Wall Street Bailouts

by Mark S. McGrew

Photo: Wall Street Bailouts

Any business that has to depend on tax write-offs, or bailouts or any other benefits from a government agency should not even be in business. Why should I have to pay for someone’s incompetence or fraud?

If they are incompetent, they should be put out of business. If they commit fraud, they should be put in jail. That goes for everybody, businessmen, newscasters, politicians, school teachers, priests. Anybody!

Trust is what makes civilization function. When that trust is destroyed, lives are destroyed and in turn a functional society is destroyed.

98% of Americans are totally against the Wall Street bailout. It is a license to defraud. American people, contrary to some articles I have read here recently are good, decent, honest, law abiding citizens who respect all cultures. And I can prove it, right here, right now:

When a Life Insurance company sells a small life insurance policy, under $100,000, they do not ask for a doctor’s physical examination of the goods they are insuring. They take the applicant’s word that he is in good health. If most applicants were lying, the insurance company would go broke. It is that simple.

Our politicians do have some serious defects in their mental capacities. The State of Delaware, about 15 years ago passed a law that the Legislature can lie. There is no crime and no punishment for lying by Delaware legislators. The only thing that backs American money is: “The full faith and trust of the United States of America.” When that trust is gone, our economy is gone. Our dollar bills are gone. Our respect among Nations, what’s left of it, vaporizes.

Our corporate CEOs are dismantling America’s corporations by lying, stealing, producing faulty products and anything else they can conjure up, with no penalties. LaSalle Law School, for over twenty years has taught that crime is acceptable, depending on the price to pay against what you earned. Fifteen years ago, America Online internet provider, double billed 12 million customers and got caught. The penalty? $250,000. The reward? Twelve million customers times $12 made them $144,000,000. Minus the $250,000 fine.

In 1974, the largest bank in the State of Delaware, was committing fraud against its borrowers. The fraud was on the customer’s loans. Credit Life Insurance is a type of life insurance that is used to pay off a person’s loan if that person dies. The maximum amount of Credit Life Insurance that any one person could have on their loan, regardless of the amount of the loan or the number of loans, was $20,000. That means if a person were to borrow money to buy a car for $15,000 and then buy a boat for $15,000, Credit Life Insurance, even though $30,000 worth of premiums were being paid, would only have to pay off $20,000, which would mean the person’s wife would have to pay off the other $10,000. This was free money for the Life Insurance Company and the Bank, since the Bank was earning a commission from the premiums paid by their customers.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of customers were paying premiums for insurance that would never be paid in the event of their death. Many customers had hundreds of thousands of dollars of worthless insurance, even though they were paying the premiums.

A young man in the life insurance business discovered this “error” and notified the President and the CEO of the bank. They both told him to mind his own business. He pointed out to them that it was his business because family and friends of his were going to lose their homes and businesses if someone died and no insurance was paid. He was told to leave the bank and not come back.

He went to the Insurance Commissioner of the State of Delaware and was told to mind his own business. The State of Delaware owned 50% of that bank.

The 23 year old man went to the Attorney General of Delaware and was told the same thing. He went to the several newspapers in Delaware and they told him the same thing.

He went to newspapers in Washington, DC, Philadelphia and Baltimore. After the newspapers made a few phone calls, they told him that he could be arrested for libel and slander.

About to give up, this man was walking in New York City one day, passed a small dirty newspaper office and went in and told his story. They printed it.

Then the Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia papers printed it. There was a run on the bank. Depositors lined up to take their money out. The bank’s stock fell from $32 a share to $3 and trading was suspended.

The Bank closed and 55 executives went to court and were banned for life from working in a bank. Some went to jail. The State of Delaware lost a lot of their own money and State employees had to go for weeks without getting paid.

This was Farmer’s Bank of the State of Delaware, one of the oldest in the state and Delaware was the first State to ratify the United States Constitution. After 200 years of conscientious management of their customer’s money, the bank ceased to exist. Because of one year of fraud.

Such was the price of committing fraud. And in the end, the only people who were hurt were the crooked bank officers and the crooked State employees who tried to hide the fraud.

