We're in pretty big trouble in my opinion... If I didn't have faith that all this is somehow in God's Grand Plan, I believe I'd be really worried. John McCain once again reminded me why I really wanted Mitt to win the nomination. First, he backtracked on his statement that the US had strong fundamentals. Then he blamed the current crisis on the SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. I know Chris Cox, he was my Congressman for many years and even had an office away from the office in Engineering firm I worked at many years ago. First mistake... John McCain said he would've fired Cox if he were president. The SEC Chairman, as I understand it, is appointed by the president and is confirmed by the Senate, much like a Supreme Court Justice, but this is for a term of 5 years. There are 5 commissioners on the SEC, each serving a 5 year term and no more than 3 can be of the same party. I don't believe a president CAN fire the SEC Chairman.... (duhhhh #1) Second mistake. It's not the SEC's Fault... The SEC is a regulatory agency, sorta like the FBI of the Stock Market. Does the FBI catch every single criminal? Stating that banks failing on the heels of the huge mortgage debacle is like saying it's George Bush's fault that a bunch of Psycho's flew jumbo jets into the World Trade Center. Uhhhh... wait... the left IS that delusional... but NOT OUR nominee for president. John McCain KNOWs where the fault lies, but he's too afraid to upset the "reach across the ailes" apple cart. He knew very clearly that this was coming. He stated it very plainly in 2005 when he co-sponsered a bill to reform Freddy-Mac and Fannie-Mae. A bill that was torpedoed by the Democrats.
"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." - John McCain 2005.
GSE stands for Government Sponsored Enterprise and as I understand it Freddy and Fanny had a market advantage by borrowing money from the government at a lower rate than everyone else so they could loan it out to lower income folks to buy houses. The problem is that these loans are also risky AND the Dems, especially our illustrious San Fran Nan (Nancy Pelosi) kept raising the limit on what Freddy and Fanny could loan, which means they were putting up more and more competition pressure on everyone else... What did everyone else do? They went riskier. AND they were also under pressure NOT to discriminate. Instead of focusing on managing risks, it seems, they were trying to play the game to compete with OUR GOVERNMENT and NOT paying attention to the bonehead who had no business buying a house. No Down, Zero Interest baloons are a ticking time bomb and everyone in the business knew it. Of course even sharks bite themselves in the middle of a feeding frenzy. But let's follow the money and see where some of these fingers SHOULD be pointing... Oh, by the way, these "Government Sponsored Enterprises" can make political contributions... how stoooopid is that? I never took an Ethics Class, but this sounds like a really, really good example of a conflict of interest.
Follow the Money:
Since 1989, the top 20 list of Congress (house and senate) that Freddie and Fannie contributed to, include some interesting names. Barrack Obama came in 2nd, even though he's only been in Congress a few years, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and John Kerry. Very interesting. WHY DOESN'T MCCAIN MENTION THIS????? Of course, when asked, Nancy Pelosi said democrats had absolutely no responsibility for any of this and pointed the finger at the President. If I added up all the things that President Bush is responsible for, I'd think he had power comparable to Superman.
So anyway... I'm reminded of a Bug's Bunny cartoon. I can't remember what the context was or what the punchline was, but at the end of the cartoon, we see Bugs in an army helmet standing on an assembly line with artillery shells filing by. He had a large mallet and he would shut his eyes and bang the end of the artillery shell with the mallet. When it didn't explode, he would write "Dud" on it. That will be the feeling I will have when I check off "McCain/Palin" on my ballot in a few short weeks. I really like the VP, but the real vote will be for a man that, although he holds all the right positions on the issues I really care about, he is often WAY too eager to compromise on other really important things... things that affect me and my family... I worry about the compromises he will make as president with those on the other side of the ocean.
The scene on election day, for me, will be one of gritting teeth and muttering under my breath, over and over....
"An imperfect republican is better than a perfect socialist"
Jeff
UPDATE: Franklin Raines, former Clinton administration budget director; James Johnson, former aide to Democratic Vice President Walter Mondale; and Jamie Gorelick, former Clinton administration deputy attorney general have all served as Executives for Fannie Mae. Johnson earned $21 million in just his last year serving as Fannie Mae CEO from 1991 to 1998; Raines earned $90 million in his five years as Fannie Mae CEO, from 1999 to 2004; and Gorelick earned an estimated $26 million serving as vice chair of Fannie Mae from 1998 to 2003.
Remember the "Gorelick wall"? google it... it's one of the reasons, I believe, we didn't have a clue that terrorists were about to strike on 9/11.
Currently Raines currently advises Obama on housing policy.
Johnson was appointed to head Obama's vice presidential selection committee, until a controversy concerning an alleged $7 millions in questionable real estate loans he received on favorable terms from failed sub-prime mortgage lender Countrywide Financial surfaced and forced him to step down.
A panel chaired by Elena Kagan, dean and professor of law at Harvard Law School, speculated at the June two-day meeting of the American Constitution Society that Gorelick was a possible attorney general cabinet appointment if Obama should be elected president.
see the details here: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=75586
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And one more name we can add to the list of Obama associates who have damaged this country, Penny Pritzker. And would you believe she's the Finance Chair of the Obama campaign? And, a probable candidate for Treasury Secretary under Obama!
Here are excerpts from the full article at: http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2008/022708a.html
Barack Obama has slammed the banking industry for its predatory use of sub-prime mortgages, which are pushing millions of American homeowners toward foreclosure.
But his campaign's Finance Chair, Penny Pritzker, owned a failed Chicago thrift that helped pioneer sub-prime financial instruments and faced accusations of abuse.
Superior Bank of Chicago went belly up in 2001 with over $1 billion in insured and uninsured deposits. This collapse came amid harsh criticism of how Superior's owners promoted sub-prime home mortgages. As part of a settlement, the owners paid $100 million and agreed to pay another $335 million over 15 years at no interest...
But this seven-year-old bank failure has relevance in another way today, since the chair of Superior’s board for five years was Penny Pritzker, a member of one of America’s richest families and the current Finance Chair for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, the same candidate who has lashed out against predatory lending.
Though Superior Bank collapsed years before the current sub-prime turmoil that is rocking the world’s financial markets – and pushing those millions of homeowners toward foreclosure – some banking experts say the Pritzkers and Superior hold a special place in the history of the sub-prime fiasco.
“The [sub-prime] financial engineering that created the Wall Street meltdown was developed by the Pritzkers and Ernst and Young, working with Merrill Lynch to sell bonds securitized by sub-prime mortgages,” Timothy J. Anderson, a whistleblower on financial and bank fraud, told me in an interview.
“The sub-prime mortgages,” Anderson said, “were provided to Merrill Lynch, by a nation-wide Pritzker origination system, using Superior as the cash cow, with many millions in FDIC insured deposits. Superior’s owners were to sub-prime lending, what Michael Milken was to junk bonds.”
In other words, if you traced today’s sub-prime crisis back to its origins, you would come upon the role of the Pritzkers and Superior Bank of Chicago.
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