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| FINANCIAL CRISIS PRIMER; Reference links | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 4 2008, 09:04 AM (965 Views) | |
| Deleted User | Oct 4 2008, 09:04 AM Post #1 |
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. Financial Crisis. Bailout. Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac. Frank Raines. Barney Frank. Chris Dodd. Black Congressional Caucus. Maxine Waters. GREAT VIDEO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs Hat tip: Texas-Mom . |
 
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| Deleted User | Oct 4 2008, 09:08 AM Post #2 |
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. MUST-SEE Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QBRIsCkGQ0 GSE = Government Sponsored Enterprise John McCain was calling for more regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2004 and in January of 2005, he co-sponsored Senate Bill #190 - the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, which was defeated by Obama's party in Committee along Party lines. To be precise, the the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs had 20 members - 11 Republican and 9 Democrat. The Democrats joined arms to prevent the Bill from getting out of the committee, where it could be voted on by the entire Senate. 60% support was needed to get it out of Committee - that means 12 votes. Not a SINGLE one of the Democrats broke ranks - thus prohibiting the 12 votes from being achieved - and the Bill was effectively defeated. . |
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| Deleted User | Oct 4 2008, 09:10 AM Post #3 |
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. VIDEO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usvG-s_Ssb0 Thanks Joan Foster |
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| Deleted User | Oct 4 2008, 09:12 AM Post #4 |
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. Excellent Wall Street Journal piece: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122290574391296381.html Thanks Longstop . |
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| Lodge Pro 345 | Oct 4 2008, 09:19 AM Post #5 |
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. Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac Funded Jesse Jackson's Pet Projects! Tuesday, July 22, 2008 By Keriann Hopkins, Correspondent Mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have come under fire for making contributions to programs headed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson at a time when their own survival is at stake. Peter Flaherty, founder and president of the conservative National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), told Cybercast News Service that the gifts to Jackson were “clearly inappropriate” and “extremely controversial.” The NLPC says the management teams of both companies made sizeable contributions to the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and Citizenship Education Fund Annual Conference, Jackson’s main fundraising event of the year. The conference took place June 28 through July 2 in Chicago. According to the conference program, obtained by an NLPC staff member who attended the event, Freddie Mac, as a “Platinum Sponsor,” paid $150,000. Fannie Mae paid $100,000 to be listed as a “Diamond Sponsor.” Both Freddie Mac (The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation) and Fannie Mae (The Federal National Mortgage Association) are private corporations chartered by Congress and responsible to the federal government. The NLPC noted that the contributions came at a time when the value of the companies’ shares had declined by approximately 85 percent. Last Saturday, meanwhile, the Treasury Department announced it would offer a line of credit to ensure the survival of each company. Both have been hurt by the collapse of the nation’s sub-prime mortgage market. “It is outrageous that rapidly evaporating shareholder equity is still being dished out to Jesse Jackson,” Flaherty said. “The CEOs of these companies have repeatedly shown poor judgment, and this is just more evidence.” The NLPC has criticized the companies for funding Jackson’s projects since 1998, the first year that Freddie Mac contributed. Flaherty said the contributions came after Jackson accused Freddie Mac of racial discrimination and encouraged major shareholders to sell stock in the company. “Freddie Mac began financial support for Jackson’s organizations, and his criticism of Freddie Mac stopped,” the NCLP said. After Freddie Mac signed a $1 million contract for Rainbow/PUSH to run an “Economic Literacy” program, Jackson’s nonprofit coalition turned around and charged churches $1,000 to enroll in the program, the NCLP said. Freddie Mac also pledged to earmark $1 billion in mortgage loans specifically for minorities. In 2003, an independent report commissioned by the Freddie Mac board criticized the company’s accounting practices, singling out 13 improper transactions involving Ron Blaylock, Jesse Jackson’s longtime financial backer. According to the report, Blaylock received fees of $250,000 for making some phone calls. The NLCP also criticized what it called the “incredibly generous ‘golden parachute’” that Fannie Mae provided to fired CEO Franklin Raines in 2004. Raines was accused of manipulating the company’s earnings over a six-year period to meet earnings’ targets and receive hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses. “The unfortunate thing about these [government-sponsored enterprises] is that they’ve provided good jobs for underemployed politicians and they’ve been slush funds for liberal groups. And the Jesse Jackson gifts, as the companies are melting down, is a dramatic example of that,” Flaherty said. Freddie Mac was recognized by the Washington Business Journal and Greater D.C. Cares as the top corporate philanthropist in the Washington region. Freddie Mac and the Freddie Mac Foundation have invested over $348 million in the Washington area since 1991. Over the past five years, Fannie Mae and its foundation have contributed over $100 million to organizations and initiatives in Washington, D.C. Calls to both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were not returned. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the sole spokesman for Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, did not return calls before deadline. http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=32803 . |
