Posted on 09/18/2008 6:17:41 PM PDT by mathprof
Franklin Raines
Franklin Delano Raines (born January 14, 1949 in Seattle, Washington) is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Fannie Mae who served as White House budget director under President Bill Clinton. He is currently employed by Barack Obama's Presidential Campaign as an economic adviser.
The son of a Seattle janitor [1], Raines graduated from Harvard University, Harvard Law School; and Magdalen College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Raines was of age during the Vietnam War, but performed no military service. He served in the Carter Administration as associate director for economics and government in the Office of Management and Budget and assistant director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff from 1977 to 1979. Then he joined Lazard Freres and Co., where he worked for 11 years and became a general partner. In 1991 he became Fannie's Mae's Vice Chairman, a post he left in 1996 in order to join the Clinton Administration as the Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, where he served until 1998. In 1999, he returned to Fannie Mae as CEO, "the first black man to head a Fortune 500 company."[1]
On December 21, 2004 Raines accepted what he called "early retirement" [2] from his position as CEO while U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigators continued to investigate alleged accounting irregularities. He is accused by The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the regulating body of Fannie Mae, of abetting widespread accounting errors, which included the shifting of losses so senior executives, such as himself, could earn large bonuses [3].
In 2006, the OFHEO announced a suit against Raines in order to recover some or all of the $50 million in payments made to Raines based on the overstated earnings [4] initially estimated to be $9 billion but have been announced as 6.3 billion.[2].
Civil charges were filed against Raines and two other former executives by the OFHEO in which the OFHEO sought $110 million in penalties and $115 million in returned bonuses from the three accused.[5] On April 18, 2008, the government announced a settlement with Raines together with J. Timothy Howard, Fannie's former chief financial officer, and Leanne G. Spencer, Fannie's former controller. The three executives agreed to pay fines totaling about $3 million, which will be paid by Fannie's insurance policies. Raines also agreed to donate the proceeds from the sale of $1.8 million of his Fannie stock and to give up stock options. The stock options however have no value. Raines also gave up an estimated $5.3 million of "other benefits" said to be related to his pension and forgone bonuses.[6]
An editorial in The Wall Street Journal called it a "paltry settlement" which allowed Raines and the other two executives to "keep the bulk of their riches." [7] In 2003 alone, Raines's compensation was over $20 million.[3]
A statement issued by Raines said of the consent order, "is consistent with my acceptance of accountability as the leader of Fannie Mae and with my strong denial of the allegations made against me by OFHEO."[4]
In a settlement with OFHEO and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Fannie paid a record $400 million civil fine. Fannie, which is the largest American financier and guarantor of home mortgages, also agreed to make changes in its corporate culture and accounting procedures and ways of managing risk. [8]
In June 2008 Wall Street Journal reported that Franklin Raines was one of several politicians who received below market rates loans at Countrywide Financial because the corporation considered the officeholders "FOA's"--"Friends of Angelo" (Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo). He received loans for over $3 million while CEO of Fannie Mae. [5] Franklin Raines is currently one of Barack Obama's chief economic advisers.
The last paragraph of the current Wikepedia entry now reads:
On September 18, 2008 the McCain Campaign claimed in an ad critical of Obama that based upon reports from the Washington Post, Franklin Raines is currently one of Barack Obama's economic advisers. Both Raines and the Obama Campaign claim that Raines is not an Obama advisor and has never advised Senator Obama.
BUSTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BKMK
I am Not Spartacus.
Ha! Good catch.
Somehow the facts keep getting white washed in this election. Amazing. It is like it never happened, and the media will say it is so.
Senator Dodd's friends?
Bookmark too!! Someone oughta send this to RUSH...PAYBACK IS A WITCH!!
Great work, mathprof.
You get a gold medal and a swiftboat medallion.
Oh, this is good.
Nice find!
GOP needs to shout the following from the roof tops...
McCain sponsored a bill in 2005 to rein in out of control
Fannie May & Freddy Mac (F&F). That bill lost because of
most democrats and a few repubs in the senate. McCain warned
that abusive practices by F&F will come home to roost.
Above is well documented in congressional record.
The plutonium core behind the housing debacle traces back
directly to F&F. It was F&F who bought most of those sub-prime
mortgages thus keeping that market alive. Mortgage brokers
sprouted all over the country and gave mortgage loans to anybody
since they could turn around and re-sell it to F&F.
Nice catch!
Ping
About a dozen revisions to the Raines Wikepedia web page have been made in the past few days.
Bulls eye!
Take that Hussien.
Someone needs to start makeing a list of all the crooks that Hussien has had around him hsi whole life.
Mr. Obama we are playing by your rules, you know those Saul Alinsky rules!
Sorry we've upset your apple cart, Sorry we've got you bamboozled.
We are playing by your Alinsky rules and the only thing that matters is winning.
We need to keep rubbing that open wound, we need to keep applying pressure
to your stinking sagging campaign.
Just wait until our October Surprise comes out about what you did during those college years
and those buddies of yours. Oh yeah, Saul would be proud of us.
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