Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore's "Who Were the Progressives"

Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, editor, "Who Were the Progressives?" Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002. 265 pages. Available on Amazon.com used and new for $3.50.

Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore does a great job in this introductory book about the Progressives. This is a book of selections from eminent historians who have written about Progressivism, to include Richard Hofstadter (Age of Reform), Elizabeth Sanders ("Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers and the American State, 1877-1917"), Robert H. Wiebe (The Search for Order), Richard L. McCormick ("The Discovery that Business Corrupts Politics"), Shelton Stormquist ("The Crucible of Class: Cleveland Politics and the Origins of Municipal Reform in the Progressive Era") and James J. Connolly ("Dimensions of Progressivism").

The book is targeted at college history students but it is a great book for the general reader. I like Gilmore's approach of excerpting sections of classic books. Moreover, she does a great job of illuminating how the different historians disagree.

The point of the book is that there is no consistent interpretation of the origins of Progressivism. Hofstadter argues that the Progressives were well off small town leaders of the "Mugwump type" who had been surpassed by tycoons of big business like Jay Gould and John D. Rockefeller:

"The newly rich, the grandiosely or corruptly rich, the masters of great corporations, were bypassing the men of the Mugwump type--the old gentry, the merchants of long standing, the small manufacturers the established professional men, the civic leaders of an earlier era...In their professional careers as in their community activities, they found themselves checked, hampered and overridden by the agents of the new corporations, the corrupters of legislatures, the buyers of franchises, the allies of political bosses."

"The Mugwump had broadened his base."

In contrast, Elizabeth Sanders in a riveting article "Agrarian Politics and Parties after 1896" that was taken from her 1999 book Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers and the American State, 1877-1917 argues that Progressivism was rooted in Populism. The Farmer's Union, for example, was an early co-op. "The FU devoted most of its energies to cooperatives, collective control of marketing and campaigns to withhold crops for a better price...It is important to remember that the Farmers' Union was hardly 'new'. Many of its organizers and members had been active alliance members and/or Populists and its goals and methods as well as its image of farmers as a proud but oppressed class suffering great injustice were clear links to the old (Farmers Alliance)."

The FU's legislative agenda "centered on facilitation of cooperation, antitrust investigations, railroad regulation, public control of banking and currency, government-supplied credit for farmers, lower tariffs, aid for agricultural and industrial education and public schools generally, direct election of the president and the Supreme Court, and the outlawing of commodity speculation. Like the Alliance, the FU frequently attempted to make common cause with labor unions...The Texas FU passed resolutions opposing convict labor in competition with free labor and advocating the reform administration of a Democratic governor..."

Sanders emphasizes the role of William Jennings Bryan in fashioning the reform ideology that later became the New Freedom and the New Deal (p. 54):

"It was the pull of Bryan's leadership, his de facto control of the party's nomination, and he desire to tap into his mass following that transformed the prim, conservative governor of New Jersey (who had been a Cleveland gold Democrat) into the candidate of progressive Democrats in 1912. Bryan played a major role in securing the nomination for Woodrow Wilson, wrote the 1912 platform that charted the path of reform for the 'New Freedom' years and coached the candidate through the campaign. And it was Bryan who inspired the congressional Democrats to push the president on antitrust, labor, banking, currency, farm credit and Phillipine independence. Writing of Bryan's lifelong devotion to political reform, Claude Bowers observed in the early 1950s, "Almost everything we've got today in the way of reforms originated with Bryan."

"The farmers were the most numerous constituents for expanded public power in the southern and Midwestern states where the reform movements were strongest. 'Under the growing pressure of monopoly,' wrote C. Vann Woodward, 'the small businessmen and urban middle class overcame their fear of reform and joined hands with the discontented farmers. They envisaged as a common enemy of plutocracy of the northeast, together with its agents, banks insurance companies, public utilities, oil companies, pipelines and railroads."

When the Populist Party disappeared the former Populists rejoined the major parties and sensitive the Democratic and Republican leaderships.

"In view of these regional tendencies, it seems appropriate to recognize the major reform legislation of the Progressive Era--the tariff, banking,income tax, railroad, shipping and commodity exchange regulation and the antitrust, farm credit, highway and education measures--as an agrarian agenda..."

