Memo To Congress: Don’t Let Bush-Cheney Sell Our Homes to the Saudis

[McCamy Taylor]

Or to the Carlyle Group or Dubai Ports or to their friends and family or to any of the other Mr. Potters of the world. The last thing we need is an absentee slumlord, who will snatch up our real estate while the prices are artificially low and then bleed us dry for rent for the rest of our lives. Or tear down our working class neighborhoods to build gated Republican communities. This is not It’s a Wonderful Life and no angel is going to appear to make it all better if Congress messes things up for us now.



I. Henry Paulson Wants To Sell Your Home To the Arabs

http://www.rew-online.com/news/story.aspx?id=358

That initial, ridiculous two and a half page proposal from Paulson and the White House kept bugging me. Especially the clause making Paulson the Game Master, giving him unlimited power to do anything he wanted with all that money----and the assets it would purchase. The part about no judicial review was particularly troublesome. That could mean one of two things----immunity from criminal prosecution, which got me to thinking about war crimes, as in invading yet another innocent foreign country. Or it could mean protection from civil suits seeking to challenge a contract---like the kind which the administration might write with a group seeking to buy a bunch of mortgages, maybe at a bargain price of pennies on the dollar.



With this disturbing thought in mind, I did a little research and stumbled across this document entitle Paulson Encourages More Investment From the Middle East . From this summer, Paulson congratulates a group of Arab businessmen for stepping up to the plate to purchase many billions of dollars of mortgages and stock during the first half of the year as companies such as Bear Stearns, Citibank and others had problems. Sums include:

$7.5 billion investment in Citigroup from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority in November after the bank suffered billions in subprime write-downs.

In January, Citigroup needed more cash to deal with an $18 billion loss in the first quarter and received $12.5 billion from a group of investors, including undisclosed sums from the Kuwait Investment Authority and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud.

After Merrill Lynch took huge losses in the latter half of last year, the investment firm received $6.6 billion in a preferred stock offering to a collection of investors, among them the Kuwait Investment Authority.

However, the article also goes on to mention:

Investments from the United Arab Emirates faced political backlash in 2006 when Dubai World Ports, a holding company owned by the Dubai government, was trying to negotiate a deal to become operator or a number of ports on the East Coast, including New York City.

Congress members scuttled the deal over concerns that having an operator from the UAE – whose banks had been used to channel al Qaeada funds – could potentially compromise security at a vulnerable entry point to the U.S. Defenders of the deal cited the UAE's pro-western position.

Paulson discusses the fact that this fear of economic-political domination of the United States by Arabs might lead members of Congress and U.S. citizens to object to increased investment of Arab oil revenue into the U.S. financial markets---- but then he goes ahead and encourages his audience from the Arab world to keep pouring their investment money into the United States anyway.

Makes you wonder how he planned to pull the wool over the eyes of Congress and the American people. And then you remember that this plan---with its $700 billion price tag---was dreamed up last April, well before he gave his speech to his Arab business audience.

Is this why Paulson wants absolute authority? Does he plan to buy up certain choice mortgages and sell them to investors from countries swimming in oil profits? Thanks to Bush-Cheney’s Iraq War, these countries have had a windfall for the last six years. Hell, if they ever got short of funds, they could just manipulate prices by adjusting their output. In other words, they would bleed us dry at the gas pump and then turn around and pay us back the same money to buy our country from us . However, they are not likely to run out of money, before we run out of bad mortgages. Saudi Arabia has $2.4 Trillion in liquidity.

http://swedenburg.blogspot.com/2008/07/anthropocene-sultans-emirs.html

United Arab Emirates has $900 billion in assets---and only 10 more years of oil. They need to start thinking of new ways to make money now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_Arab_Emirates

According to Source Watch, the Carlyle Group was involved in real estate speculation in the United States and got burned with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to the tune of $16.6 billion---chicken feed compared to the wealth of the Arab nations. However, they might make a nice front group.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Carlyle_Group

Is there any desire on the part of Arabs to keep investing in United States real estate? I don’t know. The people who put up this site seem to think so:

http://board.classifieds1000.com/Saudi_Arabia/Real_Estate/Investment_Real_Estate_in_Down_Market_in_USA

Saudi Arabia - Real Estate
Investment Real Estate in Down Market in USA
Great investment opportunities in a down market. Any investors looking to buying real estate in prime US market has a great opportunity, to buy Luxury condos, Town Houses, commercial buildings, Hotels. Most Luxury residential property could be put on a rental market.
Miami, Las Vegas, New York, Los Angles etc
Please contact:
____ ______

I am pretty sure that some Americans would like to take advantage of the opportunity to get their hands on property that might not be quick to sell in today's glutted market but which could have sound investment potential. The uber rich can afford to invest and wait. We have already seen the Bush administration hand out contracts for mineral and gas rights on federal lands for a pittance. This could easily turn out to be more of the same.

II. Next Year, Cheney Will Be An American-Arab



Recall that Halliburton is relocating to United Arab Emirates the new Shangri-la for the rich----and a land with no extradition treaty with the U.S.

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/dubai.html

Dick Cheney thinks we pay taxes so that he and Halliburton can get rich. He probably thinks that people lose their homes and businesses so that he and his business buddies can steal them. Foreclosed high rise office towers, premium real estate, houses that will be razed to make room for new development---all of these are his for the taking if Congress passes Paulson's proposal without very strict oversight. The legislation needs to spell out that the U.S. taxpayer owns anything which we purchase, and that no one in the administration can sell it.

