G. Edward Griffin: Home, Sweet Loan

This is the fourth installment in a series of chapter summaries from G. Edward Griffin’s must-read book The Creature From Jekyll Island.  This book may be the most important “red pill” available and we highly recommend that you buy and read the full book at RealityZone.

G. Edward Griffin

Buy Here

Activist Post

Chapter 4 Summary: Home, Sweet Loan

Our present-day problems within the savings-and-loan industry can be tracked back to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Americans were becoming impressed by the theories of socialism and soon embraced the concept that it was proper for government to provide benefits for its citizens and to protect them against economic hardship.

Under the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations, new government agencies were established which purported to protect deposits in S&Ls and to subsidize home mortgages for the middle class. These measures distorted the laws of supply and demand and, from that point forward, the housing industry was moved out of the free market and into the political arena.

Once the pattern of government intervention had been established, there began a long, unbroken series of federal rules and regulations that were the source of windfall profits for managers, appraisers, brokers, developers, and builders. They also weakened the industry by encouraging unsound business practices and high-risk investments.

When these ventures failed, and when the value of real estate began to drop, many S&Ls become insolvent.  The federal insurance fund was soon depleted, and the government was confronted with its own promise to bail out these companies but not having any money to do so.

The response of the regulators was to create accounting gimmicks whereby insolvent thrifts could be made to appear solvent and, thus, continue in business.  This postponed the inevitable and made matters considerably worse.  The failed S&Ls continued to lose billions of dollars each month and added greatly to the ultimate cost of the bailout, all of which would eventually have to be paid by the common man out of taxes and inflation.  The ultimate cost is estimated at over one trillion dollars.

Congress appears to be unable to act and is strangely silent.  This is understandable.  Many representatives and senators are the beneficiaries of generous donations from the S&Ls.  But perhaps the main reason is that Congress, itself, is the main culprit in this crime. In either case, the politicians would like to talk about something else.

In the larger view, the S&L industry is a cartel within a cartel.  The fiasco could never have happened without the cartel called the Federal Reserve System standing by to create vast amounts of bailout money pledged by Congress.

Get the book for yourself or for others you want to wake up.  It reads like a mystery novel and is filled with colorful metaphors that make the seemingly complex world of banking very easy to comprehend. Visit RealityZone for your copy today. Summary is re-printed with permission from G. Edward Griffin.

See other parts below:
PART 1: The Journey to Jekyll Island
PART 2: The Name of the Game is Bailout
PART 3: Protectors of the Public