Where is Wall Street Hiding Hundred Plus Billion in Lo$$es?

Yes, Larry, thank you for keeping us up to date on Washington and their “hidden” war against us. I have the same concerns as Diana L. C.above. It seems to be one assault after another from those who are supposed to be working in our interest. Lies, more lies, and damned lies.

Please take a look and see who is buying up these troubled banks after the FDIC closes them..Countrywide and its affiliates are now owned by ONEWEST..guess who that is? George Soros and his consortium. He buys these banks because they hold mortgages. On December 24th, 2009 Congress gave Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae UNLIMITED funds to back these mortgages. Does this not make you think? Soros bought a failed bank in LaJolla California with 3 BILLION dollars in assets last month all with 90 million on paper. His bid was one of 20.. MORTGAGE notes. He now has 3 BILLION dollars in federally insured assets for 90 million paper..HELLO.
This is a scam of gigantic proportions..
Please call your Congressmen and ask them to ask Barney Frank why he wants to forgive those loans and have the FEDS pay for them? To supply Soros with that money and to avoid putting the real cost of FM and FM on the books? It is TWO TRILLION dollars which would be added to the deficit..

Oh, what a web they weave…..because they endeavor to deceive.

Frank wanted all these banksters to push these people into these homes they couldn’t afford; that was the first moral hazard. Democrats–liberals to be precise–are masters of “unintended consequences” aren’t they? They never met a economic principle they didn’t want to pervert through meddling. 

Let them fail; let them ALL fail–the people who bought houses they couldn’t afford, along with the banksters who wooed them into it, and the liberal politicians who lied to the people and encouraged all of them to enslave themselves through debt.

It’s only going to get worse; as David Cay warned, “we will be poorer.” 

Deal with it. Debt default and bankruptcy is the only way out of this morass, for everyone. Covering up the festering sore that is our economy, is stifling the health of the system, like a flesh-eating bacteria that will eventually kill us. 

NLBiB wrote:”That is the problem, the US is still rewarding bad economic behavior.”

This was the principle reason for the economic meltdown, and it is the principle reason that the economy will NOT recover in the near future. As long as banks, auto makers, and unions can run back to Mommy and Daddy government to bail them out of their bad decisions, they’ll keep making bad decisions.

Not too long ago, bankers and big business owners had their personal fortunes tied to the fates of their operations. If a banker were to allow his bank to go belly up, he stood to lose his house, savings, and any other wealth he had. This type of potential risk was excellent pressure that would force the banker to make good decisions and sound investments. When the government stepped in and eliminated that risk, business practices became sloppy. Add to this the fact that most of the larger entities became incorporated and were owned by stockholders, and you again have a company that is being run by individuals (CEOs) who were insulated from personal loss should the company fail, but the stockholders would get hammered instead.

How many risky mortgages were funneled into FM & FM, where the taxpayer would eventually be on the hook when they failed? These risky loans were cheerfully made in an atmosphere of little risk to the institution making the original loan, before the ink was dry on the signatures, the loans were sent down the pipe to FM & FM where creeps like Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, and Jamie Gorelick,( Investigation by the OFHEO detailed in their official report on the accounting scandal in 2006 on page 66 that from 1998 to 2002 Gorelick received a total of $26,466,834.00 in income [at Fannie Mae]) got a piece of every commission from every mortgage that they landed. The system was set up for disaster.

I realize that the economic meltdown had a multitude of reasons, but this particular issue is a prime example of how the best intentions of government, are usually just more bricks in the road to Hell.

After being a shill for years for Fannie, Freddie and easy mortgage money, Barney Fife , I mean Frank, is in no position to lecture anyone about sound financial principals.

The liens must be largely written off so that Washington can then compel banks to engage in writing down principal on first liens in an attempt to keep people in their homes.

Bingo! Thank you Mr. Doyle.
For those of you who wonder why banks are not adjusting first mortgages and doing short sales, despite their protests that they are doing so, they are also holding the SECOND MORTGAGE on the house with an equityline.  Any change in the first mortgage they would make would destroy the value of the second.
Like you, I don’t know how long they can delay the inevitable.
This may be why the General Accounting Principles were changed.

Barney Frank is doing a great job. There is probably no one in Washington who is balancing the issues of the financial industry and the taxpayer better than Frank.

same old meaningless comments. Why not say something of some value like I disagree with you, I think Barney Frank is not doing his job and here is why….. or explain why you think heis shoveling truckloads of shit onto American taxpayers. I would love for you to explain that one exactlly….

having been a watcher of Frank for years I think he is one of the best ones we got. straight shooter, smart and good at balance all the competing issues and pressures.

Neither of your comments provides a single reference to anything Frank has done. Your posts simply have the shallow tenor of a cheerleader’s chant. Barney is good, a straight shooter, (what image THAT conjures, yuk) and smart? Where are YOUR footnotes? Your first post was so vacuous and generic, essentially a Barney bumper sticker, that it didn’t deserve more than the quip I gave it.

oowawa,

A completely bias and BS post the you link to. Where exactly is Frank lying, as the title of the post says. There is absolutely nothing inconsistent with Frank asking financial firms to write down their second liens to market and what Frank and Kanjorski have said in the past about mark-to-market accounting. The author to your linked post does not know what he is talking about. In fact, Kanjorski has said exactly the opposite as the post author you link to says. I think the author of the post you link to is the liar. Frank and Kanjorski never forced any changes. They held a hearing to look into it. Show me a link where it says Frank actually forced through accounting changes.  
 