Progressive reform started with the states (p. 64). "By 1910 the progressive movement in the states--particularly the states of the Midwest, South and West--had secured electoral reforms, regulatory restraints on railroads and insurance companies, taxes on powerful corporations and mitigation of some of the most reprehensible employment practices. However, the effectiveness of state laws was limited. Corporations harassed by state regulators could threaten to move their operations elsewhere, and federal court decisions made it impossible for states to have much influence on corporations heavily engaged in interstate commerce..."

Wiebe's argument differs from both Hofstadter and Sanders. Wiebe argues that progressivism amounted to a "search for order", what McCormick calls the "organizational" theory. Wiebe argues that:

"a patchwork government could no longer manage the range of urban problems with the expertise and economy that articulate citizens now believed they must have."

Reformers aimed to rationalize government, reorder it to suit modern corporations (pp. 82-3). "The experts in turn devised rudimentary government budgets, introduced central, audited purchasing and partially rationalized the structure of offices. Bureaus of research provided endless data on all of these matters as well as the skill fro drafting some of the more complex ordinances....Whatever the reformer's specialty, his program relied ultimately upon administration. 'For two generations,' Frederic Howe wrote in 1905, we have wrought out the most admirable laws and then left the government to run itself. This has been our greatest fault.' Now laws established an outline for management, a flexible authority to meet and follow the major issues of urban living. In fact, the fewer laws the better if those few properly empowered the experts, for administration was expected to replace the tedious, haphazard process of legislative compromise...Because the reformers viewed organization quite simply as anti-chaos, they conceived their administrative solutions in terms of broad executive mandates, with a mayor holding full general authority and subordinates enjoying virtual autonomy in their limited areas of expertise. The model government formed a simple pyramid free from all the cross checks and intersecting lines of divided responsibility.

"Scientific government, the urban reformers believed, would bring opportunity, progress order and community. Once emancipated from fear and exploitation all men would enjoy a fair chance for success. the coarseness, the jagged violence, of city life that so deeply disturbed them would dissolve into a new urban unity, the progressive version of the old community ideal...Early in the twentieth century this goal rapidly lost ground to a very different one predicated upon the assumption that every man, properly educated, would desire a functional, efficient society. The new bureaucratic vision accepted the impersonal flux of the city and anticipated its perfect systematization.

"Although many topics of late-nineteenth century reform appeared after 1900, most of the old issues had changed beyond recognition. Civil service, for instance, had once been a negative, absolute goal...Now the panacea of the patrician had given way to the administrative tool of the expert, with efficiency rather than moral purity its objective...

"It was the expert who benefited most directly from the new framework of politics. the more intricate such fields as the law and the sciences became, the greater the need for men with highly developed skills...Only the professional administrator, the doctor, the social worker, the architect, the economist could show the way.

"By 1905 urban progressives were already separating along two paths. While one group used the language of the budget, boosterism and social control, the other talked of economic justice, human opportunities and rehabilitated democracy.

"In the twentieth century the commission became the master instead of the servant. Once empowered, it operated apart from the legislature, administering rather than enforcing. Business-minded progressives, in other words, expected the commission to act as their agent in an endless series of maneuvers with the railroads. ..In the end these commissions accomplished relatively little. Irrelevant to the natural flow of people and goods, the states simply could not manage the major problems of a national economy..."

"In fact the major corporations tended to move somewhat ahead of the reformers in attempts to extend the range and continuity of their power through bureaucratic means...(With respect to corporations) around 1900 the rush to reorganize commenced with one giant firm after another adopting some variant of administrative centralization. An age that assumed an automatic connection between accurate data and rational action naturally emphasized a few leaders linked by simple lines to the staff below. Information would flow upward through the corporate structure, decisions downward...As their interests grew more refined and their need for technical services increased, big businessmen also leaned more and more upon expert assistants."

(p. 93) "The more extensive the magnate's political concern, the more important it was to condition countless, unknown officials in all parts of government to respond appropriately whenever his interests cam under consideration...Lobbying underwent comparable changes around 1900. The major corporations were the earliest experimenters...Perpetual ferment in dozens of states demanded the corporate leader's constant attention, so he assigned full-time agents to the important posts...Varieties of competing organizations, often with diversified programs, left the legislative leader without the basis for decisions. Nor could he depend upon partisan loyalties to mellow their spirits."

