Thanks for writing this and for all the additional links. Some of us want factual real information on Obama and his connections. I’m going to direct people in my email over here to read this and send a link to local press in swing states too.

TransUnion: Ms. Pritzker is chair of TransUnion, a global leader in credit data information services.

Even assuming she wasn’t Transunion’s chair while heading Superior, can you think of a better way to identify people ripe for predatory lending, than by having close ties to one of the big three credit data services? In essence, one business relationship lent money to people with bad credit, while the other was responsible for identifying those very people for would be lenders, or extenders of credit. I smell a rat and this one ain’t named Rezko.

Finally, what qualifies her to chair Transunion? She’s good at identifying individuals who are credit risks because she loaned them a ton of money over the years??? Hmm….

During this time, according to the Journal, Superior funded more than 6,700 new subprime loans worth more than $550 million. Most of these loans were subsequently sold to another bank. The problems was, many of these loans suffered from the same deficiencies as other subprime loans – unqualified borrowers, inflated appraisals, and inadequate verification of borrowers’ incomes.

The WSJ states, “Hundreds of borrowers who took out Superior subprime loans on the FDIC’s watch – some with initial interest rates higher than 12 percent – have lost their homes to foreclosure.” The FDIC stopped funding new Superior loans in early 2002 and closed the lending operation by mid-year.

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2008/07/penny-pritzker.html

Franklin Raines former CEO of Fannie Mae is Obama’s Chief Financial Advisor. Raines raked in over 25 million annually from Fannie Mae while seeding it’s collapse. After being forced from Fannie Mae due to an accounting scandal not unlike ENRON, Raines now provides Obama with financial and mortgage advice.

Jim Johnson, another former Fannie CEO, and a recipient of below market rate mortgages as “a friend” of subprime lender Countrywide, was tapped by Obama to head the search and vetting for Obama’s VP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usvG-s_Ssb0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq7DGTggpx0

Franklin D. Raines agreed to a multimillion settlement with a federal regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, over his responsibility for improper accounting at the mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae. In court papers, the agency said Mr Raines was unjustly enriched.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washbizblog/2008/04/regulator_to_dismiss_charges_a.html

Raines failures at Fannie Mae earned him the not so coveted “Worst Manager of the Year” award from Business Week on January 10th, 2005. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_02/b3915646.htm

Penny Pritzker, Obama’s Campaign Finance Chair, who as the CEO of Superior Bank of Illinois, was a pioneer in the subprime market. Her Superior Bank was shut down in 2001 by the FDIC after it had lost nearly all of its more than $2 billion of assets on bad loans to high-risk borrowers, federal regulators said.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/04/obamas_billionaire_finance_cha.html

And, Sen. John S. McCain said on the senate floor in May, 2006: “I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.”

Obama voted against the legislation.

Obama and his team will never be known as “The Best and the Brightest”.

Obama supporters are quick to say “This is no worse than John McCain’s involvement with Lincoln Savings, John Keating, and McCain’s role in the “Keating Five”. The difference is, no one from Lincoln Savings, including John Keating ever served on John McCain’s election campaigns. And, John McCain donated all money contributed by Keating, his relatives, and his employees to the US Treasury.

John McCain requested that Federal Banking Regulators give Keating and Lincoln Savings a fair hearing, and make sure they were treated with due process by the regulatory agency. McCain specifically told regulators “I wouldn’t want any special favors for Keating or Lincoln Savings” and “I don’t want any part of our conversation to be improper”.

The Senate Ethics Committee probe of the Keating Five began in November 1990, and committee Special Counsel Robert Bennett, a Democrat, recommended that McCain and Ohio Senator John Glenn be dropped from the investigation.

In February 1991, the Senate Ethics Committee exonerated McCain and Glenn, saying “McCain and Glenn attended the meetings but did nothing to influence the regulators” and declared his actions were not “improper nor attended with gross negligence.”. McCain contributed $112,000 (the amount raised for him by Keating) to the U.S. Treasury. http://www.slate.com/id/1004633/

What has Obama done with the money raised by Pritzker, Raines, and Johnson?

This weekend I was bombarded by two siblings with pro-Obama; anti-McCain articles with “You Should Read This” marked on them. I responded with THIS article, and Larry’s good piece on Barack and Wall St. Oh – and marked them “AND You Should Read THIS!”

Great job!

Truthteller, if you are also truthteller007, your blog was the first that I read with pleasure. I was disappointed when the website disappeared (I forgot where I read you) and wondered what happened. Then I searched for other blogs and found NQ and then others. I am glad you post here. I am a regular reader of NQ, the first website that I open when I turn on my computer though not a regular poster.

Looking forward to your other posts.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=s1999-105

The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 became law as part of H.R. 4577, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2001: Only 7 democrats voted YEA; 30 democrats voted NAY.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=s2000-171

Those critical pieces of financial deregulation were passed into law by the republican majority, against strong democratic opposition. McCain economic advisor Phil Gramm was the motive force behind both of them.

It’s a hard sell, because the deregulation that caused the financial crisis can be traced directly back to specific republican legislation. Once you know the legislation that created the situation you can take a look at the vote count. And hey, what do you know! The republican majority voted the legislation into law against strong democratic opposition.

In addition to deregulating via legislation, the republicans also appointed the regulators.

They set the store rules, and then they minded the store. Now they’re pointing fingers across the aisle, and blaming a guy who wasn’t even in the Senate at the time to vote.

Like I said: It’s a hard sell. Recent polls suggest that the public may not be buying it.

Then investment banks bought these sub-prime loans, packaged them into neat bundles, and sold them to investors. These investors bought them up because, after all, these sub-prime loans would soon be making 14% (give or take a few percentage points). The investment banks did so without investigating where people were going to get the money to repay the loans. Instead, they counted on the price of the house continuing to go up. That way people could refinance and get money to pay their mortgages. Then the housing market crumbled and the money was not available to continuously refinance and a financial crisis emerged. Now, because of the stupidity and greed of the people who brought us sub-prime mortgages and packaged them up to sell to investors, the American taxpayer is meant to bail them out and so without any accountability or oversight. This almost sounds like a grand Ponzi scheme.

John McCain is right. This wonderful bail out scenario should be posted on the Internet so we can all read it. We need to keep liquidity in the banking system and protect the pensions of millions of workers. Is bailing out the investment banks that helped create this mess the way to do it? We also need to find out if this money helps the investors or helps the people in distress who are losing the homes they cannot afford. The markets function best when they are transparent. Time is critical but so is transparency of this transaction.