An Interview with Catherine Austin Fitts by Jorge Nascimento Rodrigues, editor of Janelanaweb.com.
QUESTION: Which are the roots of the ongoing financial crisis? A group of Wall Street’ criminals, or a couple of legislation pieces and policies since Clinton’s repeal of the Act of 1933 and Greenspan’s so called financial revolution?
ANSWER: It is much deeper than this. Recommend for your readers to listen to the audio seminar that I recorded in 2005 to explain the deeper history. At the heart of the problem is the “red button” test. See the last chapter of my book. When surveyed out of 100 people, 99 said they would not push the red button. Our financial dependency on unsustainable economics is broad, ingrained and deep. There’s also a Wall Street old saying – the expression ‘never fight the tape’. It means never try to oppose the market – always go with the market’s trend and direction.
Q: Without all that financial “creativity”, the last 20 years would be of economic and consumption growth, financial and stock bubbles in the US and deeper globalization of financial capital?
A: The bubbles were developed to accommodate a number of goals. First, was to facilitate the shift of capital out of the US to reinvest in Asia and the emerging markets and to ensure global dominance for the corporations and investments facilitating the shift. While the US was bubbled, moving money out at a high dollar price, economies in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe experienced the withdrawal of credit, devastating their currency and market values, so that major assets could be picked up on a very economic basis. Second, was to help reengineer global governance out of households, communities and sovereign governments and centralize it into private corporations and banks. So the bubbles were at the heart of what I call “a financial coup d’état.” The coup d’état, however, is not just in America. It is world wide. The commitment of the American people to democratic process and individual property rights and freedom is a major obstacle to the coup. Hence, the financial confrontation underway is a dramatic one and important to the whole world.
Lesson 1: Consolidation using these “pump and dump” cycles is an inherent part of the economic warfare we are experiencing.
Q: With a default in American bank reserves of more than $150b and a growing run-out of international capital from the US, what can you expect for the rebuilding of US financial leadership?
A: My expectation is that the folks who pulled the capital out during the last decade will be able to buy back in cheap. This is the same process we saw at the end of the last housing bubble bust in the US in 1989-1993. Those who sold at the top of the “pump” were in position to buy in cheap on the “dump.” Consolidation using these “pump and dump” cycles is an inherent part of the economic warfare we are experiencing. Numerous factions appear to be competing for control. It is impossible to say who will emerge in command. Whatever happens, my hope is that the process creates a sufficient spiritual and cultural shift to support the creation of serious alternatives to the central banking-warfare model that has dominated our planet for 500 + years. Whoever is running things here or in Europe, these events could never have occurred without widespread greed within the general population.
Lesson 2: The bailout will address a short-term symptom at the cost of promoting a greater unraveling.
Q: Can the $700b package (plus the $110b for trickle down perks) restore confidence in the banking market, or the money will be “lost” in the corridors of consulting and managing companies, financial targeted “friends” in route to mega acquisitions and a new «bubble» in Wall Street?
A: The package should be sufficient to handle credit default swap settlements during October as well as liquidity squeeze in the major US institutions through the election. I doubt it will carry us must past the election or inauguration. Part of the challenge, is the process to achieve the bailout broadcast to depositors and investors that the system is fundamentally unsound. Hence, the bailout will address a short-term symptom at the cost of promoting a greater unraveling.
Lesson 3: The dollar’s value is determined politically, which is supported by military capacity and power projection.
Q: Is it possible for the US to combat the ongoing financial crisis as a lonely financial superpower?
A: Yes, if the US and UK in combination are prepared to use sufficient military and covert force.
Q: What you mean? Hard power or covert power projection, certainly will accelerate other strategic moves from China, Russia and even a few others, including provocateurs, and I am not sure that Europe (even UK) will follow…
A: The dollar’s value is determined politically, which is supported by military capacity. The new president will not have a mandate to support the dollar. The people who finance the government will decide and the question is what they want. If continuing a global taxation system through the dollar managed system is what they desire for political reasons, it can and will continue. See my post.
