Obama Contributor & Lehman CEO Richard Fuld Comes Under Fire By Congress!

PDOP ^ | 10/06/2008 | Jarid Brown

[Jabrown]

Former Lehman Brothers CEO and long-time Barack Obama contributor Richard Fuld is testifying today concerning his role in the failure of the Investment banking giant. Fuld joins the ranks of the dozens of former wall street executives who have or are likely to be paraded in front of Congress over the coming months. Fuld also contributed to Senator Dodd's campaign and The Democratic National Senatorial Committee's fund.

Among Obama's campaign contributors are dozens of other ...

[y6162]

From the Desk of Chris Dodd

Dear Dick,

Thanks for the contribution to my campaign fund. Your support has been instrumental to my successful 2006 election.

Now in 2008, I need you to become the scapegoat for Wall Street greed. Democrat congressmen and madame will scold you, mock you and threaten to jail you. Be sure to be quiet about your donations to us during this torture. Sign whatever confession is put before you.

Remember. Even John McCain broke.

Yours,
Chris

[Liz]

When’s book-cooking Franklin Raines’ *** gonna be hauled before Congress?

Guy personally hauled away millions of tax dollars in bonuses, perks, salaries, pensions, when he was ousted for government fraud.

Not to mention the millions he wire-transferred to secret offshore bank accounts.

[Liz]

OBAMA WILL CLEAN-UP THE MESS W/ THE MESS-MAKERS. Nitwit
trusts those who tore down our financial system to build it back up.

SCREWBALL SCREWUP By 2000, Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, above,
and CFO J. Timothy Howard had greatly expanded Fannie Mae (and cooked
the books in the process).

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

FRANKLIN RAINES? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as Chief Economic Advisor

TIM HOWARD? Howard is also a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama

JIM JOHNSON? Johnson hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential Search Committee

[popdonnelly]

Rather cold of the Democrats to be now picking on their former buddy.

[HighlyOpinionated]

WE have GOT to INSIST on TERM LIMITS. You and I and every FReeper who will get on board.

I’m going to do research after the election and find out just what has to occur to force Congress into Term Limits (it’s for OUR own good).

That and a Federal Concealed Carry Permit are on my personal agenda.

[HighlyOpinionated]

Someone looked at that and said “HUH?”

If we have people in Congress who are more likely to vote as their constituents wish, we’ll have less chance of collusion and fortune hunting among Congresspeople and Wall Street People.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Normally I am against "ex post facto" tax changes, but I believe that technically they are constitutional.

What about a change to the tax law retroactive to 2006 that the value of all severance packages above $1 million is to be taxed at 100%?

This would protect the 95% of employees who receive reasonable compensation for their efforts, prevent CEOs and boards from voting themselves golden parachutes, and cause shareholders to modify compensation packages to value performance over pacifying the frazzled egos of CEOs on their way out.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

How about Henry Paulsen throw in say $400 million of his tax-free sale of GS stock. He gets it back if the DJ is at 11K in a year.

[Liz]

Watching double-talking Fuld bafflegab the Congress——one concludes his every move as Lehman CEO was to outmaneuver and outsmart regulators to circum-navigate US laws.

The name of Fuld’s game was to get more and more money for himself and a few hand-picked insiders.

Fuld’s “victim” act is amazing——clearly thinks he smarter than anyone else——the original Big Dick. Probably walked around the company with a see-through fly.

Me-First Fuld deceived investors and anybody else that got in his way. Put him in jail and throw away the key.

[Arguendo]

What about CEOs who fully deserve their severance packages? Just screw them?

[who_would_fardels_bear]

They get to keep up to $1 million.

If they are such good CEOs then they should be able to make up what they lose in short order through direct wages and stock options based on performance ... rather than gifts given to them for merely walking out the door.

[Arguendo]

It’s not a gift if it (or the criteria for awarding it) was negotiated as part of their contract when they accepted the job.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

If they were essentially negotiating with themselves, i.e. they were the CEOs and also on the board, or through logrolling with other CEOs/boards they had a business relationship with, then yes it was a gift.

