Andrew Cuomo and Fannie and Freddie, How the youngest HUD secretary caused the mortgage crisis

The Village Voice ^ | August 05, 2008 | Wayne Barrett

[joinedafterattack]

There are as many starting points for the mortgage meltdown as there are fears about how far it has yet to go, but one decisive point of departure is the final years of the Clinton administration, when a kid from Queens without any real banking or real-estate experience was the only man in Washington with the power to regulate the giants of home finance, the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), better known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded "kickbacks" to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. Three to four million families are now facing foreclosure, and Cuomo is one of the reasons why.

[mewzilla]

BTTT.

[anglian]

"Gov’t central planners had their hand in this. Pres. Bush wanted 5.5 Mil more homeowners. Well, he got it. We are all homeowners now."

In FY2007, Congress appropriated $24,750,000 for ADDI.

Previously, Congress appropriated $74,513,000 in FY2003 and $86,984 in FY2004, $49,600,000 in FY2005 and $24,750,000 in FY2006

Seems ADDI turned out to be chicken feed in relation to the current crisis.