Q: So you mean that the countries and institutions all around the world that finance American crazy debt and deficit system are paying a kind of global tax to the superpower?
A: Global Treasuries and Sovereign Wealth Funds, central banks and a variety of large institutions buy Treasury securities or hold dollars not because there is true economic value behind them or because these financial assets are sound fiscally or in terms of credit. The US debt and deficit financing is no longer a debt system. It is a global taxation system.
Q: Even with all this recent financial carnage?
A: Hence, demand for US dollars and government and agency bonds continue even as value falls dramatically. The losses on these holdings represent a tax paid to the “Empire”.
Q: Don’t we need a multilateral approach, particularly with the Chinese and the European Union?
A: A multi-lateral approach is preferred, the question is it possible or are there too many direct conflicts over resource and resource pricing issues between the US and China and direct power conflicts between the US and Russia.
Lesson 4: In the long run, financial systems require reliable standards.
Q: How you evaluate the recent European financial decisions?
A: On one hand it makes sense to have a coordinated European response. On the other hand, national governments are required to intervene in support of the individual banks. Hence, what can a European wide response really do? Actually, over time it can lead to more information sharing and ensuring that the leaders support each other and feel not alone. The bigger issue is that the credit freeze results from an absence of trust. And that absence of trust is well deserved.
Q: Why?
A: We have had a steady deterioration in the integrity of law, accounting and banking practices. On one hand part of what we are watching is the full cost of corruption within the system. In the short run, government can guarantee everything. However, in the long run, financial systems require reliable standards. This is a little bit like sending up a space shuttle in which all the engineering decisions were made by political decisions and convenience. The thing will not fly. So we need consolidate and a cultural revolution. In part, we need the consumers and citizens to create market demand for it.
Read this interview on Janelanaweb.com:
An Interview with Catherine Austin Fitts by Jorge Nascimento Rodrigues, editor of The Silent Financial Coup d’état.
MOrt:
I used to draft prospectuses, trust agreements and pooling and servicing agreements for MBS transactions, so I know how they work. I guess I’m missing your point. Although some have credit enhancements in the form of bond insurance, those I’m most familiar with do not. The complicating factor is that these aren’t just pools with each certificateholder having the same interest as every other certificateholder. The certificates are issued in series or “tranches,” and the cash flows are allocated to different tranches according to a very complex formula set forth in the pooling and servicing agreement. This is why the servicer/trustee cannot do anything other than what it is ordered to do by law or as set forth in the pooling and servicing agreement. For example, Class A certificateholders may be entitled to first dibs on regular principal and interest debt service payments on the loans, and Class b certificateholders may be entitled to first dibs on prepayments. Any servicing decision that results in a prepayment (as in a foreclosure) instead of a regular debt service payment (as in a work-out) is better for the holders of the Class B certificates than for the holders of Class A certificates. The servicer will be afraid of a lawsuit if it does anything other than following the strict instructions in the pooling and servicing agreement.
Carolyn,
Absolutely, no argument is taken with the foundation of your comments.
However, I have not read or heard from our leaders the clarity necessary to a wider understanding of the profound economic and legal distinction between “related” and “backed” in the language set forth.
Today’s “toxic assets” evolved from a generally silent environment, (regrettably a thoughtfully devised formula). I believe these “toxic” securitizations will be found to be bogus, i.e. “ponzi”. “Misrepresenting to customers and courts across America the …. mortgages… claim[ed] to own… are actually owned by others;” [cited from Predatory Grizzly “Bear” Attacks Innocent, Elderly, Poor, Minorities, Disabled & Disadvantaged! The Story of Bear Stearns Direct Involvement In And Support Of Predatory Lending In America! – – http://www.msfraud.org/Articles/predbear.pdf%5D
From the beginning, the “private” sales of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) to individuals and institutional investors were assumed to be investments in a security underwritten directly with “real estate”. To that extent, investors purchased “rated securities” through Certificates based upon insurance provided by a rating system we now know was certainly void of a true understanding, and possibly worse.
The Prospectus provided to all persons who purchased these “Certificates” sets forth different parties to the transaction, for example the (1) “Depositor,” (2) “Servicer,” (3) Special Servicer, and (4) Trustee. The document set forth procedures and criteria to ensure the benefit of the Certificate holders through smooth servicing of the mortgaged loans and distribution of proceeds through the trust. [Please see for a detailed description: http://predatorix.com/files/cases/wellsfargo/SFEvsWFORIXamendment3.pdf%5D
Mort(imer) Gage
Mort:
I’m not sure what about what I said you are taking issue with. I was responding to the statements made by Paulson and others indicating that what we have here, on the mortgage side, is different from what was there with RTC, the implication being that somehow the RTC experience was completely inapplicable. What I was saying is that just because there is a pool with a trustee and servicer doesn’t mean you can’t work out the mortgages. The government could guarantee the underlying mortgages to the MBS pool/holders just as it could guarantee the single mortgage owned outright by a bank. You don’t have to totally unwind the pool in order to provide credit support. You just negotiate with the servicer rather than the original lender. So the fact that the mortgages are held in trust form doesn’t mean the federal government has to buy a whole pool without looking at it, for example. I don’t buy the statement “we don’t know what we have here” as justification for a blind purchase it an inflated value.
I don’t disagree with you or Catherine that there probably are mortgages with no collateral out there in the MBS pools, so I don’t know what it is you want me to “reconsider.” The distinction between mortgage backed securities and mortgage related securities is not one of collateral per se, with mortgage related securities being those without collateral. The term “mortgage related securities” is just broader than “mortgage backed security” and would include, for example, an interest in a REIT or a mortgage revenue bond. The term “mortgage backed security” or “MBS” as I’ve heard it used refers to a pass-through trust where the holder of the security has an undivided interest in a pool of mortgages.
Carolyn,
As you know, the Emergency Economic Stablization Act of 2008 legislation is discussed with the backdrop of the Financial Institutions Reform Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA), and the subsequent creation of the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) which Congress adopted in 1989. It is normal that we seek wisdom from the knowledge gained from prior seemingly similar circumstances.
I too found myself discussing with parties directly involved with drafting that 1989 legislation, however in a much less significant role than you. During that period, I found myself applying some of my real estate knowledge to congressional efforts to address the savings and loan crisis. I understood the real estate component, and I became to better understand the Resolution Trust Corporation financial structure(s).
Subsequently, I purchased several of the mortgage instruments placed under the control of the RTC. The pools put together at that time under RTC were as you say “mortgages in all sorts of forms, including participations, whole mortgages, mortgages in foreclosure, [and] mortgages subject to litigation” as well as REO. I would ask you reconsider your general description of the current pools in the environment… “Here, there are pools of mortgage-backed securities”.
Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, appears to understand the distinction between “related” and backed”. Please recall he statement on Meet the Press…
“…First of all, a lot of people talk about the RTC…in those days, there were whole loans, …Here, the financial institutions are clogged with illiquid loans…[that] won’t be giving us control of real estate, … and that, that is what we have in front of us today.”
His statement may answer your most concerning question. But it remains concerning to me that we really do not know. Please recall that just the day before, on September 20, 2008, Paulson released the three page proposal which overtly pushes necessary transparency out the back door.
“Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
If there has been the collateral fraud Ms. Austin-Fitts discusses, which I believe there has, under the original proposal we would never be able to cleanse the system.
The deleveraging in the current market is keeping mortgage rates high, even as governments around the world use taxpayer monies to bail-out the money changers.
Mort(imer) Gage
This situation is analagous to the destruction of the buffalo in the Old West. Kill the buffalo, kill the Native American. Likewise, kill the dollar, kill the middle class. It’s economic warfare, and a silent coup d’etat. Cui bono?
Wall Street Financial Institutions need a generous HAND-OUT…Not a BAIL-OUT. Giving a Hand-out is what they really want. A Hand-Out is not supposed to be paid back. If we don’t give them a generous Hand-Out the very first time, they will surely be back for a second helping and maybe a third and a fourth helping. So, let’s be generous and give them a generous helping of Hand-Out right from the beginning, so they don’t feel a need to come back for a second, third or fouth helping and embarrass themselves and maybe us too.
Another point to note,in the good times, Wall Street Financial Institutions make a lot of donations to their favorite causes, therefore we must return the favor and help them out in their hour of crisis.
Talking about government regulations and accounting standards…Wall Street Financial Institutions don’t need more government regulations and Accounting Standards compliance because it is the most regulated industry in the whole Universe. Allow the Wall Street Financial Institutions to govern themselves…they have the best and the brightest brains in the whole universe and they have all the best consultants/mercenaries from all over the universe, money can buy, at their disposal…With all that brain power/financial power, how can they go wrong? . Wall Street needs breathing space from too much regulations and accounting standards/requirements. For example Mark to Market accounting rule should be immediately abolished and replaced with something what Wall Street wants especially during this and other financial crises to follow surely (this is not going to be the last crisis as S&L was not the last crisis either…the wise are already preparing for the next crisis). Any government and especially US government should stay out of Wall Street Financial Institutions business. Government has no business in interfering in peoples business. Let the brutal market settle the scores (life is a jungle, let the strong survive). The world is not going to end with this or other crises…a Crisis is really a necessary Cleansing…every system needs periodic CLEANSING and cleansing is never comfortable…we must allow the world to go on without any interuption.
Years later, I am still blown away by Catherine’s clarity myself!
I don’t know what other reasons, but I feel that POWER and CONTROL are among them. Not to much extremely dysfunctional (I am being kind here) personalities and wordviews hadned down from their forefathers.
Mort Gage,
You know, I hear a lot of talk about “patriotism” these days, but personally, I refuse to pledge allegiance to a country that tells talented people that they can’t have a job or an education, that they have to continually “wait in line” because of quotas and set-asides. It took me 22 years just to earn a frigging BSIT because it was always the “poor little minorities” first, and the “wicked white male” last. No, this lousy country and its weirdo economics can go to hell.
Now, I’m one of those people who read Harry Browne in the 1970’s, and who applied most of his strategies. Yes, I’m a “nut” who owns not only gold, but also “junk silver” coins in case of an economy collapse, and a cash reserve in case of bank failure. I FULLY intend on dining out when the bank holidays come, and will wave at yuppies like you who can’t even buy dog food with your worthless plastic. And when the economy implodes, I will sell a roll of “junk silver” dimes in exchange for a Maple Leaf, gold coins which yuppies like you bought in your lemming rush to protect your portfolios. And when you and your family drive to the breadline in your “Beemer,” remember who you stepped on in the past, and whom will have the ultimate revenge.
Just remember that I have a long memory, a bad temper, and I’m looking for payback. You yuppies and your minorities will do nicely.
Catherine,
I continue to be blown away by the depth of your thinking and the scope of your knowledge.
There is something I still don’t get.
I’m getting more clear on the HOW of the pump and dump. And I get your ideas about where the money might be going.
But I’m not clear on this: WHY?
What is the money really being used FOR?
Once someone has a trillion dollars, in what meaningful sense does another trillion make a difference?
You’ve mention funding “black projects”. Ok, “black projects” to accomplish WHAT ends? Once they get the money, what are they doing with it, to achieve what?
I can’t believe it’s only going to acquire more stuff. So what are they doing with it?
Thanks for the genius and deep insight,
Paul Ross
Mort:
As counsel to RTC during the S&L crisis, my law firm designed and executed a multibillion-dollar auction program to sell non-performing mortgage loans owned by defunct savings & loans. I assure you, those institutions sold mortgages in all sorts of forms, including participations, whole mortgages, mortgages in foreclosure, mortgages subject to litigation and real estate owned (which is real estate obtained through foreclosure or deed in lieu of foreclosure). Here, there are pools of mortgage-backed securities, but if the government takes over a pool, or purchases a mortgage from the pool, it has as much control over the property as the RTC did in these sales. The twio deeper issues, which Mr. Paulson has not told people, are:
(1) Did the mortgage trusts obtain legal assignments of the mortgages and do they have original copies of all the documents that they need in order to demonstrate title to the mortgages they purport to own?
(2) Are all of the mortgages secured by real property, and property that does not also secure one or more additional mortgages?
I have done work with Volunteer Lawyers for the Poor in defending foreclosure cases. From this work, I know that there have been a number of instances where the foreclosing lender cannot present clear title to the mortgages (and this is what the case you cited is about). More and more judges are refusing to go forward with foreclosures in the absence of this documentation. It used to be that lenders could actually get executed assignments AFTER filing foreclosure actions. I heard of one case where the lawyer for the foreclosing lender actually signed the assignment as an “officer” of MERS. MERS is a centralized book-entry system for recording/keeping mortgage assignments. Many debtor lawyers suspect that it’s fraught with problems. See some of what Ellen Brown has written on that subject.
THe second issue, whether there really is property securing all the loans, is perhaps even more troublesome. I read on the internet that someone familiar with the FBI investigation of Bear Stearns found instances where a single property secured multiple loans in different Bear Stearns pools. Catherine Austin Fitts has stated publicly that she believes collateral fraud is rampant in the government mortgage pools (Ginnie Mae & FHA), and there’s no reason to think this problem would exist only in the government pools. As Catherine has noted, the bail-out legislation, in authorizing purchase of a broad category of toxic assets, is a great way to hide the evidence of fraud in these pools. If the government were to guarantee the mortgages themselves (a better plan), then in order to claim on the guarantee, the holder of the mortgage could be forced to show that there really was property securing the mortgage.
The Constitution is the only instrument we have left. Keep it simple.”All money bills must originate in the House of Represenatives.” Act accordingly! Remember the 2nd amendment was put in place for this very purpose.Orderly,resolute while the Fitts’ present the rationale we stand ready
to act in our defense.To this we pledge our lives, our property and our sacred honor.
Simper fi
I can’t believe this transpired right under our noses. It’s not surprising when our society is more concerned over “reality” shows and celebrity drivel.
On reading one article today, it seems that we are deeply entrenched as these folks will rely on gov’t to get them out now and gov’t still to back them when healthy again. This is no win, i.e. set up for the next bubble, easy for them to pump and dump again… Check this on iceland from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7658908.stm. [my comments between brackets]:
“In a crisis, such as the one we are experiencing now, the strength of a bank’s balance sheet is of little consequence.
What matters is the explicit or implicit guarantee provided by the state to the banks to back up their assets and provide liquidity. [what????!!! good mgt doesn’t matter – guarantee does!]
Therefore, the size of the state relative to the size of the banks becomes the crucial factor.
The relative size of the Icelandic banking system means that the government is in no position to guarantee the banks, unlike in other European countries.
This effect was further escalated and the collapse brought forward by the failure of the Central Bank to extend its foreign currency reserves, even if it was under considerable pressure to do exactly that.”
[gives total meaning to moral hazard for the pump/dump crowd. shoot, it’s not even morality they deal in. just money.]
Post-Script to previous post:
Despite the “inescapable, yet a counter-intuitive necessity” for the upcoming government intervention into capital markets, concerning language included is below – a section from the original “U.S. Treasury Proposal to Buy Mortgage-Related Assets”:
“Sec. 8. Review. Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
PLEASE READ THE ABOVE LANGUAGE VERY CAREFULLY…
Why is there no provision for judicial review? What are the effects of such authority? Moreover, the language seems to read as a circumstance as to be unconstitutional.
The quoted text is cited from download of Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) — proposal by the U.S. Treasury to buy mortgage- related assets from financial institutions.
Please recall, – Related “assets” is not “mortgage backed” or “titled”.
Mort(imer) Gage
Rescue, Bail-Out, Bust-Out? or Bleed Out?
Our forefathers entrusted us with the affirmative duty to protect the country’s future –to be present and to serve when our nation is in need of our contribution. Now is one of those times.
Patriotically albeit reluctantly; we move forward. Forward without clarity; all gathered together to make a significant contribution. We need and deserve to know whether we are reluctant investors or unknowingly part of a bail-out, bust-out, or bleed-out. (See government definitions: http://www.usdoj.gov/ust/eo/ust_org/ustp_manual/volume5/vol5ch10.htm)
Our contribution will not only involve tax dollars, but call upon us to contribute an individual gift of our human capital through patience and trust. Our investment is indeed necessary to rescue our financial markets.
We are poised to make a significant contribution. As taxpayers and future investors we are asked to assist each other in resolving the “unforeseen” and presently “unknown” financial chaos. We are told that the genesis of the current financial chaos lies with questionable mortgage backed securities (MBS). The “private” sales of the MBS (actually of mortgage – “related” – securities) originally were issued as an investment with a direct security interest in “real estate”. In fact, the troubled securities were originally labeled subprime “mortgages”.
These securities have now been redefined “toxic assets”.
Many of these “toxic assets” are in default (albeit not near as many mortgages as are current). As these “toxic” mortgages have not amortized and matured, we find the largest private financial institutions calling upon taxpayer assistance as during the period after 1986 tax reform.
To address that previous significant financial crisis, Congress adopted in 1989 the Financial Institutions Reform Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA), and created the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC). On Sunday September 21, 2008, Tom Brokaw interviewed Secretary of the Treasury Paulson on Meet the Press. Secretary Paulson related the current crisis with the Resolution Trust Corporation. The Secretary stated,
“…First of all, a lot of people talk about the RTC…in those days, there were whole loans, and the government owned the real estate…Here, the financial institutions are clogged with illiquid loans…[that] won’t be giving us control of real estate, … and that, that is what we have in front of us today.”
Notably, Secretary Paulson acknowledges the material distinction between whole loans, and mortgage “backed” securities. To be sure legislation is necessary to prevent a most certain global panic and chaos regarding these mortgage-related securities. Title to property is a material issue.
Exactly, what are the taxpayers being asked to support – a mortgage with security and “control of real estate”? As new investors, we need “control of real estate”. Without “control of real estate” what will we have? Transparency is necessary because of the potential for “misstatements of assets”.
In that regard, Katherine M. Porter, wrote in her University of Iowa Legal Studies Research Paper Misbehavior and Mistake in Bankruptcy Mortgage Claims, “If a security interest in property of the debtor is claimed, the proof of claim shall be accompanied by evidence that the security interest has been perfected.” (Fed. R. Bankr. P. 3001(d)). (website: ssrn.com/abstract=1027961) Otherwise, as investors we will come to discover we lack the very evidence necessary to confirm our contribution is not just a back-door open to address at best a bail-out, or worse enable a bust-out or bleed-out.
As assets are worked out in the future, some of our human capital must be devoted to insist that transparency evidences we own a security interests properly perfected, and secured by a debtor’s home. It is that interest, I understood Secretary Paulson addressed and the interest we should be acquiring.
Simultaneously, we need to protect that proposed changes in accounting practices are well reasoned, and not abused just to support an aggregate amount of real estate securing the investment is just insufficient to support the shares or interests previously securitized and sold.
Last year Judge Christopher Boyko of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio in In re Foreclosure Cases, 2007 WL 3232420 (N.D. Ohio Oct. 31, 2007), dismissed cases in which lenders sought to foreclose on securitized residential mortgages in default because they failed to evidence a perfected mortgage with the security and “control of real estate”. Judge Boyko reinforced to lender’s counsel that the jurisdictional integrity of United States District Court is “Priceless.” (Additional information is the subject of an article in The New York Times on November 15, 2007.)
The current fear in financial markets will only be resolved through the trustworthy administration by our leaders and our patient resolve to require transparency and accountability.
Mort(imer) Gage
PS – If it is not obvious, I believe Ms. Austin Fitts knows her stuff.
I agree.
Given the importance and gravity of such a subject, it is quite curious (and sad) that someone would focus their attention on linguistics and syntax instead of the real problems Catherine raises and tries to explore in her text.
Thank you for this article and the original links. Just read the portuguese version. I imagine you have ‘nuf resources, but I can help with translation if ever needed, for portuguese to english work. Not really needed here as the article is more than intelligible and rightly damning just on exposition of the messed up system under which we operate.
LJR:
This article was written and published in Portuguese.
Expresso weekly newspaper:
http://clix.expresso.pt/gen.pl?p=stories&op=view&fokey=ex.stories/420334
Janelanaweb.com:
http://janelanaweb.com/novidades/o-golpe-de-estado-financeiro-na-america-rai
z-do-crash-de-2008/
The editor was kind enough to offer us an English version. We have sent him comments as to how the translation might be improved.
Catherine
Two suggestions:
1. Spell check your work.
2. Have grownup read your stuff afterward and advise you which word strings are sentences and which are not. If you can afford it and if anyone is willing to take on the job, try to convert the ones that are not into something sensible.
I think you mean well but you inchoate ramblings make a bad impression.
For the past 39 years The Tree of Life Bookstore & Wellness Center of Harlem has DEMONSSTRATED effective techniques for re-generating America’s inner cities:
Tree of Life Bookstore & Educational Center of Harlem, a rare gem burning brightly in the heart of New York City
Dear Friends,
I was delighted to find mention of The Tree of Life Bookstore of Harlem mentioned in the much longer treatise on “What America Truly Needs” written by Richard Sauder, PhD. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/164892-Who-Wants-To-Be-CEO-of-a-Red-White-and-Blue-Kakistocracy-
“I must say that I am intrigued and encouraged by the work done by Kanya Vashon McGhee at his bookstore and learning centers in Harlem, New York and Atlanta, Georgia. His Tree of Life Bookstore & Educational Center of Harlem was a rare gem burning brightly in the heart of New York City, like a beacon of hope, drawing in people like a magnet with Kanya’s unique educational approach based on practical application of the universal laws of the ancient Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus.
“Large numbers of people whom society had relegated to cast-off status, junkies, drop-outs, convicts, were pulled into the orbit of the Tree of Life Bookstore & Educational Center in Harlem and began to read, to learn and to flourish, many of them for the first time in their life. Now that’s an impressive accomplishment, both on Kanya’s part and theirs. I would certainly want to have Kanya Vashon McGhee in my administration.
He is a national asset of the first caliber, like a sparkling Hope Diamond, and I would turn him loose to establish a national network of Tree of Life Bookstores and Educational Centers from border to border and coast to coast, to replicate what he accomplished in Harlem in cities and towns all over the country.
His emphasis has been primarily on the upliftment of downtrodden African-American people, but I am sure that his approach would benefit many other people, too. My administration would encourage new approaches like this, based on ancient wisdom retooled for changed, contemporary circumstances. Kanya has a demonstrated track record of success in Harlem, and in a saner world the so-called Department of Education would latch onto a program like his and take it national – for the betterment of society at large.
Sadly, the Department of Education is currently presided over by an elite educational, technocratic clique who care more for institutional clout and bureaucratic power plays than they do about the life prospects and career formation of the nation’s young people. The end product of our educational system is in sharp decline, with the result that tens of millions of people are ill prepared to meet the challenges of the dynamic, rapidly changing global society we are plunging and morphing into.
Richard Sauder, PhD
email: Dr_Samizdat@hotmail.com
210-877-0585