Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are the cause of the current economic crisis. According to a Bloomberg commentary by Michael Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute, Freddie and Fannie was the "key enabler of the mortgage crisis. They fueled Wall Street's efforts to securitize subprime loans by becoming the primary customer of all AAA-rated subprime-mortgage pools. In addition, they held an enormous portfolio of mortgages themselves."
Congress was even warned by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan that if Fannie and Freddie were to continue to grow and receive lower capital, then there would certainly be potential risk to the economy in the future.
However, the Democrats in Congress did not listen and kept on protecting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from further regulations. In addition, they also protected the corrupt behavior of the CEOs of both of these financial companies, and why, you ask. Three Democrats: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd are all beneficiaries of campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie. "Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000."
The Democratic Congress keeps on sticking to the same old talking points of change, yet they are the roadblocks to the appropriate change from corruption that America has been seeking. Their economic plans will only protect their corrupt friends and not change the culture in Washington.
3 comments:
Re: The Democrats “want to continue to spend more to bailout Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. It is no surprise since many Democratic members of Congress receive contributions or special arrangements from these two entities.”
Actually, it is the Republicans who want to bail out Freddie and Fannie. The bailout was proposed by the US Secretary of the Treasury, and backed by George Bush. Now they've gone on from the mere $200 billion or so for F&F to ask for another $500 billion to bail out Wall Street.
But, let's just concentrate on Fannie and Freddie for the moment. According to the NY Times, McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.
(Lets see now, 30,000 X 12 months X 5 years = 1.8 MILLION.)
SEE, the r's have someone who got a dollar too. Therefore what??smrstrauss, that makes what the d's did ok? How about BO's best friend who got 90 million. Let's see how much is that a month?
Yes the President proposed a bailout and all the while the Dem's were hard to find. Recess I guess. Now d's want to act like they didn't have anything to do with it.
I'm sure ther are people on both sides who are greedy, but the telltale sign of who has the most to lose with investigation, is that there are no screams for and independent counsel like there were when there were other terrible scandals, like say the firing of 12 attorneys. Why we never heard the end of the outrage thet all the usual suspects feigned.
Re: no one screaming or asking for an investigation and therefore the Democrats have something to lose. A simpler explanation is that no one considers this to be a scandal. I haven't heard a cry for an investigation, even from Republicans.
My point about the Rs getting money from Fannie and Freddie also -- actually more than the Ds, was just to show how silly it is to imply that because some Ds got money that is why they did not vote for more regulation over Fannie and Freddie. A lot of Republicans got money from Enron when that scandal broke and you know, I don't think there was much in the way of oversight over Enron.
Ah but there are some scandals emerging. How about these two:
Federal No-Bid Contracts On Rise
Use of Favored Firms A Common Shortcut
By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 22, 2007; Page A01
Under pressure from the White House and Congress to deliver a long-delayed plan last year, officials at the Department of Homeland Security's counter-narcotics office took a shortcut that has become common at federal agencies: They hired help through a no-bid contract.
And the firm they hired showed them how to do it.
Scott Chronister, a senior official in the Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement, reached out to a former colleague at a private consulting firm for advice. The consultant suggested that Chronister's office could avoid competition and get the work done quickly under an arrangement in which the firm "approached the government with a 'unique and innovative concept,' " documents and interviews show.
A contract worth up to $579,000 was awarded to the consultant's firm in September.
Though small by government standards, the counter-narcotics contract illustrates the government's steady move away from relying on competition to secure the best deals for products and services.
A recent congressional report estimated that federal spending on contracts awarded without "full and open" competition has tripled, to $207 billion, since 2000, with an $60 billion increase last year alone. The category includes deals in which officials take advantage of provisions allowing them to sidestep competition for speed and convenience and cases in which the government sharply limits the number of bidders or expands work under open-ended contracts.
Government auditors say the result is often higher prices for taxpayers and an undue reliance on a limited number of contractors.
And:
Sex, Drug Use and Graft Cited in Interior Department
New York Times
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: September 10, 2008
WASHINGTON — As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.
In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes.
“A culture of ethical failure” pervades the agency, Mr. Devaney wrote in a cover memo.
The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.
The highest-ranking official criticized in the reports is Lucy Q. Denett, the former associate director of minerals revenue management, who retired earlier this year as the inquiry was progressing.
The investigations are the latest installment in a series of scathing inquiries into the program’s management and competence in recent years. While previous reports have focused on problems the agency had in collecting millions of dollars owed to the Treasury, and hinted at personal misconduct, the new reports go far beyond any previous study in revealing serious concerns with the integrity and behavior of the agency’s officials.
In one of the new reports, investigators concluded that Ms. Denett worked with two aides to steer a lucrative consulting contract to one of the aides after he retired, violating competitive procurement rules.
Two other reports focus on “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” in the service’s royalty-in-kind program. That part of the agency collects about $4 billion a year.
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