Posted on 04/21/2010 6:34:06 PM PDT by Libloather
In Defense of Goldman Sachs
By Tom Granahan
FOXBusiness
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
**SNIP**
Fraud? Really?
The problem with all of this made-for-the-headlines chicanery is that it masks the true problems. For instance, also listed in the sales document that one assumes will be used as Exhibit A in the SEC’s case is a bevy of financial instruments with investment-grade credit ratings. Rather than knowing whether there was a hedge fund betting against the portfolio, I think investors in Goldman’s ABACUS product would have preferred to have known that the rating agencies were not just asleep at the wheel, but unconscious.
And who is it that’s bringing this legal action? The only outfit that can actually make the rating agencies look good by comparison, the SEC. These are regulators who were handed Madoff and Stanford on a platter yet still couldn’t close the deal. That would seem more a pressing matter than a small transaction – a private placement, no less – involving a few sophisticated institutional parties.
And who gets to sue Barney Frank and his everyone-should-own-a-home crowd? There was no bigger proponent of Fannie, Freddie and cheap money for housing than the sanctimonious congressman, and he’s leading inquiries into what went wrong? Laughable.
Of course, maybe none of this would have happened if a significant portion of the population didn’t fudge or outright lie on their mortgage applications, or get into mortgages that they knew full well they couldn’t pay. Heck, maybe they didn’t even know what they were signing.
That’s not Lloyd Blankfein’s fault.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
There should be an investigation first.
By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute, 9/24/2008
excerpt...
"Frank, who is openly gay, had a relationship with Herb Moses, an executive for the now-government controlled Fannie Mae. The column revealed the two had split up at the time but also said Frank was referring to Moses as his "spouse." Another Washington Post report said Frank called Moses his "lover" and that the two were "still friends" after the breakup.
Frank was and remains a stalwart defender of Fannie Mae, which is now under FBI investigation along with its sister organization Freddie Mac, American International Group Inc. (NYSE:AIG) and Lehman Brothers (NYSE:LEH) – all recently participants in government bailouts. But Frank has derailed efforts to regulate the institution, as well as denying it posed any financial risk."
http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/2008/20080924145932.aspx
By Bill Sammon, October 03, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.
So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.
Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.
Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.
"It’s absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?
"If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have - or at least what’s not in the stock market - that this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard."
A top GOP House aide agreed.
"C’mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?" the aide told FOX News. "No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank’s political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley’s wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain’s wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation’s housing and banking laws."
Frank’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Frank met Moses in 1987, the same year he became the first openly gay member of Congress.
"I am the only member of the congressional gay spouse caucus," Moses wrote in the Washington Post in 1991. "On Capitol Hill, Barney always introduces me as his lover."
The two lived together in a Washington home until they broke up in 1998, a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie Mae, where he was the assistant director of product initiatives. According to National Mortgage News, Moses "helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs."
Critics say such programs led to the mortgage meltdown that prompted last month’s government takeover of Fannie Mae and its financial cousin, Freddie Mac. The giant firms are blamed for spreading bad mortgages throughout the private financial sector.
Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants. In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively.
Three years later, President Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to impose a new regulation on Fannie, but was thwarted by Frank. Clinton now blames such Democrats for planting the seeds of today’s economic crisis.
"I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Clinton said recently.
Bill Sammon is FOX News' Washington Deputy Managing Editor.
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,432501,00.html
“Shocking Video Unearthed Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Economic Crisis” [includes Barney Frank]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
The three largest Fannie/Freddy contributions went to Kerry, Dodd and Obama.
Think about this Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac?
Did Bawney make up those names? :)
Funny that they broke up shortly after the boyfriend left Fannie Mae and didn’t need Barney anymore. So now, after having such a hand in taking down economies the world over Barney, honorable man that he is, has decided that the best defense is a good offense. And of course his voters wouldn’t think of putting him where he really belongs - in jail instead of Congress.
Too bad none of this was on the nightly news. If you’re black and/or gay you can and do get away with anything.
Barney wasn't very "frank" about his "fannie friend", was he?
Perp walks! Perp walks! I want Perp walks!
And Orange jump suiits!
Barney leading the parade!
I'm convinced it was a much broader plan aimed at collapsing the US capitalist system. Comrade Obama is now attempting to finish it off.
I suppose there’s a thread supporting the devil somewhere around here.
Feb 2010---Cong Frank lauds Dodd's fight for US financial watchdog: Chairman of the Financial Services Committee Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass), attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Frank emerged from a two-hour banking meeting, and made it clear that governments were now calling the shots after spending billions to bail out the industry.
BWANEY SUCKS UP TO DODD'S FINANCE CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTORS
Citigroup, $310,294;
SAC Capital Partners, $282,000;
United Technologies, $263,400;
AIG, $224,678;
Bear Stearns, $205,600;
St. Paul Travelers, $205,400;
Royal Bank of Scotland, $203,750;
Goldman Sachs, $175,600;
Morgan Stanley, $155,000;
Credit Suisse, $154,550;
Merrill Lynch, $134,950;
The Hartford, $94,350;
Bank of America, $91,300;
JPMorgan Chase, $129,150;
USB, $101,900;
Hartford Finance Services, $101,500
Lehman Brothers, $128,400;
KPMG, $113,100;
General Electric, $108,250;
Deloitte Touche, $108,000
Argent Mortgage (Ameriquest) / Goldman / Deutsches Bank were evidently all in collusion... in the SAME OFFICE:Nothing to see there... move along....
Dear Mr. Lee: I was previously employed by Argent Mortgage for two and a half years and managed, among other areas, the corporation's fraud investigation, borrower complaints and repurchase departments. There are currently over 568 open fraud investigations involving hundreds of brokers and hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent loans that are being covered up by top executives in the company. If a broker sustains a certain monthly volume, Argent management looks the other way and, not only does not suspend the bad brokers, but knowingly sells these fraudulent loans on the secondary market to unwitting investors.
I was terminated today and left with just my purse in tow, but I have names of individuals in the company who need to be served with subpoenas to enable them to turn over their spreadsheets and boxes full of documentation and evidence of all the fraud they have found that is being covered up by Argent Mortgage's executive management. The state regulators need to know the truth about the blind eye Argent turns to the fraud perpetrated on innocent consumers by high volume brokers. They also need to be aware that Argent knowingly bundles these fraudulent loans and sells them as mortgage-backed securities on Wall Street, thereby compromising the SEC, as well as our country's economic stability.
At a recent fraud seminar attended by hundreds of mortgage lenders in Washington D.C. a week ago, an attorney who works for Argent's retained law firm, Buchalter Nemer, stood up and told the seminar attendees that the wholesale lenders in the audience had better beware, unless their name is Argent. Argent is safe from investigation because the government got their $325 million settlement from Ameriquest and won't be looking into Argent, per the settlement agreement. I hope this isn't true because Argent Mortgage funded over $50 billion in 2005 and is gearing up to fund well over $80 billion dollars of fraudulent loans in 2007.
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R.I.N.O. A Republic is a system, of governance characterized by the Rule of Law.When the Law fails, the Republic fails.Argent Mortgage - AKA Ameriquest's wholesale division:
The Argent/Goldman/Deutsche Bank nexus is cleary visible via Google:
Who is “Dawn”? Does she work for Rush?
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