Day: October 14, 2016

Warren Buffett Screws Even the Poorest Americans

Warren Buffett owns lots of companies through his investment vehicle subsidiary Berkshire Hathaway.  X will give Buffett credit, he does give out very good investment advice such as; taking a long view on the market as opposed to trying to time it, and buying a wonderful company at a good price instead of buying a good company at a wonderful price.  Turn on CNBC or Fox Business and the program’s host will probably mention Buffett several times throughout the day. He is known as both the “oracle of Omaha” and the “greatest investor ever.”  For the most part this is true; however, let’s delve into a few select companies he owns and how they fleece the poorest people living in our country.

One such company is Clayton Homes. Berkshire Hathaway (Buffett) acquired them back in 2003 for 1.7 billion dollars.  Clayton Homes builds and sells manufactured homes. X has no issue and actually believes Buffett made a smart decision to buy a company like Clayton.  Manufactured homes are generally lived in by people who do not have much financially and that is not an issue; people do need to live somewhere.  Clayton sells its products on sales lots similar to an independent car dealer. Typically, when customers visit Clayton’s lots, they encounter flashy signs and banners specifically to target their preferred demographic, the poor, and minorities. (More on this later).

Clayton was expanded over the years to produce many varieties of the same types of homes under different names, smart move as automakers do the same thing.  Many towns have multiple Clayton Homes dealers but they were intentionally branded under different names to deceive shoppers.  In some sparsely populated parts of the Midwest and South, one would have to drive past as many as five Clayton Homes dealers to find a non-Clayton dealer.  In Texas, there are 12 Clayton dealers and not one competitor for over three hours away!  In Carrolton, Texas—just north of Dallas, Buffet’s Clayton Homes controls 90% of the manufactured home market, yeah think about that for a minute.

Manufactured home selling isn’t unethical or anything so, why is X white hot at Rich Uncle Pennybags?  It’s the way he markets, insures, and finances them.  Clayton markets directly to the poor, but more so to minorities. One former Clayton supervisor said “We market to that demographic because they are not as smart as whites and don’t ask questions like whites do.”  That’s not racist at all is it?  Manufactured homes are a horrible investment to begin with because they depreciate in value extremely quickly, and if you don’t have the $45k to buy the unit outright then Buffett can finance it for you!  Yup, he owns Vanderbilt Mortgage, a low income, high risk lender.  Vanderbilt was the preferred lender for Clayton sales associates to steer their unexpected customers toward at financing time.  Vanderbilt paid Clayton a royalty for each placed loan, and Buffett got a cut as well. (Kinda sounds like the Wells Fargo debacle right?)  Vanderbilt charges very high fees, and the interest rates are exorbitant, often seven points higher than a typical home loan.  So in today’s terms that would be around 11% interest a year.  Other lenders charged around 3.8% higher than a conventional home loan, but remember Uncle Warren wants to get paid at every point of the process.  Vanderbilt Mortgage has a staggering 40% of the manufactured home loan market, the second largest controls just 6%, that would be Wells Fargo.

Additionally Clayton has an insurance subsidiary, HomeFirst Agency. They were the preferred provider of insurance on all the homes sold by Clayton and financed by Vanderbilt.  Again, the sales associates were telling customers that their current insurance company does not insure mobile homes so you should go with our in house option.  So once again he duped unsuspecting people.  So at this point of the sales process Buffett has profited several different times: the loan Clayton got from Berkshire to build the unit, Shaw Carpet and Benjamin Moore Paints to finish the interior (both owned by Buffett), the loan through Vanderbilt Mortgage, and the insurance through HomeFirst.  Sounds like a heck of a gig if you can land it.  However of the three main players in this article, Vanderbilt Mortgage literally may be the devil re-incarnated.

Vanderbilt doesn’t verify or ask for income statements from the individual getting the loan.  This happened on purpose folks, Vanderbilt does this to make a profit up front on the fees and interest for the first few months, then they could repossess the unit and sell it again; lather, rinse, repeat.  Or in the words of the Blogfather, Dewey, Screwem and Howe.  Vanderbilt would tell the customers the loans could be refinanced at a lower rate in the future; not true, Vanderbilt did this so they could repossess.  Vanderbilt customer service members would tell clients that called in pleading to refinance that they should and I quote “not buy medication or medicines, and encourage them to pawn off or sell any items they could to make that payment.”  The customers could not refinance the loans as units depreciate extremely quickly. As a result, many customers lost their homes.  Even worse, many customers lost their land which they had put up as collateral.  In one case, while foreclosure was being introduced, Vanderbilt had already taken the unit and had it listed for sale on a Clayton lot again.  These companies are so corrupt and unethical they defied the orders of a judge.

So once again to recap, the nice guy Warren Buffett who laments that his secretary pays a higher income tax rate then he does, owns companies that allow him to profit at every turn and plays by his own set of rules when it comes to steering customers into making poor financial decisions.  Buffett is a fraud, plain and simple. He is a very greedy human being who is ruthless to the working people while he profits hand over fist.  He should not be regarded as a great person or great investor, as in these cases with Vanderbilt Mortgage and Clayton Homes some people and families literally lost everything to a phony empire know as Warren Buffett.  Wait until I unveil the next hit on him, regarding his profits over employee’s dealings.

Until next time,

X

Post Constitutional America is Here

Former Sacramento Congressman Vic Fazio was quoted back in the 1980’s as saying “Don’t go quoting the Constitution to me, let’s get back to reality”.   Unfortunately, this Liberal Democrat was a harbinger of what has come to pass in the intervening years.

The song “Stop the World” by Randy Stonehill puts much of our wrongs into a succinct form:

We’re putting criminals in office
Cause it’s way too crowded in the jails
T.V. is our teacher now
The schools are overrun by thugs
And children skip their innocence
And graduate to sex and drugs
Right is wrong and wrong is right
White is black and black is white

Millions of people in this country have taken an oath to “…defend the country from all enemies foreign and domestic” but look at their actions, they clearly don’t believe it.

Not only have the barbarians repeatedly stormed the gates, but our leaders are inviting the barbarians—including those from the Seventh Century—to come here and stay. They are welcome to setup outposts of insurgence within our borders. Why? Because they have a common enemy: Christianity.

The American experiment in democracy appears to be experiencing its last dying breaths. The country is burdened with so much debt that all the wealth in the world could literally not pay all the obligations of government let alone the consumer debt of its people.

Yes, the United States is experiencing the same civil war that is raging in the rest of the West. Secular Humanism and Islam are uniting to destroy Christianity. Christianity is responsible for Western Culture but its heirs have forgotten God and think they can do it without Him. Each of our leaders—like their counterparts in the Biblical books of Chronicles and Kings—have done more wickedness than all the leaders before them. They glory in their wickedness. Our gods are called Choice instead of Moloch, athletes, actors, musicians, or politicians instead of Ba’al (local deities), Marvel and D.C. instead of Olympus or Valhalla and the power of the State is vested in Washington instead of Egypt.

Pluralism has the practical effect of establishing a modern Rome where you can have any god you want as long as Caesar is Lord. To hold to the supremacy of the Biblical God is anathema to our culture. This is even true of most self-identified Christians.

Sorry but it’s true. The pervasiveness of abortion, divorce, homosexuality, child abuse, drugs, tattoos, or any other metric of evil in our society is the same inside the Church or out. As a whole, there is no measurable difference between those calling themselves “Christian” and the general population. Most children of Christian families that are raised in the church leave their faith as soon as they go off to college if not before. Is it any wonder when only two colleges in the United States still believe the biblical account of Genesis? If Genesis is a myth then so is the rest of the Bible. Without “The Fall” there is no sin and no God; therefore, no need for a Savior.

The Clinton v Trump campaign may seem important to us at the moment but regardless of who wins, the trajectory of the country will continue to further decline. The vote will only determine how fast the decline will continue. The Republic is over; the only struggle now is what will replace it. Look for less freedom, more government, and more persecution. Jesus said to count the cost of following Him and we are beginning to see that even in this country the price is rapidly increasing. To openly follow Him will cost you, jobs, property, and your freedom; not in the future but now. Welcome to the curses of Deuteronomy 28:15–68

We are clearly under God’s judgment but instead of repenting, we are acting like Alfred E Newman from Mad Magazine and saying, “What, me worry?”

Alfred E Newman

The Constitution was supposed to be THE list of the powers of the national government—enumerated powers—but now it means the opposite, unless specifically prohibited, the nation government thinks its fair game to fill their coffers or interfere in you daily life. Rightly interpreted, the government created by the Constitution was so small and remote that it shouldn’t matter who is in office. As envisioned by the document, the President and Supreme Court had very little responsibility. Almost all power was to be in the Congress. (Remember that they just dumped a King and country and were looking not to repeat that mistake again.) As written, the leadership in Washington was to affect your daily lives as much as the winner of the San Francisco 49ers versus the Oakland Raiders game last year.

Triumvirates didn’t work too well in Ancient Rome and it is likely that ours will end-up in the same place. We have the Imperial President that rules by Executive Orders instead of edicts; a legislative branch that is a cheap parody of the Imperial Senate of Star Wars or Roman Senate under the Caesars. (Can you say symbolism over substance?) The only difference is that we have a Supreme Court. The Court gets to make laws too but they have become a laughingstock. They have no real power, no army or way to enforce anything and they serve at the pleasure of the President. When needed, they always fall in line to the will of the President. Lest you disagree with me, look back to Roosevelt and the New Deal. “A switch in time saved nine”  is not a nursery rhyme but an historical fact.

Someday soon, a President is not going to leave the White House at the end of his term but remain in power. He might even change his title to Chancellor or caretaker. The Court will reluctantly find it Constitutional and the Congress will standby idly wringing their hands when it happens but that day is almost here.

Germany once laughed at Hitler and his National Socialists but everything Hitler did including the Holocaust was with the blessing of their Legislature and Courts. Well socialists now run most of this country, the only squabble is will we be National Socialists or Internationalist Socialists (Globalists)?  We might even adopt a Fascist economic model just to spice things up and create the illusion of private ownership of the means of production.

I think Fazio was right; we are no long bound by the Constitution. Like people that go to church and don’t let their professed faith affect their daily lives, we pay lip-service to the founding document but don’t feel constrained to follow it. Conservative Protestants have been saying that we live in a Post-Christian world since Francis Schaeffer in the 1980’s; well I think it’s high time that we called our era in modern America the Post-Constitutional one. My only question is did Post-Constitutional America begin with FDR or Obama? I will have to ponder that one a while longer.