90 The Solari Report / 2018 Annual Wrap Up / Part Two economic cleansing and the gentrification it made possible? What can our “socially re- sponsible” investment managers say when they invest in the stocks of banks, like Citi- bank and JP Morgan-Chase, and government contractors, like IBM and AT&T, who are running critical parts of government as these manipulations occur—including the disappearance of $4 trillion from government bank accounts and the manipulation of the gold markets and inventory in a silent financial coup d’état? What can all those who benefited financially in the stock market, or from cheap mortgage and consumer loans, or reduced ATM and checking fees say? We disassociated the source of our finan- cial benefits from what we saw happening around us that we knew was wrong. In the summer of 2000, I asked a group of 100 people at a conference of spiritual- ly committed people who would push a red button if it would immediately stop all narcotics trafficking in their neighborhood, city, state and country. Out of 100 people, 99 said they would not push such red button. When surveyed, they said they did not want their mutual funds to go down if the U.S. financial system suddenly stopped attracting an estimated $500 billion-$1 trillion a year in global money laundering. They did not want their government checks jeopardized or their taxes raised because of resulting problems financing the federal government deficit. Our financial profiteering and complicity is not limited to aristocrats and the elites who do their bidding. Our financial dependency on unsustainable economics is broad, ingrained and deep. Catherine Austin Fitts, Dillon Read & Co. Inc. & the Aristocracy of Stock Profits Shortly after arriving at HUD in April 1989, I began to learn about the FHA Co- insurance program. Since 1984, HUD/FHA had allowed private mortgage bankers to issue federal credit to guarantee multi-family apartment projects. After issuing $9 billion in mortgage guarantees, HUD/FHA was to lose something approaching 50% of the value of the portfolio—a level of losses hard to explain with mortal logic. When my staff approached me with a proposal to bail out a mortgage company so they could continue to lose money for us, I asked why we should spend money to lose more money in a way that would harm communities. After a long silence during which 30 staff members intently studied their feet, one brave soul explained to me that the mortgage bank was owned and run by a major Republican donor. Shocked, I said. “I am a major Republican donor,” and pointing to my presidential cufflinks that were adorn- ing my French cuffs, “I got a pair of cuff links. You get cuff links. You don’t get $400 million of federal credit to throw down the drain.” My staff looked at me like I was so naive and clueless that there was no point in trying to communicate with me—better to let me learn the hard way. Within minutes, a screaming [Secretary of HUD] Jack Kemp, furious that I had not provided illegal subsidy to keep the mortgage banking company going (despite his orders to stop anything corrupt or illegal), called me on the carpet. Catherine Austin Fitts, Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. & the Aristocracy of Stock Profits My favorite description of HUD was to come many years later from staff to the Chairman of the Senate HUD appropriations subcommittee—Senator Kit Bond. When asked what was going on at HUD, the Congressional staffer said, “HUD is