Free Republic

Bartiromo Takes Frank to Task Over Lack of ’08 Financial Crisis Prosecutions • Frank: 'Individuals' should be prosecuted on Wall Street, will not say who Former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) advocated criminal prosecutions against “individuals” involved in the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent collapse on Wall Street Friday on CNBC. Maria Bartiromo reacted incredulously to Frank’s refusal to name specific individuals who may have perpetrated criminal wrongdoing, accusing the former Congressman of playing populist politics by making specious allegations against the financial industry. Frank attempted to deflect the criticism by stating as Chair of House Financial Services...

In charges filed late Monday in Los Angeles federal court, the Justice Department said S&P gave high marks to mortgage-backed securities that later went sour, even though it knew they were risky. The government said S&P misrepresented the risks because it wanted more business from the banks. The case is the government's first major action against one of the credit rating agencies that stamped their seals of approval on Wall Street's mortgage bundles. It marks a milestone for the Justice Department, which has been criticized for failing to make bigger cases against the companies involved in the crisis. "Put simply,...

Neighbors and activists, who stood out in the bitter cold for more an hour on Wednesday morning to protest the planned eviction of Jeffery Solivan of 32 Edgemont St., cheered after hearing that Fannie Mae had canceled its action. The protest kicked off just before 8 a.m., initially with about a dozen people and grew to about 30 people when word came that the eviction was off. No date has been given for a new eviction. Solivan said he hopes something can be negotiated with the lender that will allow him to keep his home, in the Pine Point neighborhood....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will name close aide Tom Donilon as his new national security adviser on Friday in a move that could have implications for the struggli

Policy-wise, this is an oldie but a goodie, I guess, even though we’re still spending tons of money on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae more than four years after the crash. Wells Fargo CEO Robert Kovacevich can't believe that we haven't learned the lesson from 2008 and gotten the government out of the home mortgage industry, and tells CNBC's Squawk Box that the two organizations made that crash exponentially worse than it needed to be: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exacerbated the 2008 mortgage crisis, and that’s why the U.S. government should get out...

Angelo Mozilo In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi used an old Jedi mind trick on Stormtroopers to deflect them from their real quarry: “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” It worked.It looks as if another mind trick, well known in the Congress — delay and deflection — will now work to make Americans forget one of the biggest scandals of our time: the housing collapse that triggered the 2008 financial meltdown we are still suffering from. We shouldn’t just gaze over the fiscal cliff everyone else is scrutinizing; we should also examine the droids who helped set in motion our...

A new study from the widely respected National Bureau of Economic Research released this week has confirmed beyond question that the left's race-baiting attacks on the housing market (the Community Reinvestment Act

A new and extensive analysis of 2.4 million loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration in recent years shows a pattern of risky lending that could generate $20 billion in losses and harm thousands of the nation’s most vulnerable borrowers. By ignoring risks in loans it insured in 2009 and 2010, the study concludes, the F.H.A. is imperiling both borrowers and taxpayers who stand behind the agency. The analysis emerged less than a month after the F.H.A.’s auditor submitted a troubling report on the financial soundness of its insurance fund. In mid-November, the auditor estimated that the fund, which backs...

A government report finds median pay for nearly 2,000 senior managers at government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exceeded $200,000 last year. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees the two mortgage giants, also did an inadequate job monitoring pay, according to the report released Monday from the inspector general for the FHFA. The median figure means that half the managers received salaries above $200,000 and half received less. Compensation for senior managers at the companies cost about $455 million in 2011, according to the report. Taxpayers so far have paid roughly $170 billion to rescue Fannie and Freddie, which...

A new book offers an instructive lesson on the unhappy surprises caused by the government’s attempts to manipulate the housing market. James R. Hagerty’s new book, The Fateful History of Fannie Mae: New Deal Birth to Mortgage Crisis Fall, shows how hard it is for administrations throughout history to know what they are really doing in their political attempts to manipulate the housing market.As Hagerty explains, the Eisenhower administration, working through the Housing Act of 1954, tried to wean Fannie off the government’s credit and make it operate with private capital. It succeeded instead in creating the essence of the...