(p. 95) "by far the most important part of that political revolution transformed the national government. Because most progressives chose to concentrate initially upon a government close at hand and because few of them had easy access to national power, the pressure for change mounted more slowly in Washington than it did in the city halls and state capitols. Nevertheless, a rudimentary national progressivism was already taking shape around 1900. Some reformers were turning to Washington because they needed truly national solutions to their problems. Even more looked there because the scope of their operations, though far less than nationwide, had still entangled them in too many conflicting jurisdictions. Others simply sought national weapons to use in their local wars...By 1900 a small but growing number of militants, largely new-middle class businessmen who shipped to an from the major cities of the Midwest, had already lost faith in the value of piecemeal controls through state government and were demanding an expansion of the Interstate Commerce Commission's powers."

In Richard L. McCormick's article "The Discovery that Business Corrupt Politics: A Reappraisal of the Origins of Progressivism" which originally appeared in the American Historical Review (86:2, April 1981, 247-74)

"historians have increasingly recognized the Progressive Era as the age when Americans accommodated, rather than tried to escape, large-scale business organizations and their methods."

Progressivism involved"the emergence of a 'government broadly and continuously involved in society's operations.'" (quoting Wiebe)

"From the English opposition of Walpole's day, colonists in America had absorbed the theory that commercial development threatened republican government in two ways: (1) by spreading greed, extravagance and luxury among the people; and (2) by encouraging a designing ministry to conspire with monied interests for the purpose of overwhelming the independence of the legislature"

Quoting Fred Somkin: "Over and over again Americans called attention to the danger which prosperity posed for the safety of free institutions and the maintenance of republicanism...Using language similar to that of Walpole's and Hamilton's critics, Andrew Jackson decried special privileges from government as dangerous to liberty and demanded their abolition. Much of his wrath was directed against the Second Bank of the United states. That 'monster,' he said, was 'a vast electioneering engine'; it has 'already attempted to subject the government to its will."

"By the 1890s, large-scale industrialization was creating the felt need for new government policies in two distinct but related ways. The first process, which Hays and Wiebe have described so well, was the increasing organization of diverse producer groups, conscious of their own identities and special needs. Each demanded specific public protections for its own endeavors and questioned the allocation of benefits to others. The second development was less tangible: the unorganized public's dawning sense of vulnerability, unease and anger in the face of economic changes wrought by big corporations. Sometimes, the people's inchoate feelings focused on the ill-understood "trusts"; at other times their negative emotions found more specific, local targets in street-railway or electric power companies."

"The period 1904-1908 comprised the muckraking years."

"Many of the details of politico-business corruption had never been publicly revealed before...Large-scale corporation campaign contributions, for instance, were a product of the 1880s and 1890s. Highly organized legislative lobbying operations by competing interest groups represented an even more recent development. In his systematic study of American legislative practices, Paul S. Reinsch devoted a lengthy chapter to describing how business interests had developed a new and far more efficient system of dealing with legislatures than the old methods of [haphazard corruption].

"By 1905 a political explosion of some sort was likely, due to the accumulated frustrations people felt about the government's failure to deal with the problems of industrialization. So combustible were the elements present that another spark besides the discovery of politico-business corruption might well have ignited them. But the recognition of such corruption was an especially effective torch."

But "The organizational results that followed, however, seem less inevitable. There were, after all, several other known ways of curtailing corruption besides expert regulation and administration. For one, there was the continued reliance on direct legislative action against the corruption of politics by businessmen...A second approach, favored by Edward Alsworth Ross and later by Woodrow Wilson, was to hold business leaders personally responsible for their 'sins' and to punish them accordingly. Finally, there were proposals for large structural solutions changing the political and economic environment so that the old corrupt practices became impossible."

Groups that stood to gain from regulation of utility and transportation had previously proposed regulation. The explosive news about corruption made the public support these proposals, even if they were irrelevant to the corruption. "Where their proposals met the particular political needs of 1905-08 they succeeded most quickly." The muckrakers themselves were devoid of proposals of how to reform government and business.

p. 128 "The circumstances in which the discovery of corruption became a political force also assist in explaining its conservatism. The passions of 1905-06 were primarily expressed in state, rather than local or national politics...Usually the policy consequences were more favorable to large business interests.

