Peter L. Mosca: July 2008 Archives
If two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers can be indicted and arrested in the first criminal prosecution stemming from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, should the media be held to the same level of accountability? If prosecutors later revealed hundreds of indictments linked to the nation’s housing crisis, do sensational headlines and scrolling messages of doom across TV screens equate to deceitful practices and warrant similar condemnations? Is there a difference between two men allegedly inflating numbers for personal profit and entire news corporations deflating real estate values for revenue-generating purposes?
As the saying goes, “If it bleeds, it leads, and when there is nothing bleeding, this news media finds something to ‘shoot’ and today’s target is Freddie and Fannie. It’s all about an agenda. The financial news media represent, and rightfully so, the interests of ‘Wall Street.’ The problem is ‘wall street’ media lacks full disclosure and the ones who get hurt most are Americans with the bulk of their wealth in real estate and their homes -- ‘Main Street USA.’
The likelihood that media reports on Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae could become a self-fullfilling prophecy and result in the conservatorship of the nation’s two largest mortgage finance lenders is a concern to IncomePropertyInvestmentTalk.com and other real estate experts looking out for our nation’s homeowners, real estate investors and the economy as a whole. The Federal National Mortgage Association, nicknamed Fannie Mae, and the Federal Home Mortgage Corporation, nicknamed Freddie Mac, have operated since 1968 as government sponsored enterprises (GSEs).
Do journalists simply not understand real estate complexities or do they have an agenda of their own? www.IncomePropertyInvestmentTalk.com will examine, with a focus on real estate investing, the role of the media in the 21st Century as a gatekeeper and instrument to disseminate information, to report the truth, and its increasing charge to influence and shape public opinion.
“The overzealous, hyped news by reporters who may or may not understand the power they have to influence the American public is nerveless irresponsible and is conjecture at best,” said Michael Anderson, CCIM President of RealSource, helping entrepreneurial real estate investors find investment opportunities in emerging markets throughout the U.S., led his firm to transactional volume that surpassed $1 billion in client transactions, debt financing, and equity in TIC (Tenancy in Common) activity. “It’s scary that an MSNBC ‘journalist’ can get on TV and state that the value of Fannie and Freddie may be zero (0) by day’s end. Why, if not for profit generating reasons, would this outlet and other media corporations have ‘experts’ promulgate this kind of terrible speculation.”?
What are your thoughts? We’d like to know.
