To understand one of the main reasons why the economy has slumped along at a snail's pace for the last five years, one only needs to consider the announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday morning. The titular head of the New Black Panthers announced that the United States Department of Justice was going to pursue criminal prosecutions against U.S. banks. This announcement underscores the fear induced in the economy by an administration that uses intimidation to advance an anti-capitalist agenda. It is also eerily reminiscent of the Janet Reno Department of Justice that threatened banks with criminal prosecution unless they made more sub-prime loans to persons who would never be able to pay them back, thus accelerating the conditions that lead to the financial crisis of 2008.
The prosecutorial form of governance practiced by Barack Obama and his thugs in the executive branch, has caused a fear of expansion among businesses, and a fear among banks of loaning money to fuel economic growth. This government cleaver at the ready over the heads of banks who must now conform to the thousands of new regulations spawned by Dodd/Frank, and the thousands yet to come, has caused a slump in loan making.
The very practice which caused the financial meltdown of 2008, i.e. the sub-prime loan market, has been encouraged by federal regulators in order to please the social engineers in the White House. The fact that Democrats were able to force banks to make loans to unqualified borrowers to fulfill some twisted and nefarious sense of "fairness," and get away with it once, means they have been encouraged to keep engaging in the practice.
Democrats were more surprised than anyone that they were not fully blamed for the out-of-control sub-prime loan market which was the impetus for the financial crisis. Even Bill Clinton, on Morning In America in early October of 2008, said Democrats had to take responsibility for the financial collapse because they thwarted efforts by himself and George W. Bush to reform the bad actor agencies at the epicenter of the crisis, i.e. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Of course former President Clinton never tried to reform the agencies and his statement was an attempt to distance himself from the crisis.
It was not long after the meltdown that the Community Reinvestment Act, which began the practices that lead to the crisis, was operating at full steam. And with a new president who had no compunction about using the full power of the federal government to force loans by banks to those who could not afford them, the stage is being set for another crisis.
Attorney General Holder's zeal to prosecute banks for behavior that Democrats in congress, the Clinton Department of Justice, and banking regulators encouraged and required, is analogous to a parent punishing a child for cleaning his room, taking out the trash, and eating all his peas. These frivolous prosecutions are almost as bad as the Holder Department of Justice threatening banks with discrimination investigations unless they paid hundreds of millions of dollars in "protection" money to his criminal enterprise that passes for the Department of Justice. The aforementioned practiced was discovered a couple of years ago, but did not make even the slightest ripple on the sewage laden pond that passes for a media in this country.
There can be no question why the economy has never really recovered from the Great Recession. Mountains of regulations from the bureaucratic branch of government as a result of opened ended legislation like Dodd/Frank and The Affordable Care Act, as well as intimidation of industry through frivolous prosecution like the kind announced by Attorney General Holder, has stifled growth and suffocated the very economic freedom for which our founders fought a revolution.
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