In 1986, a young man in the investment business in Denver, Colorado, got a call from a very large stock brokerage firm, EF Hutton. The broker and the man had a mutual client. The broker wanted the man to send him a check for $20,000, “just to place it on the books” for the client to “help her in a tax mater”. The man told him he didn’t have $20,000 and the broker told him, “No problem, we aren’t even going to deposit your check and you can have it back next week. We just need to show the transaction so Mrs. Reynolds can cut her tax burden”.

The entire conversation was tape recorded by the man. The broker was too arrogant and ignorant of the law to suppose such a thing might be done against him.

The man took the broker the check, again tape recording the meeting, getting the broker’s promise not to deposit the check.

A week later the broker called the man, said his check had bounced and if he did not make it good in 24 hours, big bad all mighty EF Hutton was going to sue him for stock fraud.

This was the final taped call. All tape recordings were given to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI men could not believe what they were hearing and told the man, “Thank you”.

About three months later the FBI held a press conference on the steps of EF Hutton, informing the public that EF Hutton had been investigated based on an anonymous tip, their offices were raided and the company was shut down. Not just in Denver, but every office including the headquarters in New York City. Such was the price of fraud.

From the tape recordings, the FBI recognized that a larger problem may exist and through their investigation, found that EF Hutton, one of the loftiest of brokerage houses on Wall Street, was kiting checks. In other words, when a client gave EF Hutton a check, EF Hutton would spend the money, before the check cleared and demand that their local bank cover it. The banks, all across the USA, went along with the fraud, they said because, “It’s EF Hutton, they wouldn’t do anything illegal.” In reality, they went along because EF Hutton was a big depositor and the banks did not want to lose their business. Crooked brokers suffered and crooked bankers suffered, many of whom found a new home in the Federal Penitentiary. The “economy” did just fine without them.

When politicians talk about damage to the economy, “If we don’t bail out Wall Street”, they are talking about their political friend’s economy, not ours.

The current “crisis” on Wall Street is not the fault of the American citizens. It is intentional defrauding by certain business people, politicians, political advisers, the press and the major network newscasters. They are the ones who should suffer. Not us. They are the ones whose reputation should be destroyed. Not ours.

Having seen years and years of ongoing fraud, constantly rewarded and promoted, I think there is a fit punishment for all: Dig a hole the size of a football field, fifty feet deep. Put all the men in the hole, naked. Fill a horse trough with water once every two weeks. Lower a live cow down into the hole, once a month. Let them work it out. They’re great negotiators.

The female brokers, politicians, advisors and newscasters? Put them in a Bolivian brothel for life. They will be among like minded ladies.

I was that “young man” in both cases and yes, I say the only ones who suffered were the crooks. But in fact, many innocent people suffered temporarily. My own friends lost their jobs at the bank and the brokerage. My own friends working for the State of Delaware went for weeks without getting paid. Yes they suffered, but years later they all agreed it was worth the price to rid their world of crooks who were constantly stealing from them and exposing them to catastrophic financial disaster.

And in this current trillion dollar bailout, we will suffer again. But nowhere near as much as if we let the crooks get away with their blatant day to day theft of our money and our labors.

Let the Wall Street house of cards fall. We will all be much better off in the very near future. And so will the rest of the world.

Remember the young man in Delaware was ridiculed and threatened for exposing the bank’s fraud. He pushed on because he knew, “In order for evil to triumph, it is only necessary for good men to do nothing”.

Complain, complain, complain. Wherever you are on God’s great earth, complain. Write letters, make phone calls, make posters, demonstrate, paint graffiti, whatever and anything you can do to get the message out, “We are not going to let the rich eat us anymore.”

Like 98% of Americans, I am disgusted with our policies in business and politics. I am disgusted that our politicians have painted a picture that makes all of us look ignorant and not caring to the rest of the world. I am disgusted that our nation is under a “News Blackout”. I am disgusted with the filth sent out across the world by Hollywood. We are the opposite of what you are shown.

Nations, governments and politicians come and go. We are always here. It is up to us to not let the corrupt degenerates of the world make us enemies to each other. There has been peace on Earth and there will be again. We will all be friends again, after we work together and individually, to rid the world of the evil ones. Their “accidents” are not mistakes, they are intentional. The quicker we confront them, expose them and eliminate them, the quicker we have prosperity that can be shared with the world’s people.

THAT is the business at hand for all of us. It is our economy, not theirs.

Mark McGrew