How the Government and Business Stole Billions from the American Dream of Home Ownership—and Got Caught
Another big lie begins like this: “There is a war that you’ve probably never heard of. It has been going on for decades, and if you own a house or aspire to, you need to know about it. It’s a war about brass-knuckle politics and balloon-size pride.” If you’re like most Americans, this war described by author Tim Pagliara sounds abstract, maybe even conspiratorial, but if there is one thing readers can be certain about within the pages of Another Big Lie, it’s that Tim is only interested in the truth.
Home ownership has long been the beating heart of the American Dream. It created the most robust middle class the world has ever known, and was made affordable by a government that guaranteed the security of thirty-year fixed rate mortgages. The company propping up this prosperity was Fannie Mae, longtime enemy and target of bankers and Wall Street fat cats, desperate for their take of Fannie’s massive profits.
When the bankers crumbled the American financial system, they were eager to blame Fannie Mae, ramping up their decades-long lobbying against the government-backed company. The story leading to the meltdown and crash is well-worn territory for movies and documentaries, and still retains a place in the increasingly cautious American psyche. In Another Big Lie, Tim Pagliara shares the troubling part of the story we weren’t told: Fannie Mae’s thought-impossible rebound against relentless lobbying from the right, ever-cynical business interests, and a business model that was designed to make sure it never turned a profit.
Tim’s book calls upon his own experience lobbying Washington to seek justice for investors and homeowners alike as he reveals the profit-seeking corporate (and governing) practices that endanger the American Dream and threaten to send the real estate market back into the catastrophe of 2008.