The last four articles in this book are also very good. In particular, Shelton Stormquist discusses how a streetcar strike in Cleveland pushed the subsequent Cleveland mayor, Tom Johnson, to push for progressive reform. James J. Connolly argues that ethnic politics in Boston also played a role, and that Italians, Jews and Irish used progressive rhetoric for their own ends.

Thus, there are quite a few competing explanations of Progressivism, even if they overlap: agriculture, the Mugwump type, big businessmen in search of order, a public outraged by corruption, class politics and ethnic politics.

Future Taxation and Paper Money Expansion in the Revolutionary War

Benjamin Franklin advocated paper money and monetary expansion in his essay "A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency." John H. Wood in the Chicago Fed's Economic Perspectives tells that Franklin advocated inflation but that:

"Afterwards, however, in that most candid of autobiographies, Franklin suggested that his motives might not have been altogether altruistic.

"'My Friends [in the Assembly], who conceiv'd I had been of some service, thought fit to reward me by employing me in printing the money; a very profitable jobb and a great help to me.'

"This monopoly, which Franklin retained until 1764, must certainly have been 'a great help'to the struggling young printer. He was also heavily in debt, another reason to favor a monetary expansion. Forty years later, however, Franklin, grown prosperous and now a creditor, observed that, "I now think there are limits beyond which the quantity [of currency] may be hurtful."

In an article that appeared in The Journal of Economic History (Vol. 48, No. 1 (Mar., 1988), pp. 47-68) Charles W. Calomiris notes that not only Franklin but also a number of the Federalists, to include Madison, Hamilton, John Adams, Gouverneur Morris and Robert Morris also supported paper money expansion in the mid 18th century. In fact, although paper money was invented in China, its modern application was invented in America. The British discouraged acquisition of gold specie in America, and many contemporary observers believed that there was a shortage of money.

Calomiris notes that in 1729, at the age of twenty-three, Franklin wrote "A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency,":

"a polemic supporting the creation of land banks in Pennsylvania. Franklin argued that the expansion of properly backed paper currency could have a lasting real effect on the aggregate stock of money and the extent of trade. Franklin focused on the favorable developmental consequences for a capital-poor, land-rich economy of being able to substitute paper for exportable specie. Franklin expounded on the virtues of multiple deposit expansion in Europe and the great saving enjoyed through fractional reserve banking and consequent reductions in specie hold-ings. The mortgage-backed currency issued by land banks, he reasoned, would be even more efficient because it would not direct any real resources to production

"Franklin argues that abundant money leads to lower interest rates, greater production, immigration, and special- ization by enhancing the rapid settlement of debts and by insuring that traders will always be able to purchase the bundle of goods they desire. Furthermore, in a currency-scarce economy, merchants who deal in foreign goods often are forced to pay wages and debts in kind from inventories, and thereby promote the consumption of foreign goods to the detriment of local commerce. In this context, land-backed paper money has a developmental "bootstrapping" role in moving the economy beyond a critical initial threshold which allows exchange and specialization to thrive...

"Franklin addressed opponents of land banks who claimed that an increase in money always led to inflation. He maintained that credible land-backed money would not be inflationary, in part because its creation corresponded to the earmarking of a set of real assets which backed it. The importance of backing in determining the value of money was extended by analogy to the government's use of its assets (future taxes) as a means of redeeming and giving value to its debts, including currency."

However, "Adam Smith argued that the demand for money-like debt depended not only on the backing of money, but on the sufficiency of the supply of competing liquid claims in the economy as a whole. He allowed money demand, as well as land or tax backing, to influence the value of money-like claims through the liquidity premium money enjoys." Smith did not look favorably upon paper money expansion.

Calomiris notes (pp. 47-8):

“Whether the colonies suffered a scarcity of money has been a topic of debate among economic historians. Throughout eighteenth-century America there were a wide variety of circulating media- foreign coins and bills, a trivial number of domestic coins, and private, colonial, state and continental notes. Specie import cost was inflated before the Revolutionary War by mercantilistic prohibitions and duties intended to encourage the flow of specie from the colonies to Britain... Colonial bills were restricted in supply by prohibitions and limitations originating in Britain, as well as by local government prohibitions of private paper issues and local limits on emissions of legal-tender currency. Parliament enacted its prohibitions at the behest of British and colonial creditors who saw in paper money a means to reduce the value of hard-currency debt. Some colonials complained that government regulations and government unwillingness to supply sufficient paper bills caused unnec- essary monetary scarcity” (pp. 47-8).

