Posted on 09/20/2008 5:00:03 PM PDT by Lorianne
Most important was corruption and mismanagement at the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac), which together controlled 90 percent of the secondary mortgage market.
Fannie and Freddie went broke because they bought billions of dollars worth of subprime mortgages, on which borrowers defaulted when the housing bubble popped. Fannie bought most of its bad mortgages from Countrywide Financial, whose CEO, Angelo Mozilo, gave sweetheart loans to senior executives of Fannie Mae.
Fannie and Freddie cooked their books so senior executives would be paid millions of dollars in bonuses to which they were not entitled. Inadequate regulation kept the book-cooking from being discovered until the crisis had become a catastrophe.
President Bush proposed regulatory reforms in 2003, but Congress took no action. In 2005, John McCain and three other GOP senators proposed a strong reform bill. It died when Democrats threatened a filibuster. Democrats opposed reform in part because they feared it would mean fewer loans to poor people.
Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines was forced to resign in December, 2004, because of "accounting irregularities." The Washington Post reported July 16 that the Obama campaign has called Mr. Raines "seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."
Mr. Obama appointed Mr. Raines' predecessor, James Johnson, as head of his vice presidential search committee until he also was implicated in "accounting irregularities," and it was revealed he'd received cut-rate loans from Countrywide.
Chicago billionaire Penny Pritzker, head of Mr. Obama's finance committee, chaired the now-defunct Superior bank when it began to cook the books to conceal losses from subprime mortgages. The holding company her family owned collected $200 million in dividends on phony profits.
(Excerpt) Read more at toledoblade.com ...
Speaking of crony capitalism, how are we to explain the planned $700 BILLION transfer of wealth from the taxpayers to Wall Street by Hank Paulson et al?
The Dims will of course blame all this on capitalism. But, the most important tenet of capitalism is that SOMEONE, meaning a person or persons, has to lend you their money and take a risk on losing it or making a good return. When the government gets involved a la FMs then there is no risk since politicians, who gain from the transaction, aren’t using their own money.
I believe this is going to sink the Dems...remember that voters got rid of Republicans because of corruption...here is a case where we have the chairman of the banking committee getting huge contributions...one thing about McCain: his reputation about getting money of politics is unassailable...and he picked Palin who did the same thing in her state.
Conservatism is dead. Can’t believe I voted for a bunch of socialist crooks and thieves. Not once, but twice.
I hope you’re right.
But I don’t trust any politician. I’m sure there is some legitimate dirt on McCain and on Palin too if someone digs far enough. You don’t get to the top of the heap by being Mr./Ms goody-two-shoes.
But the Dems take the cake!
Me too. I’m only consoled by what the alternatives were.
bump!
I pray Ohions hear and read about this. The entire nation needs to understand this but the MSM will never point this out. It is up to Talk Radio and the Net bloggers.
And they keep getting their posh digs, huge salaries and millions in perks from their cronies.
Still, it's a must read. Just know that it's only a thumbnail sketch of the corruption.
If a big Wall Street type espouses leftist policies and funds leftist candidates that are antiethical to capitalism, ask why? What's in it for them?
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