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| Kerri P. | Oct 5 2008, 11:27 AM Post #6 |
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http://www.wral.com/news/national_world/national/story/3675449/ Mortgage forgiven for woman, 90, who shot herself Posted: Today at 5:16 a.m. AKRON, Ohio — Mortgage finance company Fannie Mae said it is forgiving the mortgage debt of a 90-year-old woman who shot herself in the chest as sheriff's deputies attempted to evict her. Addie Polk's plight was cited by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, on Friday before the House voted to approve the $700 billion financial rescue package. Kucinich voted against the plan. Fannie Mae announced later Friday that it would dismiss its foreclosure action, forgive Polk's mortgage and allow her to return to the Akron home where she's lived since 1970. "Just given the circumstances, we think it's appropriate," Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith said, citing Kucinich's statement and news reports. "It certainly made our radar screen." Polk remained in Akron General Medical Center and was expected to recover from chest wounds suffered last week. She became the home's sole owner in 1995 when her husband died, then took out a mortgage loan in 1997 and refinanced several times, court and property records show. Countrywide Home Loans filed for foreclosure last year, and Polk's home was sold to Fannie Mae at a sheriff's auction in June. Deputies were to escort Polk from her home Wednesday when gunshots were heard inside. Polk's longtime neighbor, Robert Dillon, climbed through her window and found her lying in bed bleeding with a gun next to her. He visited Polk in the hospital on Friday. "She said it was a crazy thing to do, now that she's had time to think about it," Dillon said. Edited by Kerri P., Oct 5 2008, 11:29 AM.
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| Kerri P. | Oct 5 2008, 06:34 PM Post #7 |
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http://www.wral.com/business/story/3676784/ Battered financial industry faces more oversight Posted: Today at 4:08 p.m. NEW YORK — With the passage of the $700 billion rescue package, the financial industry will face greater congressional scrutiny in coming weeks and months. Further-reaching regulation is almost certain. Previously obscure corners of the industry now subject to few rules, such as complex derivatives and hedge funds, could face federal supervision for the first time. Meanwhile, heavily regulated sectors, such as banking and insurance, are likely to face greater oversight. Even some financial industry groups support federal oversight for the insurance industry, which is now regulated only at the state level. "Clearly, next year we will have more regulation," said Scott Talbott, a lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, a group of the 100 biggest companies in the industry. Having passed the bailout bill, Congress is now shifting its attention to its next steps. "Passing this legislation is only the beginning of our work," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., just before the House approved the package. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the Financial Services Committee chairman, said next year Congress will seek to overhaul housing policy and financial regulation in a legislative effort he likened to the New Deal. "We were the EMTs rushing to the rescue of an economy that suddenly found itself choking, but now we have to perform more serious reform," Frank said. snip... |
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| Deleted User | Oct 6 2008, 04:24 PM Post #8 |
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. Democrats in Congress REFUSE to investigate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - but want to investigate private lending institutions that weren't Governmentally sponsored (like Lehman). Excerpt: "Republicans dismissed the hearing as little more than a political stunt given that it failed to probe the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — huge players in the mortgage market — in the financial meltdown. "If you haven't discovered your role today, you're the villain, so you have to act like the villain," Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., told Fuld facetiously, earning a tight smile. In a statement, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the House minority leader, accused Waxman of refusing to investigate the mortgage giants "solely to shield his fellow Democrats politically," and said it "cheats the American people of key facts that could help all of us learn how we got here — and what we must do to make certain this situation never repeats itself." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081006/ap_on_go_co/meltdown_lehman;_ylt=Al7TwvJ1BG2m1XXmk6KU_Ius0NUE . |
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| Deleted User | Oct 7 2008, 12:12 AM Post #9 |
