Jasper Journal

If you have the opportunity to read one more book this year, consider “Reckless Endangerment.” I finished it this weekend, and it was the most detailed and enlightening expose I have read  on what caused the financial crisis of 2008.

Like many people, I am not a financial whiz, and the inner workings of the financial sector were always fairly mysterious. I believed that the major banking and brokerage houses were rock solid; that our leaders were too smart to allow a complete financial collapse ;  and that regulatory institutions that were there to protect us would work.  Wrong on all counts!

I knew that the collapse in 2008 was the result of the housing bubble, and that it had something to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which is all true. What I didn’t know was how corrupt the system was; how greedy everyone became;  and how many politicians were involved.

This did not begin in the 2000′s;  it began way back in the Clinton administration in 1994 with the goal of making home ownership much more accessible to Americans.  This goal became the catalyst for unscrupulous  activities by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; mortgage companies like Countrywide, and Wall Street firms like Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros, Goldman Sachs;  and the insurance giant AIG, just to name a few. They all reaped huge profits while the American taxpayer was left holding the bill.

What is most galling is the fact that “holier than though” politicians such as Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Maxine Waters were constant defenders of Fannie Mae against government regulators. They received campaign contributions, political support, and in the case of Frank,  Fannie hired his partner, and provided  financial support to a non profit founded  by his mother!   Interesting that Frank was one of the most vocal supporters of Fannie Mae and the most vociferous critic of regulators trying to reign in this enterprise. Their collusion in the defense of the corrupt Fannie Mae is unconscionable.

Frank and Dodd blamed Bush for the 2008 collapse knowing full well that they were in large part contributors and enablers of this disaster. Ironically they sponsored the Dodd- Frank Wall St Reform Act of 2010, that is now supposed to protect consumers. It does not; And if you have to go to a bank or credit union now for a loan or credit card, you will see  first hand the ponderous regulations that have been imposed on these institutions that have little to do with the problem at hand.

It is not a pretty story, but one that must be read.  As the President continues  his campaign of class warfare perhaps he should look at what really happened to our country in 2008. If anyone else has read this book, I would appreciate your thoughts.

I have not  read  Atlas Shrugged, the Ayn Rand  classic on capitalism yet, but am ordering it on Amazon today.  I was intrigued by a comment on the blog last week about Galt’s Gulch so I did some research. It is from the book.  Ironically, a movie that covers part one of the book just opened this weekend and is getting decent reviews. The book is over 1200 pages and apparently not easy to read. But people who read it appear to have a major epiphany. I guess it is one of those books that makes a major diference in your life.

Why am I so interested in this now? Well the book apparently begins with a United States in economic peril. How very interesting. Today the Standard and Poors downgraded the US credit rating to poor; the stock market tumbled; gas is regularly over $4 a gallon; our president is encouraging class warfare as he continues to socialize major parts of our economy; unions are king;  the administration is not serious about reigning in spending; and so it goes.

I can’t believe the media is not all over the gas crisis; we suffer while the president plays golf!  When we needed a leader to make cuts in our spending, we get a shrill partisan community agitator who shows no interest in real change.

I can’t wait to read Atlas Shrugged. I need an epiphany.

It is May 1943. After hard fighting, the Allies forces have defeated the Germans and Italians in North Africa, capturing 275,000 prisoners. British and American forces now stand poised to invade southern Europe. The first intended target is Sicily, and from there, Italy itself. The problem faced by Allied planners is that if Germany correctly surmises the objective, it will make Sicily a fortress, reinforcing its two divisions there with units from throughout Europe.

Two officers in Britain, a Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander (Ewen Montagu) and a Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant (Charles Cholmondeley), propose an audacious scheme. They will drop a corpse carrying sensitive papers — alluding to a pending invasion of Sicily — off the coast of Spain, and hope that Spanish authorities allow the Germans to view the documents. Thus begins a story of one of the most successful deception schemes of World War II, chronicled by Ben MacIntyre.

The story of Operation Mincemeat is not new. Ewen Montagu wrote a book in the 1950s entitled “The Man Who Never Was,” and it was later made into a movie. Montagu’s book, however, was short on details (because of censorship by British Intelligence) and misleading in certain aspects. MacIntyre admirably fills the gaps and corrects the record. In the process, he narrates not only the story of the deception, but paints a rich portrait of the characters. Montagu and Cholmondeley create a fictitious persona — Major William Martin — out of thin air for the corpse. In the process, they almost appear to believe he actually exists, going so far as to have a farewell party for him, in which Montagu assumes the character of Major Martin.

MacIntyre highlights the numerous obstacles that Montagu and Cholmondely had to overcome: finding a corpse who looked like he drowned, getting the authorities to falsify the death certificate, crafting the letters for inclusion with the corpse, ensuring the Germans get access to the documents. The chronicle of British and German efforts in Spain vis-a-vis Major Martin’s papers sound like a bad movie plot — bribed Spanish officials, venal German intelligence officers, surreptitious examination of the papers — but are all the more fascinating because they are true, backed by MacIntyre’s research and sources.

In the process, the author provides a fascinating glimpse into the machinations not only of British Intelligence, but that of the Germans as well. If want to read history made real, and learn more about World War espionage, this is the book for you.