A Revealing Look at U.S. Housing Propaganda
I have reserved some of my harshest criticism of U.S. propaganda for the malicious lies from the U.S. government and media concerning the U.S. housing collapse.
The propaganda started with continued claims that the bursting of the housing “bubble” was a “surprise”. In fact, U.S. home prices tripled in roughly a decade – while the incomes of most Americans were falling steadily during that entire period. People with falling incomes lack the buying-power to sustain any significant increase in prices – let alone a tripling of prices in only a decade.
The “surprise” was not that the largest “bubble” in history had burst, the “surprise” was that U.S. banks, regulators and politicians had allowed this bubble to grow so large (through their criminal conspiracy).
Since that time, U.S. propagandists have proclaimed “bottoms” in this market at least a dozen times, despite the fact the housing collapse has been accelerating over this entire period. Today, the U.S. propaganda outlets are all reading from the same script, once again. “Home prices are moderating,” they claim.
What has inspired this latest optimism regarding the U.S. housing market? The respected Case-Schiller index showed that the year-over-year decline in the prices of U.S. homes changed from an all-time record of 19% (in January) to a near-record decline of 18.6% in February. It is safe to say that anyone who owns a home in the U.S. would agree that an 18.6% year-over-year plunge in prices does not indicate “moderation” in even the most tortured definition of that word.
Similarly, the propagandists have been “pumping” new home construction, and U.S. home-builders with the same outlandish lies. Every month since the housing collapse began, U.S. home-builders have built at least 50% more houses than they have sold. Not only have the propagandists called several “bottoms” for the home-builders, they have frequently asserted that the inventory of new homes has been falling.
It is a matter of simple arithmetic that if “supply” exceeds “demand” by 50% or more, every month, that the “inventory” must similarly be rising every month. Not only has there been no signs of a “bottom”, or even “stabilization”, but the crisis for U.S. home-builders has continued to accelerate in its intensity.
However, no component of U.S. propaganda has been further divorced from reality than the ridiculous hype that has accompanied the fraudulent “band-aid” called “Hope Now”. This was a voluntary program to try to get U.S. banksters to willingly reduce the mortgage burden on Americans. (Need I say more?)
The program was begun in the summer of 2007, with a tremendous fanfare from U.S. propagandists. Since that time, this fake “rescue program” has claimed to “help” about 150,000 homeowners per month, or over two million U.S. homeowners, altogether.
There has been absolutely no auditing or oversight concerning this “rescue program”, meaning the group of bankers who have operated this sham have been able to invent any numbers they wanted, when they reported these “rescues” - and the U.S. media propagandists have faithfully reported these numbers.
In a momentary lapse in its propaganda, this is what CNN had to say about “Hope Now”, today:
“In fact, this program has only aided a handful of homeowners...”
CNN didn't define how bigger a number a “handful” was, but it is obviously some extremely tiny percentage of the more than two MILLION whom the bankers claimed to have “helped”.
Of course, U.S. propaganda in this area has involved more than fabricating “good news”, and twisting the real meaning of statistics. They have also simply ignored data that was so bad that there was no way to put a “positive spin” on it.
Examples of data that has been totally ignored by the U.S. propaganda machine are nothing less than shocking. There are currently more than 20 million empty homes in the U.S. On top of that horrific number, of the roughly 5 million homes that have been foreclosed or repossessed so far, only about 1/3 of these homes have even been “listed” on the market.
These homes have been kept off the market by U.S. banks for two reasons. First of all, dumping this huge backlog of inventory onto the market must cause the collapse in U.S. home prices to accelerate even more rapidly (and accelerate the losses of U.S. banks holding roughly $14 TRILLION in mortgage debt).
Secondly, U.S. banks are so weak that they simply cannot afford (literally) to sell all these foreclosed properties – since they are also forced into taking a BIG write-down each and every time they sell one of the foreclosed/repossessed homes they are holding.
To make this scenario MUCH worse, a foreclosure moratorium which protected most U.S. homeowners for several months just ended a few weeks ago. This means that a deluge of new foreclosures will add dramatically to the vast stockpile of empty homes.
To summarize the situation, there are tens of millions of empty, unsold units in the U.S. housing market today, not including millions of additional American homeowners who are desperate to sell to try to avoid foreclosure.
Even if U.S. homebuilders completely stopped all construction, and not one additional U.S. homeowner listed their property for sale, it would still take years to "chew" through this unprecedented stockpile of inventory.
However, in the real world (a place which is totally shunned by the U.S. propaganda machine), there will be hundreds of thousands of new homes built each year, and millions of desperate, U.S. homeowners trying to sell their homes at virtually any price.
These parameters indicate that any possible “bottom” in the U.S. housing market is at least several years away. At this point, a real “bottom” some time around the middle of the next decade is the most likely scenario.
Meanwhile, the lies emanating from the U.S. propaganda machine, on a near-daily basis continue to deceive millions of Americans into purchasing grossly overvalued U.S. homes – virtually guaranteeing that most of these buyers will sink into “negative equity” in the months ahead, with many of these buyers certain to become additional, foreclosure victims.
However, in its quest to serve U.S. banker-oligarchs, U.S. propagandists have absolutely no concern toward the millions of Americans who will be financially destroyed by their lies. Indeed, as I have suggested before, the refusal of the U.S. government to provide any meaningful assistance for U.S. homeowners seems to indicate its desire to maximize the numbers of Americans who lose their homes.
Where could I get such a heinous idea? From “The Bankers Manifesto”, of course!