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. The Left's Crony Capitalism exposed In 2004, after a tip from a whistle blower who was later fired, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (Ofheo) issued a report finding that the government-sponsored entity Fannie Mae had engaged in Enron-like accounting machinations that allowed Fannie to overstate its earnings and underestimate the risk the company faced. The accounting wizardry Fannie engaged in was designed so that Fannie could meet profit targets to maximize bonus payments to company executives like Clinton administration deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick and Carter administration assistant director for domestic policy Franklin Raines. For years, conservatives have been critical of how Fannie, and Freddie Mac, have leveraged their government-sponsored advantages (including exemptions from state and federal taxes, lower capital requirements, and the ability to borrow at rates well below those paid by private companies), to create a co-monopoly in the housing finance sector. When Fannie’s accounting scandal came to light in 2004, conservatives pushed hard for reforms to phase out Fannie and Freddie. Led by former Walter Mondale and Barack Obama campaign adviser James Johnson, Fannie and Freddie pushed back hard, raising millions of dollars for members of the relevant oversight committees and opening up “Partnership Offices” that funneled money into various housing projects in districts of key members of Congress. Fannie also bought off activist groups such as the corrupt Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which has been indicted, multiple times across the country, for vote fraud (Obama worked closely with ACORN as a street organizer in Chicago). Fannie’s lobbying efforts paid off as liberal politicians such as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.) worked to kill any real reform of Freddie and Fannie. The Washington Post reports: “In an internal memo in 2004, Fannie Mae executive Daniel H. Mudd affirmed what the company’s critics had long contended: In the political arena, ‘we always won’ and ‘we took no prisoners.’” Fannie was created during the New Deal to make homes more affordable for lower- and middle-income Americans. Freddie was added years later for the same purpose. Fannie and Freddie have long outlived their purpose as the market for repackaging loans as securities is now well developed. When the housing market is booming, they are not needed, and they have both gone well beyond their original mission and are now backing loans for wealthy (witness Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s continued efforts to raise the cap on the size of the loans that Fannie and Freddie can buy). Many parts of the bill the Senate passed last week only continue the worst aspects of the crony capitalism at the hard of Freddie’s success. This is especially true of the Community Development Block Grant funds that have long been a goal of partisan housing activist groups like ACORN. There is an opportunity here to use the recapitalization the White House is now proposing to re-organize housing finance by breaking up Fannie and Freddie and creating several smaller truly private entities that can compete. http://blog.heritage.org/2008/07/14/morning-bell-the-lefts-crony-capitilism-exposed/ . |
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| Deleted User | Oct 7 2008, 05:55 PM Post #10 |
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. Ben Stein: How to Ruin the U.S. Economy http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/yourlife/112984 Thanks to Baldo. . |
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| Deleted User | Oct 8 2008, 03:40 AM Post #11 |
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. Fannie and Freddie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwg9KwiU1cg&feature=related |
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| Deleted User | Oct 8 2008, 01:07 PM Post #12 |
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Just two weeks ago, a book on economic policy was released that will be a classic for the ages. Entitled The End of Prosperity, by Art Laffer, Steve Moore, and Peter J. Tanous, the book explains in full detail the economic disaster that will befall America if it takes a sharp left turn to neo-socialism under the leadership of the far left President Barack Obama, the ultraleft Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid with 60 liberal Democrat Senators, and their pal the ultraliberal Howard Dean heading the Democrat party. Indeed, one of the insights of the book is that a major factor already tanking the stock market and leading foreign capital to flee America is the threat of the economic policies promised by Obama. Obama proposes increases in every major federal tax, on savers, investors, employers, small business, big business, and anyone who would start a business.******* Obama also promises to add additional federal spending of almost $1.5 trillion over the next four years, including a new global war on poverty in which Obama would tax Americans and send the money to the UN to spend worldwide (already introduced by Obama in legislation). ********That would be on top of all the spending increases already scheduled for our exploding entitlements and other programs. Obama also promises a massive increase in regulatory controls, even though government regulation is already estimated to cost America over $1 trillion per year, about $8,000 in lost output for every U.S. household. Then there is Obama's attack on free trade and promises of protectionist trade policies that contributed so much to the Great Depression. As the authors show, these retrograde economic policies are intellectually indefensible. They do not offer forward looking change, but would take us back to the policies of the disastrous 1970s and even worse 1930s. They would ultimately produce a deep, long term decline in America's standard of living, particularly for the middle class and working people. America would actually fall behind countries around the world that, exactly contrary to the left wing swing of the Democrats, have been racing to adopt precisely the hugely successful Reagan supply side policies of low tax rates, less government spending, deregulation, and anti-inflation monetary policies. http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=14015 |
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| Kerri P. | Oct 9 2008, 10:39 AM Post #13 |
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081009/pl_politico/14414 McCain changes homeowner plan Mike Allen Thu Oct 9, 12:29 AM ET Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made an overnight change in the homeowner bailout he proposed at Tuesday’s presidential debate, making it more generous to financial institutions and more costly for taxpayers. McCain's staff says it was always meant that way. When McCain sprung his surprise idea at the start of the debate in Nashville, his campaign posted details online of his American Homeownership Resurgence Plan, which would direct the government to buy up bad home mortgages, allowing strapped people to keep their property. The document posted and e-mailed by the McCain campaign on Tuesday night says at the end of its first full paragraph: “Lenders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered.” So the government would buy the mortgages at a discounted rate, reflecting the declining value of the mortgage paper. But when McCain reissued the document on Wednesday, that sentence was missing, to the dismay of many conservatives. That would mean the U.S. would pay face value for the troubled documents, which was the main reason Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) gave for opposing the plan. A McCain campaign official explained the change: “That language was mistakenly included in the initial draft and it’s been corrected. It doesn’t reflect the intentions of the initiative, which necessitated the correction and the removal of the sentence. A simple mistake.” Obama Campaign Economic Policy Director Jason Furman said in the campaign statement opposing McCain's plan: "John McCain wants the government to massively overpay for mortgages in a plan that would guarantee taxpayers lose money, and put them at risk of losing even more if home values don’t recover. The biggest beneficiaries of this plan will be the same financial institutions that got us into this mess, some of whom even committed fraud." The McCain campaign estimates in both documents that the plan would cost about $300 billion. |
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| Kerri P. | Oct 9 2008, 03:39 PM Post #14 |
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081009/ap_on_re_us/odd_national_debt_clock NYC National Debt Clock runs out of digits Wed Oct 8, 10:03 PM ET NEW YORK - In a sign of the times, the National Debt Clock in New York City has run out of digits to record the growing figure. As a short-term fix, the digital dollar sign on the billboard-style clock near Times Square has been switched to a figure — the "1" in $10 trillion. It's marking the federal government's current debt at about $10.2 trillion. The Durst Organization says it plans to update the sign next year by adding two digits. That will make it capable of tracking debt up to a quadrillion dollars. The late Manhattan real estate developer Seymour Durst put the sign up in 1989 to call attention to what was then a $2.7 trillion debt. |
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| Kerri P. | Oct 9 2008, 05:18 PM Post #15 |
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081009/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/wall_street Dow plunges 679 to fall to lowest level in 5 years 6 minutes ago NEW YORK - Stocks plunged in the final hour of trading Thursday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down 679 points — more than 7 percent — to its lowest level in five years after a major credit ratings agency said it might cut its rating on General Motors Corp. The Standard & Poor's 500 index also fell more than 7 percent. The declines came on the one-year anniversary of the closing highs of the Dow and the S&P. The Dow has lost 5,585 points, or 39.4 percent, since closing at 14,198 on Oct. 9, 2007. The S&P 500, meanwhile, is off 655 points, or 41.9 percent, since recording its high of 1,565.15. U.S. stock market paper losses totaled $872 billion Thursday and the value of shares overall has tumbled a stunning $8.33 trillion since last year's high. That's based on preliminary figures measured by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Composite Index, which tracks 5,000 U.S.-based companies' stocks and represents almost all stocks traded in America. Thursday's sell-off came as Standard & Poor's Ratings Services put GM and its finance affiliate GMAC LLC under review to see if its rating should be cut. GM has been struggling with weak car sales in North America. The action means there is a 50 percent chance that S&P will lower GM's and GMAC's ratings in the next three months. S&P also put Ford Motor Co. on credit watch negative. The ratings agency said that GM and Ford have adequate liquidity now, but that could change in 2009. GM led the Dow lower, falling $2.15, or 31 percent, to $4.76, while Ford fell 58 cents, or 22 percent, to $2.08. "The story is getting to be like that movie 'Groundhog Day,'" said Arthur Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co. He pointed to the still-frozen credit markets, and Libor, the bank-to-bank lending rate that remains stubbornly high despite interest rate cuts this week by the Federal Reserve and other major central banks. Snip... |
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7:59 PM Nov 26
