Free Republic

Fannie Mae, the federally sanctioned mortgage giant, has just announced a new program that shows that they learned absolutely nothing from the last real estate meltdown. This new program, called "HomeReady" in a fit of hopeful and wishful thinking, reduces loan underwriting standards. It's designed to allow "underserved" individuals the opportunity to buy a home - focused primarily on low-income and minority borrowers. Other than the last group of under qualified borrower-friendly loans and regulations from the mid-2000s, it's the stupidest real estate loan idea that I've ever seen. The new loan "features" reduced credit score requirements and allows borrowed...

The world finally knows how former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke views the 2008 financial crisis. “September and October of 2008 was the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression,” said Bernanke in a document filed Aug. 22 with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, reports The Wall Street Journal. Of the 13 “most important financial institutions in the United States, 12 were at risk of failure within a period of a week or two.”

A monumental opportunity has presented itself as Julian Castro, former mayor of San Antonio, takes over as the new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Congress looks ahead on the critical issue of housing finance reform. After years of tepid growth and false starts, leaders in Washington have the opportunity to give housing finance reform a shot in the arm. This reform is readily achievable even in today’s log-jammed Congress, as there is bipartisan consensus that the most prudent reforms would accomplish three essential goals: appropriately and strategically wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a way...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have already cost US taxpayers over $200 billion. If Obama gets his way on mortgage writedowns, the GSEs estimate it would take another $100 billion. Since such estimates are always overly-optimistic by a factor of 3 to 10, I estimate the cost to taxpayers would be $300 billion minimum. Please consider Fannie, Freddie writedowns too costly: regulator The regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac told lawmakers that forcing the two mortgage firms to write down loan principal would require more than $100 billion in fresh taxpayer funds. In a letter sent on Friday to...

The day before Christmas, Joe Nocera did it again—wasted a perfectly good column with another attack on us, Peter Wallison and Ed Pinto. It’s worth reading for what it says about the Left’s current situation. According to Nocera, we “almost single-handedly” have created a “myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the financial crisis.” Those who have fallen for this myth, according to Nocera, include congressional Republicans and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. It’s somewhat implausible that two guys at a Washington think-tank, arguing that the financial crisis was caused by government housing policy, could create a...

The Club for Growth wrote a white paper on Governor Romney back in 2007. Most of the information below is from that repory, but since Romney has been outspoken on several issues then, weve updated his record to reflect those positions. ...During his initial 2002 campaign Romney refused to sign an anti-tax pledge, but he pledged to balance the budget without raising taxes and touted his fulfillment of that pledge throughout his term. But the details suggest that he broke his verbal committment. Romney did not impose any broad-based tax hikes he imposed a slew of fee hikes. He opposed...

Rep. Barney Frank won't seek re-election Posted by CNN Wire Staff (CNN) - Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, a 16-term Democrat, will announce Monday he does not intend to seek re-election in 2012........

A government crusade in the 1990s set the stage for the mortgage and housing bubble. As detailed in previous columns, Congress passed laws and Presidents took actions to make cheap money available to unqualified borrowers, and punished banks that didn’t comply. The dawning of the 2000s decade saw the federal housing locomotive roaring down the track, with the liberals in Congress pouring on the coal. Social-engineering regulators had already pushed banks to lend almost $1 trillion for mortgages to low-income clients and inner-city projects, mostly funneling the money through HUD to questionable leftist “community groups” like ACORN. The goal of...

The Mother of all lies and weasel words. Baghdad Bob would blush at this. If you can stomach listening to him, you will see where the left is headed...they were blameless and held under the thumb of Republicans. Bawney tells us how he fought against Fannie and Freddie, but could not overcome the evil Bush. You need to get to the end for the repugnant old Bawney Fwank style to peep through the substance. If only we had a cohesive political party to counter attack ... the door is open. I hope the RINO's all head to the Great Watering...

Democrats claim their sweeping financial-sector reforms will guard against the kind of problems that triggered the recent economic meltdown. But if they really wanted to do that, they would've focused on how so many US officials were simply . . . bought. Fat chance. Nonetheless, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Governmental Reform, is demanding just such a review -- and, for the sake of the nation, he should get one. Last week, Issa wrote to Alfred Pollard, general counsel to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,...

Recently, I was shocked to learn about how hundreds or perhaps thousands of Illinois homeowners are using a strategy called "strategic default" to walk away from their current mortgage obligations. Literally thousands of homeowners in Illinois and across the country find themselves "upside down" or "underwater" regarding the homes they currently live in. The terms "upside down" and "underwater" refer to homeowners who owe more money on their homes than they are currently worth. It is widely believed the Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac debacle has led to the current economic crisis and deep recession facing America today. However, no...

Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.): I worry, frankly, that there's a tension here. The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios. . .

Pelosi Caught In Major Lie Says Bush Didn’t Warn Congress About Financial Crisis… Records Show He Warned Congress 17 Times in 2008 Alone Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a news conference last week and told reporters this: During her weekly press conference on April 15, a reporter asked Pelosi a seemingly innocuous question about taxes. Pelosi prefaced her response with a fairly standard litany: explaining the dire state of the U.S. economy inherited by President Obama and setting the blame at the foot of the Bush administration. But she also added this: “When [then-Senator Obama] accepted the nomination in Colorado, the...

Taxpayers are on the hook for about $400 billion, partly because Sen. Obama helped to block reform. Now that nearly all the TARP funds used to bail out Wall Street banks have been repaid, the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stand out as the source of the greatest taxpayer losses. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that, in the wake of the housing bubble and the unprecedented deflation in housing values that resulted, the government's cost to bail out Fannie and Freddie will eventually reach $381 billion. That estimate may be too optimistic. Last Christmas Eve,...

Here is video of Karl Rove absolutely schooling Juan Williams (sitting in for Bill O'Reilly) when Williams made the mistake tonight of accusing President Bush and his administration of "doing nothing" to reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to avoid a Housing Meltdown. That's all it took. Rove proceeded to lay out the facts that the Bush Administration tried to get legislation to regulate the mortgage lenders, but were blocked by Democrats, including then Senator Barack Obama.

By Warner Todd Huston @ StopTheACLU.com Bush tried to regulate and supervise Fannie and Freddie… but the Democrats scoffed at it all and blocked Bush from trying to fix the financial mess. So, whose fault is the economic mess? Here is what Representative Barney Frank said in 2003 about Fannie and Freddie: “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not in a crisis.” “The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the treasury, which I do not see — I think we see entities...

WASHINGTON – Freddie Mac secretly paid a consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse. Republican senators and a regulatory overhaul bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., were targeted by the firm DCI of Washington. All GOP members of the committee supported it; all Democrats opposed it. During DCI's yearlong effort, Mr. Hagel and 25 other Republican senators pleaded unsuccessfully with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to allow a vote. --------- Mr. McCain, R-Ariz.,...

Very pleased with Palin's performance. However, She had the chance right off the bat, and like McCain, they refuse to pound the Democrats on their support and the corruption of Fannie Mae. They also refused to hammer home that McCain and Bush focused on trying to reform and the Dems didn't support. They need to get that message out!!!