sustainable reduction in government deficits.
America’s new economic plan is currently loaded up and ready to go…
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
The six major Wall Street Banks highlighted below received highly preferential ‘targeted’ liquidity flows from the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve over the past two decades, while at the same time engaging in a long list of criminal activities and lawless practices, including:
• money laundering; • bribery; • massive fraud in the sale of mortgage-backed securities; • credit card and checking account abuses; • foreclosure and debt collection violations; • breaches of fiduciary duty; • antitrust violations; • market manipulation; • enabling Ponzi schemes; and • even violations of election law.
The Special Report below further highlights these details. The $195 billion in sanctions that were levied against these six megabanks were a mere ‘slap on the wrist’ in comparison to the TARP funding, Federal Reserve ‘Secret Liquidity Lifelines’ funding, and access to the Fed’s discount window that they received. Source: bettermarkets.org
WALL STREET’S RAP SHEET Illegal Activity at the Nation’s Six Largest Megabanks Has Continued Since the 2008 Crash
The Leviticus 25 Plan is a powerful economic acceleration plan that ‘levels the playing field’ by granting U.S. citizens that same direct access to liquidity that was provided to major Wall Street banks before, during, and following the great financial crisis (2007-2010).
The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens. It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.
The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
Hypo Real Estate Holding AG, based in Munich, Germany, is a financial enterprise consisting of a group of banks that specialize in real estate financing.
Hypo purchased Ireland-based Debfa Bank in October 2007. Debfa promptly ‘took on water’ in 2008 when a boat load of municipal bonds it had underwritten got downgraded.
Depfa’s heavy debt burdens quickly dragged Hypo down into the debt swamp during the global financial crisis.
And then…..
The U.S. Federal Reserve galloped to the rescue, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, to help bail out Germany-based Hypo in the fall of 2008.
Bloomberg Nov 28, 2011: “Hypo Real Estate Holding AG, a German commercial-property lender with 1,366 employees, borrowed as much as $28.7 billion in November 2008 from the U.S. Federal Reserve through the New York branch of its Depfa Bank Plc unit. That’s about $21 million per employee. It borrowed almost one-third as much as Citigroup Inc., which has 190 times as many employees.
The Fed aid came in addition to 142 billion euros ($206 billion) of emergency credit lines and debt guarantees from German authorities. Hypo, which invested in mortgage-backed securities in the years before the financial crisis, said in a 2009 report that it lost access to short-term funding after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy. Hypo didn’t disclose any Fed borrowings until the loans became public in 2011.”
Peak Amount of Debt on 11/4/2008: $28.7B
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If the U.S. Federal Reserve can rescue foreign financial corporations like Hypo Real Estate Holding ($28.7B in direct liquidity transfusions), from their disastrous investment decision-making – then the Fed can also grant direct liquidity extensions also to American families to help relieve debt burdens and restore the financial health of U.S. citizens.
The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens. It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.
The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
Fan and Fred will buy mortgages up to $1 million, repeating the mistakes that led to the 2008 crash.
By Peter J. Wallison
Wall Street Journal, 11-25-21 – Excerpts:
The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s headquarters in Washington, March 20, 2019.
When the Supreme Court ruled last year that President Trump’s director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency could be removed without cause, many of us who follow housing policy knew what was coming. The next day, the Biden administration replaced the FHFA director, Mark Calabria, with a temporary appointment. Get ready for another housing boom—and bust.
FHFA is the regulator of the two government-backed housing lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mr. Calabria had been working to spin off Fannie and Freddie, hoping to reduce the harm they could do to the economy. But the Biden administration’s replacement immediately reversed course. “There is a widespread lack of affordable housing and access to credit, especially in communities of color,” said Acting Director Sandra Thompson. “It is FHFA’s duty through our regulated entities to ensure that all Americans have equal access to safe, decent, and affordable housing.”
This was no surprise. In an earlier pursuit of affordable housing, begun during the Clinton administration, Fannie and Freddie had brought down the U.S. housing market by reducing down payments and loosening underwriting standards.
By June 2008, the two government-backed housing lenders had acquired 16.5 million subprime or otherwise risky mortgages, with a principal amount of $2.5 trillion, and created an unprecedented housing bubble. When that bubble burst, it caused the 2008 financial crisis, the worst since the Great Depression.
With a Democratic president now in charge, it seems clear that the GSEs will once again be deployed—as they were before 2008—as instruments of the government’s efforts to increase affordable housing.
But this time there’s a more ominous twist. This newspaper has reported that the GSEs will also intervene in a market that doesn’t need any help—homes priced up to $1 million. The problem the administration sees is that housing and rental prices are too high. The fact that the administration’s own policies have caused an inflationary trend in housing along with food, energy and gasoline, among others, is no deterrent……
But the government’s lower underwriting standards drive down standards for private lenders, too. Banks and other mortgage lenders—if they want to stay in the business—have to offer their mortgages on similar terms. People who own homes then dive into the market to take advantage of the low down payments, and housing prices rise even faster. This encourages cash-out mortgages, in which homeowners reduce the equity in their homes, sometimes to buy a boat.
