So just because Frank went on TV to say that Fannie and Freddie were sound, how exactly does that mean that he was some how involved in some kind of conspiracy around these institutions, with which it is very debatable that they were responsible for the economic and housing meltdown to start with? Fannie and Freddie played a roll, but not the central roll in the housing meltdown.

Alot of people were saying at that time, a very long time ago ,that Fannie and Freddie were sound, including the Bush adminstration and financial markets. In fact, if the Bush admin who at the time held all the power, did not think they were sound, why didn’t they do something about it?

The rest of your rant is not even worth a comment because it completely does not make sense. You provide no proof to back up you profound statements. Real financial conspiracy stuff.

Anybody and everybody anywhere close to the business, knows Freddie and Fannie had an enormous advantage in funding their operations given their quasi-governmental status. 

Your copying and pasting quotes and assertions put forth by Barney does nothing to change the fact that his efforts to promote homeownership actually served to exacerbate the irresponsible lending within the industry. Them’s the facts!!

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.   

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.”

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 economy has also strengthened beyond expectations at the time Obama took office. 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.”

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.”

How is this for leadership?

“Republicans who moaned about President Barack Obama’s broken C-SPAN promises on health care negotiations, beware: Barney Frank plans to demand an old-school conference on financial reform. ‘Remember this, ‘Let’s do it all on C-SPAN? … Clear your calendar,’ Frank told POLITICO…”

http://www.politico.com/morningmoney/0310/morningmoney100.html

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.

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. 

Another bullshit link to a bullshit right-wing crazy website. First, it if very debatable about whether Fannie and Freddie Mac were doing anything wrong whatsoever. The reality if you know what was going on was that Fannie and Freddie did not source one single mortgage. There is a very good case that they were a vicitim in the housing crisis.

“The second claim from advocates of deregulation is that the roots of the current crisis lie in efforts to encourage Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to do more to help low- and moderate-income homeowners. The assertion is that Democrats encouraged financial recklessness by insisting that Fannie and Freddie fulfill their congressionally mandated public purposes by expanding access to home mortgage loans to non-creditworthy borrowers. But again, the argument is not supported by the facts.

The Clinton administration explicitly discouraged Fannie and Freddie from buying predatory subprime loans. A report on predatory lending in 2000 from a task force formed by the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development called for Congress to enact legislation to “prohibit the purchase by each of these entities of predatory loans.”

Furthermore, Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Gary Gensler, an undersecretary of the Treasury, were severely criticized by the Republican Congress in 1999 and 2000 when they called for reforms to address the systemic risk from Fannie and Freddie and to reconsider their government line of credit. When the Clinton administration left office, the two mortgage firms were still bit players in the subprime market.

The subprime boom was led by investment banks and mortgage brokers, not by government-sponsored enterprises.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/opinion/18barr.html?_r=1”

“But here’s the thing: Fannie and Freddie had nothing to do with the explosion of high-risk lending a few years ago, an explosion that dwarfed the S.& L. fiasco. In fact, Fannie and Freddie, after growing rapidly in the 1990s, largely faded from the scene during the height of the housing bubble.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/14krugman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Second, there is no evidence the Barney Frank had any control about what was going on at Freddie and Fannie Mac. The reality is that Republican had control of the everything from 2000 to Jan. 2007 when the housing bubble built and therefore they had the ability to change anything they wanted at Fannie and Freddie Mac.

And from Frank himself:

“Dealey then cites comments I made in 2003 that the GSEs are not in trouble as evidence that I did not support reform. Wrong. 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”

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/sam-dealey/2008/09/12/speaking-frank-ly–barney-frank-fires-back-on-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac.html