If the administration is allowed to sell anything, they will attempt to justify bargain prices. They will claim that their select group of buyers are doing America a favor in its hour of need by purchasing real estate that the market does not want, and therefore they will not be expected to pay top dollar---hell, they will probably pay pennies on the dollar. If the same people came in and began buying up real estate in an ordinary fashion, market prices would rise. But since they will be getting a sweetheart deal, there will be no effect on the market, and they will not have to compete with anyone. This administration specializes in no bid deals.

And consider this. If you happen to be having mortgage trouble right now and you live in the middle of a housing complex that one of Cheney’s friends wants to snatch up so that he can tear it down to build something else in five years, no one is going to work with you to refinance your loan. You will be kicked out onto the street. There may be a map already drawn up indicating who gets consideration for a mortgage refinancing and who gets the boot. And Christmas 2008 really could be Christmas 2008 in the Bush-Cheney White House, as they parcel out plum bits of property to all their best friends as presents.

More speculation from my overly fertile imagination, but you can never be too cautious when your president and VP are a couple of crooks.

[Truth2Tell]

1. K&R

Do you ever sleep? :)

[McCamy Taylor]

2. During the day. I am nocturnal.

:hi:

[lapfog_1]

3. I'm afraid you have it back wards.

The Saudis (and the Chinese) ALREADY own your mortgage. Or rather, they own a security backed by a small piece of your mortgage. That's exactly how we got here.

They took your mortgage, sliced it and diced it, and then packaged it with a bunch of other stuff (bonds, T-bills, etc) so that it made a nice smelling "basket" of securities and then they sold it. Almost like drug dealers cutting down the product with some cheap crap (your worthless sub-prime mortgage), they stomped on that shit but good. And the poor Saudi and Chinese bastards bought it, using the dollars we send them for their oil (or cheap manufactured crap).

Only thing was, those sub-primes were rotting fish, stinking up the whole basket... and the Saudis and Chinese (and the other suckers, er, investors) started complaining. The way they complain is to withdraw their money, they took their ball and gloves and bats and went home. Ooops... They are the ones with the CASH... not us, we bought the over priced house and the walmart crap and the Japanese car... we don't have any cash. So when they take their cash out of our system (and tell the Goldman - Sachs guys to liquidate their positions in these mortgage backed securities), then we don't have the cash grease that makes our world go round. No quick cash for those short term (1 day to 1 year) loans. Double ooops. No cash means no revolving lines of credit for businesses. and that could be some very serious shit is about to go down.

So they want us to buy those securities, and at a non market price (to make those Saudi and Chinese investors happy again and then we hope they bring back their cash, rather than investing it in China or Dubai or someplace.
We (the taxpayers) take possession of the mortgages and hold them for 15 or 20 years and hope that eventually they become worth more than we paid for them (the housing market has to expand again). Then we sell them to new investors and the taxpayers finally get our $700 B back. That's the theory.

Worked with the Chrysler bailout (we made money on the deal, but I sure remember the same anger about the "giveaway" at the time). S&L not so much... we didn't lose that much, but I don't think we broke even either.

[McCamy Taylor]

5. The Chinese, yes. Their markets are hurting, they need money. Saudis want assets.

I am sure that they do not like throwing money away, but the Bush administration can make up for money they have lost in the market by offering them real estate worth much more than that (in the long run) and oil producers can afford to wait for their investments to mature.

The Saudis will want a place to run to in case their own country ever kicks them out. The U.S. could be a safe haven in that event, since the rich rule this country.

[Pete2069]

4. This Whole process is about Global Corporations taken over.

Carlyle Group , Dubai Ports , Saudi Arabia with UAE are
developing their world dominants over the world.   They have
transfered our wealth over the last 7.5 years at a very rapid
rate.  Bush has done everything which the Global empires have
demanded of him.   Transferring all of our country's wealth
and power to these Global Corporations.
People believe Bush is dumb because this is the part he is
playing to win over the people that he is one of them or the
good old boy.  
They fail to see Bush and his family wants nothing to do with
them and his mother could not have express it any better with
some of her statements.  One she stated that these people
placed in Texas from New Orleans after the flood scared her.
You do not have to be very smart to  realize that in the last
7.5 years we have lost just about everything we have built
over the past 200 years and have even fallen behind some third
world countries in which we use to give aid.
New Orleans should have been a call to say "WAKE OF
AMERICA" your country is being sold out right under your
nose.....
You don't even have the right to have all of your voted
counted or given to the real person you voted for...
Once the voting process is destroy , Democracy can no longer
survive..

[RB TexLa]

6. Good God what's next? "Them Arabs living good as white folk"?????

[McCamy Taylor]

7. Would be the same if it was Germany or Russia. Absentee landlords are not good for the U.S.

This country does not need an influx of more uber-rich anything, since the uber-rich are bad for a democracy, as I have shown in my recent journals. They concentrate too much power in the hands of a few, and they expect to step all over the middle class and take over the reins of government---and government lets them. And Arabs are "white folks".

However, I expect that one reason the right wing is so opposed to this no strings attached bailout is precisely because they fear the scenario which I have outline in my OP. They have long memories and have not forgotten the Dubai Ports deal. And yes, they object to Muslims in a way that they would not object to European Protestants.

[RB TexLa]

8. Nationalism is just as sick.

[AzDar]

9. K & R ...

:kick: