Until 1976, savings and loan institutions, now called thrifts, were instituted and employed by conscientious local people, in cities, towns and villages throughout our country. Their singular purpose was to provide a safe place for working people to save money to buy a home, and to make loans to them for that purpose. In that year, the Congress of the United States deregulated them, and thus allowed entrepreneurs* to use them in the same manner as commercial banks, primarily to make large profits.

         At the same time and through the early 1980's, billions of dollars were stolen from banks and thrifts, with loans on properties that were worth only small percentages of the amounts of the loans secured by them. This was done by thousands of entrepreneurs* who were aided and abetted by unscrupulous appraisers, lawyers, and the officers and boards of directors of the affected banks and thrifts. In the mid-1980's, when these afflicted financial institutions failed, the F.D.I.C. and F.S.L.I.C. almost instantly went broke. The working people of this country were then forced to pay for billions of dollars in losses resulting from this fraud, as well as the incompetence of regulators and bankers.

         It is also notable that only a tiny percentage of the people involved in this fraud ever were brought to trial, and none that I know of have been forced to repay the money that they stole. President Clinton's Whitewater-gate is only one example of thousands of gimmicks used by bankers, lawyers and politicians (entrepreneurs*) to steal money from the citizens of this country.

         On the heels of this fiasco, the entire real estate appraisal industry was conveniently blamed for all of these problems, and Appraiser Certification was implemented by congress. Within two years, this program was diluted and corrupted until anyone who was willing to attend several diploma mill education courses, and take a simple test, could be Certified, including those who had actually participated in the fraud, corruption and thievery.

         The new Certification laws did nothing of any real significance to impose and require ethical and fiduciary conduct, and soon, many real estate brokers and salespeople became Certified Appraisers. These people were and are not qualified appraisers, and are actively selling real properties in their local markets at the same time they provide so called appraisals to federally insured lenders! Might this fly in the face of fiduciary?

         Now, the latest banking law, passed by Congress in the summer of 1994, effectively removes the provision that the collateral for loans, on the vast majority of real properties, be appraised by competent and prudent appraiser acting in a fiduciary capacity. Under the new provisions of F.I.R.R.E.A., homes with values of up to $250,000 and all other properties with values up to $1,000,000 can be financed with only an Evaluation. The qualifications for an Evaluator are not well defined, but are so minimal as to preclude any consideration that they might ensure any meaningful level of competence, integrity or fiduciary, whatsoever.

         It is my understanding that the Banking and Realtors© Lobbies were primarily responsible for the removal of the once stringent and fiduciary oriented appraisal requirements for Federally related banking and thrift transactions. Some might say that this legislation appears to have actually been drafted by these special interests.

         In order to maximize profits and dividends, many if not most financial institutions are now focussed upon expedience, and pay little or no attention to fiduciary. Their loan officers are frequently paid commissions or bonuses based upon the number and/or amounts of the loans they close, with no consideration as to the quality of the loans. Therefore, these people select appraisers who provide reports that do not interfere with or disrupt the loan process by telling the truth about values and the conditions of properties considered as collateral for loans.

         Thus, those of us who have dedicated many years of our lives to providing honest, prudent, fiduciary appraisals to Federally Insured lenders, and who refuse to compromise our integrity, have been essentially condemned to professional death. I know this because I was one of them!

         If this trend continues, many more banks will fail (again) the next time the economy falters, and the honest, hard working people of our country (again) will get the bill for hundreds of billions of dollars in bad loans, and fraudulent or incompetent financial institution management.

         It is important to be aware of the fact that many of the staff, appraisers and attorneys of the Resolution Trust Corporation, as well as the F.D.I.C., were directly and personally involved in the incompetence and/or fraud of the late 70's and early 80's. Also, many of the properties seized and sold to pay back bad loans, were sold for pennies on the dollar to some of the same people who stole the money to begin with!

         Another, more recent phenomenon more clearly defines from whence these problems have arisen, and those who benefit from them. At this time, all too many thrifts are in the process of converting their charters from mutual to stock. To the best of my knowledge, there is no benefit to the people with savings or loans in these institutions, from these conversions. This prompts me to strongly suspect that this is merely a means by which the largest banks in the country can acquire and control all of the banks and thrifts throughout the United States. (A mutual association is owned by those with savings accounts in it, and cannot be sold!)

         These facts clearly demonstrate that all too many of the individuals who control our local banks, not to mention those in Congress and the bureaucracies of the Government of the United States of America, if not actively involved in bank fraud, have tolerated, encouraged and facilitated it, and are still doing so today.
 

* Entrepreneur, as used herein, is defined as a thief who wears a
    vested suit instead of a mask, and uses an ink pen instead of a gun,
    to rob banks and the American People.

        The phenomenon discussed above appears to be symptomatic of the concept of government deregulation, in the form of the elimination of any effective government supervision of banking, medical and hospitalization insurance, and the hospital and health care industries. It assumes and asserts that these, for all practical purposes monopolistic enterprises, will not take advantage of the opportunity to exact the greatest possible profits from the people of our country who depend upon them. Human nature, as well as history and the facts, belie this philosophy, and clearly demonstrate for whom those who control the government of our country, in both political parties, actually work.