The process goes on for years until prices are so high that sales growth falls and homeowners can’t sell their homes to pay off their mortgages. Housing prices then collapse, mortgages go unpaid. Banks, other lenders, and even Fannie and Freddie incur losses and another financial crisis begins.
Americans would know all of this if Democrats in Congress, the media, and the Obama administration had not blamed the 2008 crisis on insufficient regulation. Instead of fixing housing finance, and privatizing or eliminating Fannie and Freddie, Democrats gave us the Dodd-Frank Act and a more intrusive government. Those who refused to acknowledge the true cause of the 2008 financial crisis are now on the way to repeating it.
Mr. Wallison is a senior fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute and author of “Hidden In Plain Sight: What Really Caused the World’s Worst Financial Crisis and Why It Could Happen Again.”
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“Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.” – President Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981
Rather than re-instituting failed policies, that continually ‘grow government,’ America needs policies that will reduce our government’s footprint, and scale back dependence on government largess, particularly when that generosity in bestowing money targets already wealthy Americans.
America doesn’t need another round of GSEs underwriting mountains of risky debt. It needs a plan that will improve the financial wherewithal of American families, and raise the quality of debt that flows within the structure of a free market economy.
The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens. It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.
The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
““However human, envy is certainly not one of the sources of discontent that a free society can eliminate. It is probably one of the essential conditions for the preservation of such a society that we do not countenance envy, not sanction its demands by camouflaging it as social justice, but treat it, in the words of John Stuart Mill, as ‘the most anti-social and evil of all passions.’” – Friedrich von Hayek, 1974 Nobel Prize, Economic Sciences
BNP Paribas is the largest bank in the Eurozone and 10th largest bank worldwide. The French bank is headquartered in Paris, with global headquarters in London. It owns subsidiaries all over the world, including BankWest in the U.S..
“BNP Paribas escaped the 2007–09 credit crisis relatively unscathed reporting a €3 billion net profit for the year of 2008, and €5.8 billion for 2009.” (Source: Wikipedia)
“TARP Recipient BNP Paribas got $4.9bn of bailouts from the U.S. Taxpayer – Today, as the WSJ reports we learn BNP Paribas has been funding transactions in Iran, Syria and other countries subject to U.S. Sanctions since 2002. The bank set aside $1.1 billion to settle investigations by the Department of Justice and the Federal Reserve but as the NY Times reports, investigations are playing out on multiple fronts – centering on whether the firm did “a significant amount” of business in “blacklisted” countires (and routed the deals through the US financial system).”
Via WSJ, – “…an internal probe conducted over the past few years “a significant volume of transactions” between 2002 and 2009 that could be “considered impermissible under U.S. laws and regulations...” “involving entities that were doing business in U.S.-sanctioned countries, such as Iran, Cuba, Sudan and Libya during the 2002 to 2009 period.
“BNP Paribas SA on Thursday became the latest bank to disclose the extent of its litigation problems in the U.S., saying it has set aside $1.1 billion against potential penalties related to transactions in countries under sanctions...
Oct. 19, 2011 (Bloomberg) — “BNP Paribas SA was sued by the U.S. over allegations the Paris-based bank aided a grain export fraud scheme involving commodity payment guarantees provided by the Department of Agriculture.
A corporate banker in BNP’s Houston office allegedly helped a scheme that defrauded the Agriculture Department of at least $78 million through deals he made with four U.S. grain exporters, according to a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Houston.”
“The credit crisis accelerated after BNP Paribas SA, France’s biggest bank, announced in August 2007 that it would halt withdrawals from three funds because mortgage-market turmoil “made it impossible” to value certain assets. BNP began taking Federal Reserve loans in December 2007 when the Term Auction Facility opened.
By April 2008, its Fed debt reached $29.3 billion. In 2009, BNP became the euro region’s largest bank by deposits, purchasing Brussels-based Fortis’s units in Belgium and Luxembourg for 10.4 billion euros ($15.2 billion). It issued 5.1 billion euros of preference shares to the French government in March 2009, and reimbursed the state by October. In December 2010, when the Fed disclosed the loans, BNP said it used the TAF “to assist in recycling and facilitating liquidity.”
Peak Amount of Debt on 4/18/2008: $29.3B
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BNP Paribas received $4.9 billion in TARP funds from the U.S., and they went on to rake in a tidy $29.3 billion credit extension from the Fed via the Term Auction Facility… “to assist in recycling and facilitating liquidity.”
They were meanwhile funding significant transactions (Bloomberg) “involving entities that were doing business in U.S.-sanctioned countries, such as Iran, Cuba, Sudan and Libya during the 2002 to 2009 period.” And they ran a “grain export fraud scheme” which ‘cooked’ the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a cool $78 million.
The $64,000 question: If BNP Paribas is deserving of direct cash infusions from the U.S. government and the Fed, then would it not be perfectly reasonable for U.S. citizens to also qualify for their own direct credit extensions “to assist in recycling and facilitating liquidity” at the family level.
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The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