 
At their March hearing they said:  
 
“Kanjorski said that Congress “cannot allow for fantasy accounting that wishes away bad assets by merely concealing them.” Kanjorski is chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises.  
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), asked about mark-to-market accounting in February, said that he doesn’t believe it should be abolished but also doesn’t believe that Congress should be in the business of regulating specific accounting standards.  
 
“I want to find a way — within the existing independent standard-setting structure — to still provide investors with the information needed to make effective decisions without continuing to impose undue burdens on financial institutions,” said Kanjorski. “Each of our anticipated witnesses will have the opportunity to contribute as we all pursue consensus solutions together to this thorny, contentious issue.”

Are you suggesting as Bush did in regardt ot supporting our soldiers, that the best way to get out of this mes is by shopping, shopping, shopping? 

Your comment it quite strange.

,,,and this.  Barney Frank / Fannie Mae Love Connection

Mr. Guest, 

The record shows that Mr. Frank was integrally involved in the enormous growth of Freddie’s and Fannies platform throughout the 90s and ’00s. Barney only got religion recently. Freddie and Fannie had a huge competitive advantage given their very cheap source of funding and they grew their internal portfolios to drive profits (and enormous bonuses for senior management).

The fact is Congressman Richard Baker (R-LA) and the Wall Street Journal editorial page were the loudest voices calling for reform of F and F starting in the late ’90s. John McCain joined in somewhat but not too loudly.

Barney and team were banging the drum for F and F to be left alone because they helped promote housing. 

Freddie actually played a big role in cleaning up some of the abuses within the sub-prime industry but Freddie bought a lot of sub-prime paper from the late ’90s on while Fannie bought a lot of Alt-A paper. 

Barney was no reformer. 

Elaine, I tried to tell Democrats about Barack Hussein Obama. I tried to tell them, but they were so focused on hating GWB, they wouldn’t listen. I had a talk with a Dem a few weeks ago. She was still going on about how stupid W is. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and I was screaming at her in the middle of a restaurant: Jeeezus god, give it a rest already! Our experiment in republican government (NOT democratic government) may end this week when Pelosi brings the gavel down. Obama’s health care death grip will squeeze the last drops of blood out of the American people. Democrats will finally have ALL the power, but they will rule over a dead carcass. We will be enslaved to the Democratic Party and its the union thugs who own them. How’s it feel to have worked your whole life so that you now have to hand it all over to some UAW asshole in Detroit who already earns a six figure salary? Oh you don’t like our new arrangements for health care? Rocko will show up at your house with a baseball bat to take care of your little attitude problem. Nowhuddamean?

Mr. Doyle,

This is nothing wrong with the growth of Fannie and Freddie. They play a very good and important role in financial and mortgage markets. They put millions in their houses. By the way Fannie and Freddie did not originate one single bad mortgage or sell one crooket mortgage. They are not in the origination game.

It is debatable how much Fannie and Freddie have had a competitive advantage. In fact, if you check the record with a little more of a pointed pencil you will see that these two agencies actually lost signficant market share during the run-up and height of the housing bubble between 2003 to 2007 to the private sector. From Krugman “In fact, Fannie and Freddie, after growing rapidly in the 1990s, largely faded from the scene during the height of the housing bubble.” See my links above.

I think Frank would disagree with your comment that he is not a reformer. Where do you get that from? From his quotes above:

“I supported reform then, I support reform now and I delivered. Dealey also fails to report that the Bush Administration did not support the reform efforts of Republican former House Financial Services Committee Chairman Mike Oxley, who recently told the Financial Times that the White House gave him “the one-finger salute” for his efforts to bring about GSE reform.  

I also supported—with major opposition from the Bush Administration and their conservative Congressional allies—a tough federal law against predatory lending, and I urged then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to write regulations based on the Home Owners Equity Protection Act passed by a Democratic Congress in 1994. Those regulations would have outlawed many of the irresponsible lending practices that fueled the housing bubble and now threaten the entire economy”

Where is your proof that Frank did not do these things?

You just repeat the same Republican narratives supported with zero facts designed to tear Frank down. Good luck! He is way to smart for that.

You first try to blame Freddie and Fannie for the housing bubble, they no doubt played a role, but that role is being exaggerated by those Republicans trying to escape the blame themselves, and then you try and pin Frank to Freddie and label him not being a reformer or some how suggesting he had the power when his party was not in power.  The reality is that Frank has been a very hard worker in trying to push reform and clean up this mess. Very few others are actually doing anything. Frank is also excellent at balancing the needs and issues of the financial industry with those of the tax payer. The reality is the Fannie and Freddie were also vicitims of the housing bubble and play and continue to play a very important role in this country.