But even if it was the result of hardnosed negotiations, it will be perfectly legal to tax it all away, it would be most appreciated by the vast majority of taxpayers, and it would be a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of wealth most of these characters wiped from the world's accounting ledgers.

[Arguendo]

it will be perfectly legal to tax it all away, it would be most appreciated by the vast majority of taxpayers

Awesome, you sound just like Hillary. I swear this board is getting more populist by the day.

[RummyChick]

I agree with Fuld on the question of why didn’t Lehman get a bailout when other firms did.

Paulson is just too damn close to Goldman Sachs...and perhaps Warren Buffett.

[chasio649]

I watched some of that today...i can spot a sleaze from a good distance...that guy seemed almost mafioso....creepy elitist too.

[frogjerk]

How do you reply to the Snopes.com article saying that these facts you propose are false? I am especially interested in Tim Johnson’s ties to Obama.

[frogjerk]

Tim Howard, that is.

[Liz]

Keep in mind that ACORN organizer Obama worked hand-in-hand with Fanne Mae.

============================================

SPREADING THE VIRUS; HOW ACORN & ITS DEM ALLIES BUILT THE MORTGAGE DISASTER By STANLEY KURTZ

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10132008/photos/oped019a.jpg

--SNIP--ACORN'S crusade, with help from Democrats in Congress, to push these high-risk "subprime" loans on banks is at the root of today's economic meltdown. When the role of ACORN and congressional Democrats in the mortgage crisis is pointed out, Democrats reply that banks subject to the CRA represent only about a quarter of the loans that led to our current troubles. In fact, the problem goes way beyond the CRA.

As ACORN ran its campaigns against local banks, it quickly hit a roadblock. Banks would tell ACORN they could afford to reduce their credit standards by only a little - since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federal mortgage giants, refused to buy up those risky loans for sale on the "secondary market." That is, the CRA wasn't enough. Unless Fannie and Freddie were willing to relax their credit standards as well, local banks would never make home loans to customers with bad credit histories or with too little money for a down payment. So ACORN's Democratic friends in Congress moved to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to dispense with normal credit standards. Throughout the early '90s, they imposed ever-increasing subprime-lending quotas on Fannie and Freddie. --SNIP--

How does Barack Obama fit into all of this? Obama has been a key ally of Chicago ACORN going back to his days as a community organizer. Later, as a young lawyer, he offered leadership training to the activists who were forcing Chicago banks into high-risk subprime loans. And when he made it on to the boards of Chicago's Woods Fund and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, he channeled money ACORN's way. Obama was perfectly aware of ACORN's intimidation tactics - indeed, he oversaw a Woods Fund report that boasted of managing to fund the radical group despite its shocking behavior. And as a lawmaker, in Illinois and in Washington, he has continued to back ACORN's leglislative agenda. --SNIP--

=============================================

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/business/05fannie.html?em

EXCERPT Between 2005 and 2008, Fannie purchased or guaranteed at least $270 billion in loans to risky borrowers — more than three times as much as in all its earlier years combined, according to company filings and industry data.

Last month, the White House was forced to orchestrate a $200 billion rescue of Fannie and its corporate cousin, Freddie Mac. On Sept. 26, the companies disclosed that federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission were investigating potential accounting and governance problems. (NOTE Raines was fired for cooking the books--but walked away with $90 million dollars in perks, bonuses, lifetime benefits and pensions.)

Just two decades earlier, Fannie had been on the brink of bankruptcy. But chief executives like Franklin D. Raines and the chief financial officer J. Timothy Howard built it into a financial juggernaut by aiming at new markets.

Fannie never actually made loans. It was essentially a mortgage insurance company, buying mortgages, keeping some but reselling most to investors and, for a fee, promising to pay off a loan if the borrower defaulted.

The only real danger was that the company might guarantee questionable mortgages and lose out when large numbers of borrowers walked away from their obligations. ..... the company announced in 2000 that it would buy $2 trillion in loans from low-income, minority and risky borrowers by 2010. NOTE Those borrowers were concentrated in Afro-American and Latino communities---and are the toxic mortgages that brought the global economy to a halt.