Like Pennsylvania, New York experimented with paper money inflation. Calomiris quotes New York's Governor Hunter (p. 48):

"I do affirm that since the circulation of these bills, the trade of this place has increased at least above a half of what it was."

"The currency stock valued in real terms at roughly 8 million Spanish milled dollars was viewed as a severe shortage in 1775, and the trebling of real balances from 1775 to 1776 due to state and continental note issues confirms the earlier potential for growth in real money balances" (p. 48)

"Pelatiah Webster's estimate of total specie and bills in America at the beginning of 1775 is $10 million (specie equivalent)." From May 1775 to November 1776 the states, acting individually, issued $18 million in currency to help finance the Revolutionary War but:

"The greatest source of increase in liquidity during the early war years, however, was the bills first authorized by the Continental Congress in May 1775. By the end of 1776, Congress had issued $25 million in continentals for which it received $21 million in specie value."

"The value of the promise to redeem continentals depended crucially on the ability and willingness of Congress to tax. Under the Articles of Confederation, however, only states had taxation authority, while both Congress and states could issue money and other debt. The redemption of continentals required the completion of the following chain of events: the war had to be won, Congress had to want to redeem its currency, the states had to be willing to transfer resources to Congress or to vest it with the power to tax, and the public had to be sufficiently wealthy and willing to be taxed" (p. 60)

"To contemporaries it was clear that the difference between the state and continental bills was the expected value of each for extinguishing taxes" (p. 61)

Ultimately "It's not worth a continental" became a popular expression as the federal Continental was redeemed at 2 cents on the dollar. Calomiris argues that where taxation was used to repay notes that served as paper money, extending the money supply was not inflationary. But where there was no backing of the paper money with increased taxation it was.

He goes on to quote Benjamin Franklin (p. 63):

“The general effect of the depreciation among the inhabitants of the States has been this, that it has operated as a gradual tax upon them, and every man has paid his share of the tax according to the time he retained any of the money in his hands, and to the depreciation within that time. Thus it has proved a tax on money, a kind of property very difficult to be taxed in any other mode; and it has fallen more equally than many other taxes, as those people paid most, who, being richest, had most money passing through their hands.”

In effect, Franklin is arguing for holding hard assets (land, gold, inventory, Lexuses) rather than cash.

Calomiris offers an interesting concluding observation:

"The financial legacy of the American Revolution was distrust of government money which, when combined with the struggle over private bank chartering privileges, contributed to the prolonged inadequacy of financial institutions in the United States. Critics of government monetary control cited the revolutionary experience as proof that governments could not be trusted to repay their monetary obligations. Such bitter opposition to government bill issues led to the prohibition of state bill issues by the Constitution. Federal powers regarding paper money creation were left deliberately vague by the framers as a compromise between those who advocated absolute prohibition and those who saw the advantage of occasional issues. While a small amount of government currency was issued during the War of 1812, only the financial exigencies produced by the Civil War led the government once again to create a substantial supply of paper money. The somewhat credible commitment to resume specie backing of greenbacks limited their depreciation, and the achievement of resumption in 1879 set the stage for a permanent government role in supplying paper money. Thus the displacement of the post-Revolution for a discussion of the constitutional debate over federal monetary powers."

Caroline Kennedy and the Progressive Hoax

"Progressivism" is the idea that government can "solve problems" that politicians, academic "experts" and "the media" identify. But what if these sources lack the ability to identify problems much less solve them? One would expect that those who claim that government can identify and solve "problems" would insist on political leaders who are competent to do so. Problem solving is hard work. If they do not require competence among their political leadership, why might they believe that government can solve problems?

Recently, "Progressives" claimed that Sarah Palin "lacks experience" and therefore is incapable of solving problems or representing the nation in the manner that "Progressives" require. At the same time, Barack Obama revealed ignorance of the most elementary aspects of foreign affairs. For instance, he was unaware that returning Jerusalem to Israel would cause resentment among the Arabs. This kind of whimsical picking and choosing, i.e., the people we don't like must have experience but the people we like need not, suggests that there no serious problems that "Progressives" have any ability to solve, and there is no problem solving. "Progressivism" is a hoax.

New York is one of the most "Progressive" states, a failed state that demonstrates the cruelty and viciousness of big government. New York's economy has been dismal for decades. Led by "Progressives" like Michael Bloomberg, Mario Cuomo, Nelson Rockefeller and George Pataki, New York City and State have failed to prepare for a Wall Street slowdown. Now that it is occurring, college-trained professionals are seeking work at the Bread Alone Bakery in Boiceville, NY. Mayor Bloomberg, himself an experienced trader, has served nearly two terms yet was not willing to take the most modest political risks necessary to attract alternative industries to the state and city. Doing so would have involved cutting massive waste in City Hall, cutting taxes, and reducing regulation.

Tonight Yahoo! features Larry Neumeister's AP release that quotes Kennedy:

"She said two events shaped her decision to ask Gov. David Paterson 11 days ago to consider her for the position if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is confirmed as secretary of state: the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and her work for Barack Obama's presidential campaign."

If Kennedy were interested in public service and "Progressives" were interested in solving problems, they would have Kennedy serve as a staff analyst in the Senate or the State Assembly, and let her run for state senate office thereafter. After five or six years at the state or congressional level, she might be ready for a senate run.

But since "Progressives" don't solve problems and cannot identify them, the singularly inexperienced and unprepared Kennedy is hailed by the "Progressive" left.

Why Does Tony Rezko's Lawyer Own Barack Obama's House? And Why The Media Silence?

Bob Robbins and Jim Crum forwarded documentation of the property title of Barack Obama's house on 5046 S Greenwood, Washington, DC that appeared on News and Commentary for Thinking People (NCFTP). NCFTP posts the records here. If you were a senator or a presidential candidate, would you ask your former boss to hold the title to your house? Especially if your boss was a lawyer representing your friend who had been an indicted and now convicted felon? And if you were the news editor of anything that conceivably calls itself a news outlet, would you cover this story about a presidential candidate and now president-elect?

A few days ago Bob Robbins forwarded 48 pages of property records, the first page of which is copied from the PDF file below and appears in NCFTP's link.

Here is the article that appears today in Worldnet Daily:

>An attorney for convicted fundraiser Tony Rezko is listed as the owner and taxpayer for Barack Obama's Chicago mansion, according to records obtained by WND.
William Miceli is a lawyer at the Chicago law firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland, which also formerly employed Obama...

>Miner, Barnhill & Galland was Obama's employer when he did extensive legal work for Rezko, who awaits sentencing after he was convicted in June of fraud, money laundering and bribery-related counts.

>Miceli, as a senior attorney at the firm, supervised Obama when the future president wrote letters on behalf of Rezko urging public authorities to award him new public properties...

>Following the Jan. 21 Democratic Party primary debate, Miceli told the Washington Post that he was Obama's supervisor at the law firm, in response to Sen. Hillary Clinton's charges Obama had worked for a Chicago slumlord, Rezko...

WND confirmed the tax bill for the Obama home is mailed to Miceli, not to Obama or the Northern Trust account through which Obama has claimed the home was purchased.

>Records from the Cook County Treasurer's Office give the PIN number for the Obama property as 20-11-115-037-0000 and list Miceli as the person who receives Obama's property tax invoice by mail.

>Eric Herman, a spokesman for the Cook County assessor, confirmed to WND that the Treasurer's Office records were correct and that Miceli did receive the Obama property tax invoice by mail. ...

>Rosslyn Whitlock, an Internet support specialist at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds, confirmed to WND that the office has no information listed for the Obama home under the PIN number 20-11-115-037-0000, the number used by the Cook County Assessor's office for property tax purposes.

>WND was able to locate warranty information at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds , which Herman at the County Assessor's office told WND was the "old PIN number" assigned to the Obama home at 5046 S. Greenwood Avenue, before the home was sold to Obama.

>Neither spokesman could explain to WND the discrepancy in PIN numbers, nor why the Cook County Recorder of Deeds has no information filed under the new PIN number assigned to the property after the Obama purchase...

>Meanwhile, WND has reported that since arresting Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has taken new interest in Rezko's involvement in the Obama mansion purchase.

>WND also reported real estate credit analyst Kenneth Conner has filed a civil suit alleging he was wrongfully dismissed by Mutual Bank of Harvey for objecting to what he considered a fraudulent appraisal of the vacant lot. The appraisal was submitted by the Rezkos at an intentionally high figure, he claims, permitting them to borrow an additional $125,000 that amounted to a "political payoff" to Obama.

Quoting Democracy Rules of News and Commentary for Thinking People:

>"The price was too high for Obama, so he went to Rezko for help. Rezko’s plan was to buy the adjacent property on the same day Obama bought the house. Obama would still have to overpay, even for just the house. But once the whole deal was finished, the package would become a reasonably good deal.

>"Obama (or William Miceli) bought the house, and Rezko’s wife bought the adjoining lot. Then Obama got a strip of the lot from Rezko’s wife for about $100,000. This did two things. It expanded the house lot, which increased the house value. The picture shows a new fence that Obama had built along the new property line. It also made the adjacent lot so narrow, it’s unlikely anyone who bought it could make money building something on it. They might not even be able to get a building permit. So essentially the deal gave Obama a house and the use of two lots...

>"But wait, there’s more! The mortgaged amount is very high. It’s so high it violates the ordinary lending rules for Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, which carries the mortgage. This is probably legal, because the owners set up a complicated land trust arrangement to bypass those rules. But why? And who pays this mortgage? Why would Obama pay a mortgage on a house he doesn’t own? Does he just pay rent, while Rezko’s lawyer pays the mortgage?

>"But wait, there’s even more! It’s now clear the adjacent lot was overvalued by Rezko’s bank. At the time, an appraiser said it was worth $500,000. But Rezko’s bank unilaterally upped the value to about $650,000. This enabled Rezko’s wife to get a bigger mortgage on the lot. Bank employee Kenneth J. Conner found out, and complained this was mortgage fraud. Overvaluing a property to get a bigger mortgage is against the law. Conner blew the whistle, but he was fired. Now he’s suing the bank.

>"Conner filed a civil complaint in October with the Illinois Circuit Court in Cook County alleging he was fired by Mutual Bank of Harvey, Ill., because he objected to land appraisals submitted on behalf of the Rezkos and the Obamas, with the complicity of the bank.

>After he was fired, Conner told World Net Daily that the bank and the Rezkos were engaged in "fraud, bribes or kickbacks, use whatever term you want," to benefit the Obamas...

1 OF 35 RECORD(S)

Assessment Record For COOK County
Owner Information
Original Name: WILLIAM MICELI
Standardized Name: MICELI, WILLIAM
Original Address: 14 W ERIE ST
CHICAGO, IL 60610-5397
Standardized Address: 14 W ERIE ST
CHICAGO, IL 60654-5397
COOK COUNTY
Property Information
Original Property Address: 5046 S GREENWOOD
CHICAGO, IL 60615
Standardized Property Address: 5046 S GREENWOOD AVE
CHICAGO, IL 60615-2806
COOK COUNTY
Land Use: SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL
Legal Information
Assessor's Parcel Number: 20-11-115-034
Recording Date: 06/21/2005
Legal Description: DISTRICT: 70; CITY/MUNI/TWNSP: HYDE PARK; SEC/TWN/RNG/MER:
SEC 11 TWN 38N RNG 14E; MAP 20-11-NW (C&D)
Sale Information
Recording Date: 06/21/2005
Sale Price: $1,650,000 - FULL AMOUNT
Document Number: 517233010
Assessment Information
Assessment Year: 2006
Assessed Land Value: $14,700
Assessed Improvement Value: $139,681
Total Assessed Value: $154,381
Tax Information
Tax Rate Code: 70001
Tax Amount: $22,162.47
Tax Year: 2006
Property Characteristics
Baths: 6
Partial Baths: 1
Fireplace: 3
Roof: SHINGLE (NOT WOOD)
Garage Type: DETACHED
Garage Size: 4 Car(s)
Building Area: 6,199 T TOTAL
Air Conditioning: CENTRAL
Construction: MASONRY
Page 1
Basement: UNFINISHED
Square Footage: 10500 SF
Important: The Public Records and commercially available data sources used on reports have errors. Data is sometimes entered
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