Part I

Larry Doyle,

Here is an article for you.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aeSenIUvpSK0&pos=10

Obama Defies Pessimists as Rising Economy Converges With Stocks

March 10 (Bloomberg) — The political consensus may be that President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy has been weak. The judgment of money in all its forms has been overwhelmingly positive, and that may be the more lasting appraisal.

One year after U.S stocks hit their post-financial-crisis low on March 9, 2009, the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has risen more than 68 percent, and it’s up more than 41 percent since Obama took office. Credit spreads have narrowed. Commodity prices have surged. Housing prices have stabilized.

“We’ve had a phenomenal run in asset classes across the board,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak & Co. in New York. “If he was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the president.”

. The gross domestic product grew at a 5.9 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter, compared with a median forecast of 2.0 percent in a Bloomberg survey of economists a week before Obama’s Jan. 20, 2009, inauguration. The median forecast for GDP growth this year is 3.0 percent, according to Bloomberg’s February survey of economists, versus 2.1 percent for 2010 in the survey taken 13 months earlier.

“You have to give them — along with the Federal Reserve – - a lot of credit,” said Joseph Carson, director of economic research at AllianceBernstein LP in New York. “A year ago, there was panic, as well as concern. And a lot of the expectations were not only that we were going to have declines in activity but they would stretch all the way to 2010, if not 2011.”

Job Losses Ease
Since then, monthly job losses have abated, from 779,000 during the month Obama took office to 36,000 last month. Corporate profits have grown; among 491 companies in the S&P 500 that reported fourth-quarter earnings, profits rose 180 percent from a year ago, according to Bloomberg data. Durable goods orders in January were up 9.3 percent from a year earlier. Inflation is tame, and long-term interest rates remain low.

Still, the economy has become a political burden for Obama. Voters give his administration little credit for its performance, while the unemployment rate remains high, at 9.7 percent in February.
Public opinion of Obama’s handling of the economy has gone from 59 percent approval in February 2009 to 61 percent disapproval this February, according to Gallup polls.

Critical of Deficit
The budget deficits the administration has run up have stirred criticism from investment managers and economists, as well as voters. The Congressional Budget Office projects Obama’s spending proposals would produce a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year and a $1.3 trillion deficit in 2011.

The investment returns and economic data don’t impress some Obama critics.

“Coming off a level that was ridiculously low isn’t much to boast about,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. “What most people care about is the economy creating jobs. It’s still not.”

Part II

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, said the public’s opinion of the economy is likely to improve as the gains companies have made begin to translate into more jobs and higher wages.

“Businesses are doing very well but households have yet to benefit,” Zandi said. “Households will eventually benefit, but they’ll have to see it before they believe it.”

300,000 Jobs Seen
The U.S. may add as many as 300,000 jobs in March, the most in four years, David Greenlaw, chief fixed-income economist at Morgan Stanley in New York, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview.

. He cited the bank bailout, the Fed’s low-interest-rate policy and support for credit markets, and the Obama administration’s stimulus plan, bank stress tests and backing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“When you take it all together, the response was massive and unprecedented and ultimately successful,” Zandi said.

Phil Swagel, who was assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy in George W. Bush’s administration, considers himself a critic of Obama, though he said the White House policies were crucial.

“They could have done a better job, but their economic policies, including the stimulus, have helped move the economy in the right direction,” said Swagel, now an economics professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

Productivity Gains
While jobs have been slow to come back even as GDP is growing, the gains in productivity during the past year will strengthen the economy, said Greenhaus of Miller Tabak. Productivity grew at a 6.9 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter, capping the biggest one-year gain since 2002.

While small businesses still have difficulty getting loans, credit markets have thawed. Spreads on investment-grade corporate bonds have narrowed from 5.13 percentage points on the day Obama took office to 1.63 percentage points on March 8, according to Barclays Capital.

Rates on 30-year fixed mortgages have dropped from an average 5.20 percent on Inauguration Day to 5.03 percent on March 8, according to Bankrate.com.

Housing prices, which dropped since 2007 and proved a drag on the economy, have firmed. The median sales price for existing homes in January was the same as a year earlier.

International currency markets are bullish on the dollar
, which has rallied more than 8 percent since Nov. 25, according to the Intercontinental Exchange’s Dollar Index. And commodity prices are up more than 32 percent since Obama took office, according to the UBS Bloomberg Commodity Index.

“There’s definitely legs in this recovery,” said John Silvia, chief economist for Wells Fargo Securities. “There’s progress being made at the national level. But in their own situations, a lot of people are still struggling.”

Nice try.

I worked within this space for 25 yrs. Barney was no reformer.

The executives who ran Fannie and Freddie ran the private profit (big bonus) social loss trick to precision.

Save Barney’s hyperbole about his reforms, he PUSHED the Freddie/ Fannie agenda for a LONG time.   

MMiller, I’m glad I came back to this thread & found your comment. Although I just can’t help but wonder why everyone, but you, thinks Countrywide was taken over by Bank of America not Soros. Soros, I think, is heavily invested in Citi. You may be interested in George Soros Jan 28 Interview on Bank Regulation at Bloomberg. The video is a bit lengthy but worth the listen if you want insight into his mind & hence Obama’s mind.