Fannie Mae Five – Five Key Players Who Broke The System

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What do Chris Dodd,  Barney Frank, Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines and Tim Howard have in common (besides being engineers on the Barack Obama Election Express)? I try not to just scrape the content of other sites but Mcauleys World has a great article with info that is essential for everyone to know.

Five Key Players In Washington who had chances to prevent the Financial Crisis but who, by their actions or inactions helped to bring down Wall Street.

Senator Christopher Dodd

Democrat from Connecticut. Dodd has been in the Senate for 28 years. Dodd has served as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Dodd is Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. As Chairman he had responsibility for acting as a “watch-dog” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Dodd has responsibilty for assisting in the selection of the CEO’s who run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Dodd was a leading contender to be Obama’s Vice Presidential selection until his receipt of VIP loans from Countywide Financial were disclosed.

It has been reported that Dodd received $7,000,000 in loans from Countywide. Dodd’s Committee was responsible for overseeing Banks in the United States. Countrywide is one of the leading culprits responsible for the lending policies that brought on this Crisis. Countrywide is under FBI investigation for securities fraud. The Government Watchdog Group, The Center For Responsive Politics, reports that Senator Dodd received more campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than any other Senator. Read more

McCain Slaps Obama on the Fannie

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Speaking in  Ceder Rapids, John McCain finally said what the MSM should have been saying; Barack Obama and the Democrats are largely to blame for our financial crisis. Obama wants to blame others but the fact is Obama did nothing to head off the coming crisis when he had the chance. McCain said,

Senator Obama talks a tough game on the financial markets but the facts tell a different story. He took more money from Fannie and Freddie than any Senator but the Democratic chairman of the committee that regulates them. He put Fannie Mae’s CEO, who helped create this disaster, in charge of finding his Vice President. Fannie’s former General Counsel is a senior advisor to his campaign. Whose side do you think he is on? When I pushed legislation to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Senator Obama was silent. He didn’t lift a hand to avert this crisis. While the leaders of Fannie and Freddie were lining the pockets of his campaign, they were sowing the seeds of the financial crisis we see today and enriching themselves with millions of dollars in payments. That’s not change, that’s what’s broken in Washington.

Hotline On Call: McCain: Obama Didn’t “Lift A Hand To Avert” Fiscal Crisis.

As usual, Michelle Malkin has something insightful to add.

Pin the Tail on the Donkey

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Michael Reagan has a fabulous article on the financial crisis we have been reading about this week. Who is at fault? Who should get the blame?

Pin the tail on the Donkeys.

Bill Clinton and Democrats made the policies. Democrats did the consulting. Democrats accepted the contributions. And now Democrats will get off scott-free. Reagan points out that,

“The scandal of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dwarfs the Enron debacle. In Enron, people went to jail. With the Fannies, some just walked away with millions.”

Guess what the Democrats are doing now, besides bailing out their friends? Blaming the Republicans of course. Nothing is ever their fault.

Some additional quotes from the article:

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the top three U.S. Senators getting big Fannie and Freddie political bucks were Democrats, and No. 2 was Sen. Barack Obama, who as Fox noted had only been in the Senate four years but still managed to grab that No. 2 spot ahead of longtime colleagues John Kerry and Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

According to Fox, Fannie and Freddie were where big-time Washington Democrats went to work and pocketed millions. Franklin Raines, Clinton’s White House Budget Director, ran Fannie and collected $50 million.

Jamie Gorelick, an official in Clinton’s Justice Department — the woman who built the “wall” that prevented the FBI from targeting terrorists before 9/11 — worked for Fannie Mae and took home $26 million. Big-time Democrat Jim Johnson, who headed Obama’s VP search committee, also hauled in millions from running Fannie Mae.

Obama brazenly blames John McCain and the GOP for the current Wall Street mess when it’s clear none of it was due to Republican policies. The truth of the matter is that it was McCain and three GOP colleagues who sought to reform the government’s lending policies three long years ago after the Bush administration had failed two years earlier. On May 25, 2006, McCain spoke on behalf of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, and warned against the debacle we are now facing if it failed to pass.

They Have Lost Their Minds!

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The Federal Government is going to bailout AIG and Fannie/Freddie. This is nightmare. Is this even legal? President Bush, McCain, Obama, Senators, Representatives have all lost their minds!

It is important to understand exactly what is happening. The government is using your money to buy the bad assets of various companies.  Yes, they are calling it a loan. No, the loans will never be repaid because the underlying assets are not worth anything. How do I know? If they were worth anything the company would not be in trouble in the first place!

This is an inflationary nightmare that encourages thievery and/or mismanagement by corporate insiders and just postpones the inevitable bubble that MUST take place. Have any of these goofballs ever even read about the basic principles of economics? Automakers will be next and eventually it will make its way into inefficient technology companies. Higher taxes, bigger debt and higher interest soon to follow.

Besides, who gave anyone permission to spend my tax dollars in a bailout of this sort?  Michelle Malkin calls it the Death of Fiscal Conservatism. Newsmakers says Get Ready for an Enormous Tax Bill.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. Thomas Jefferson

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. Sir Alexander Fraser Tyler

“When a self-governing people confer upon their government the power to take from some and give to others, the process will not stop until the last bone of the last taxpayer is picked bare.” Kershner’s First Law.