Financial Crisis: Big Development Loans, Big Banks & Political Cronies

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Having just read an article about how the Keating Five/McCain scandal was about a loan for Keating's then new strip mall, for which Cindy McCain and her father loaned $400K, I was reinforced about my hunch re: Big Development, bad loans and the present crashing economy.

The "experts" are constantly talking about the subprime mortgage problem, how that impacts housing prices, credit and bad "housing" investments. Do you really think all those investments that brought down Wall St. giants like Bear Stearns, AIG and Merrill were for mom and pop homes?

I don't. I think many of the "derivatives" and bad loans are for the huge developments that we see ruining our farmland and American heritage. While I'm sure there are some bad housing loans that contributed to this debacle, I suspect the latest building boom of the late '90s and early 2000's is fueled on the get-rich-quick development schemes of greedy investment banks and big developers colluding with just=as=greedy politicians. And now we're going to bail out those banks and developers whose deals went bad? :puke:

I agree with Obama that "we have to save Main St" but I certainly do not think we should save the big investment banks and their Big Development cronies for huge developments that went bad and environmentally and socially speaking, should never have been built in the first place. The huge apt. towers, evermore shopping malls, suburban developments crammed along our roads and highways that used to be scenic---much of this, I suspect, is due to loans designed to benefit greedy developers, loans going bad over the past couple of years. And of course, they would need politicians to pave the way for these developments by ignoring air, water and wildlife protection laws.

It's not just mom and pop going under by getting a mortgage they couldn't afford. It's also the greedy bastards who are overbuilding. Some enterprising reporters should get on this and bring this scandal to light.

[ThomWV]

1. I have been ranting to my son and wife about part of what you said for a couple of years.

The building boom that I have been watching is absurd. I have been watching excess housing being built in the form of massive complexes of apartments which are not being filled and with no hope of being filled - and the construction continues. At the same time the generally poorly built structures are being put up the heritage of the nation is being torn down.

The closest town to of of any size worth mentioning has had its rental housing double or triple in the last 5 years and its population increase by about 15%. It is absurd. Now I see that at many of the sites where construction was not finished this summer that work seems to have stopped.

The same town now has 3 malls. The "Old Mall" which is now completely empty, looked like it would get a second life when Wal Mart built a store on its property but they pulled up and built another store just 2 miles away and that was it. The second Mall is half empty, its about 8 years old. The "New Mall" which I refer to as the Moon because of its appearance (landscaping never even begun) has already had stores going out of business.

Someone invested in all of this nonsense and you can bet big loans were involved. These are failures in progress.

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2. when I visited Jebbie's Florida, wetlands laws were being totally ignored as

huge developments just razed the land and the developers were diverting wetlands everywhere to build ponds for the golf courses. Within a few months of my visit, the housing prices started going down in FL due to the overbuilding. It makes me sick and the thought of bailing out BushCo cronies makes me sicker. They should be in jail instead.