I am still amazed when I hear comments that the U.S. housing bubble started in this decade. In November 2001, I presented a paper at an investment conference in London in one of many attempts from 1997 on to warn Americans and the global financial community about what was happening:
Solutions begin with the truth. Mortgage fraud did not begin with George W. Bush. It did not begin with the Clinton administration or with the first Bush administration. Nor did financing America with genocide begin with bringing narcotics into American cities after WWII. Remember, the land you and I live on was settled by killing and pushing off those who were here when our ancestors arrived. Much of the capital used to build this country was pooled through the use of slave labor and warfare.
It is essential to understand that U.S. mortgage fraud has a very old and deep history. For those of us who cleaned up mortgage fraud in 1989, Iran-Contra was not just about HUD fraud. It was about getting money to fund American power.
Some things never change.