How about all those solutions to the housing crisis put forward by Obama and Romney during the debates? We actually should celebrate because there are no proposals. It was government manipulation of credit markets, social engineering, and GSE’s Fannie and Freddie that caused the housing collapse. The solutions implemented by the Obama administration only prove Reagan correct; the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan. Had the housing market been left alone to self-correct we could be well on the way to recovery. Not to be when the central planners and the central bankers have their arms up...

QE3 certainly has wreaked havoc on the agency mortgage-backed securities market. The Fannie Mae 30 year current coupon (rate to MBS investors on new Fannie MBS) spread over 10 year Treasures has gone NEGATIVE! As in -3.65 basis points. But if we compare the Fannie 30 year current coupon to 5 year Treasury yields, we have a positive yield spread of about 100 basis points. Meanwhile, Fannie Mae 3.5 MBS duration just went negative! So, The Fed’s QInfinity has really done a number on MBS yields … and risk. MBS investors may be lining up to dump agency MBS on...

The market has taken several days to digest The Fed’s decision to continue Operation Twist and start purchasing $40 billion per month in agency mortgage-backed securities. The MBS market thrives on uncertainty concerning future rates and prepayment speeds. When The Fed intentionally reduces mortgage rates through quantitative easing, it takes away one of the attractions of the MBS market: risk. Now agency MBS is pricing close to Treasuries. Freddie Mac’s 30 year mortgage commitment rate fell to 3.49%, almost to a new low. The spread between Fannie Mae current coupon and 10 year Treasury yields have fallen to 13.75 basis...

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring. Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in...

September 5, 2012 What Bill Clinton won’t say Tonight about His Role in Creating the Economic Mess John Rossomondo President Clinton likely will be silent this evening during his speech nominating President Obama for a second term about the role he played in setting the stage for the economic collapse that ensued a decade later.He will likely pin the blame for the current economic mess on his successor, George W. Bush, and claim that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to take Americans back to the failed policies of the past, while dodging his personal role.The former President currently appears...

President Barack Obama was a pioneering contributor to the national subprime real estate bubble, and roughly half of the 186 African-American clients in his landmark 1995 mortgage discrimination lawsuit against Citibank have since gone bankrupt or received foreclosure notices. As few as 19 of those 186 clients still own homes with clean credit ratings, following a decade in which Obama and other progressives pushed banks to provide mortgages to poor African Americans. The startling failure rate among Obama’s private sector clients was discovered during The Daily Caller’s review of previously unpublished court information from the lawsuit that a young Obama...

You have to give Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner some credit for spin: today the Treasury announced “Further Steps to Expedite Wind Down of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.” The only problem is that the steps announced largely put the taxpayer at greater risk in order to protect holders of Fannie and Freddie debt. Essentially, the Treasury has amended its agreements with Fannie and Freddie so that the companies no longer have to pay a fixed dividend to the U.S. taxpayer, but instead “every dollar of profit” from the companies to the taxpayer. The problem is that the Government Sponsored Enterprises...

The Justice Department is beginning a major campaign against banks and mortgage brokers suspected of discriminating against minority applicants in lending, opening a new front in the Obama administration’s response to the foreclosure crisis. Tom Perez, the assistant attorney general for the department’s Civil Rights Division, is expected to announce Thursday in New York that the administration is creating a new unit that will focus exclusively on unfair lending practices. “We are looking at any and every practice in the industry,” Mr. Perez said in a recent interview. As part of an expansion of the Civil Rights Division approved by...

PERRIS: Fannie Mae abandoned horse, records show A horse that was found blind, starving and nearly crippled at a foreclosed home in Perris may have been a victim of Fannie Mae. I reported on the horse’s rescue last week by a couple of local good Samaritans, but I didn’t know who owned the property. I do now. It was Fannie Mae. That’s what the County Assessor’s records show, anyway. I had a feeling this was the case, based on an unreliable tip that was blurted at me by the real estate agent in charge of the property. When I called...

"The New Leviathan:""How the Left-Wing Money-Machine Shapes American Politics""and Threatens America's Future" By David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin David Horowitz contends that tax-exempt organizations of the political left,who present themselves are more aligned with the concerns of the poor and working class than conservative groups and the Republican Party, have assets over 100 hundred billion dollars and outspend conservatives seven to one. The author argues that the Left has used their finances to promote a progressive agenda that has transformed the political landscape. David Horowitz speaks at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles.