Originally Posted by ytView Post When is somebody going to lay this disaster at the Republicans’ feet, where it belongs? If the situation were reversed, and Democrats had stripped the regulatory laws resulting in a global financial meltdown, Republican mouthpieces would be screaming it from the rooftops. It would be the end of any kind of Democratic party power for a long, long time.
Isn’t it amazing (and ironic) that the Treasury of Republican George W Bush just nationalised a major insurance company? I really hope Obma nails the Republicans on this
EDITED TO ADD: Just heard on NPR how the past 8 years have seen an “Anti-Regulatory” enviornment pervailed and even now Sec Paulson still doesn’t think regulation is needed!
Originally Posted by Cylon BabyView Post Isn’t it amazing (and ironic) that the Treasury of Republican George W Bush just nationalised a major insurance company? I really hope Obma nails the Republicans on this
Unfortunately, Obama came out with an ambiguous statement on the AIG bailout (not for or against) as opposed to McCain and even Biden who are against it.
In Bush’s America we taxpayers share in all the losses, socialist-style, but don’t share in the profits, socialist-style.
In terms of AIG, the elephant in the room seems to be China and the integrity of the US as a business partner in general. I would think losing a bank is one thing – losing a guarantor of monetary transactions is a much more complex concept. So maybe Obama needs time to take in what this is and come up with a constructive and realistic solution. But I haven’t had enough time to research this situation, whereas the downward spiral of these big banks has been on the horizon for a while.
It has been a Republican dominated congress until two years ago and even now the Dems don’t have a veto-proof majority in the senate (60 votes - there are 51 dems).
ps. Larisa Alexandrovna has a funny and sadly true post today:
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1. And bailouts for all… Looks like AIG and its fraudulent business practices have gotten themselves a nice big bailout to the tune of $85 billion. So Conservative economics works like this: -step 1: deregulate (let the looting begin) -step 2: hide profits to avoid taxes (preferably in a Swiss bank) -step 3: deny taxpayers any right to bankruptcy protection or legal protection from corporate thugs (think big tobacco), citing bootstraps and the American dream. -step 4: demand that taxpayers bail you out once you have stolen everything -step 5: make profits, don’t pay taxpayers back In response to this, the very first step that should be taken by Congress (assuming we ever get one) is to strip corporations of their “person-hood” and put behind bars every white collar crook anywhere near this fiasco - including those taking bribes in government.
The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry. The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios. The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt – is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates. … Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing. ‘‘These two entities – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are not facing any kind of financial crisis,’’ said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ‘‘The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.’’ Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed. ‘‘I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,’’ Mr. Watt said.
Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal. The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac. The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform. For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay. 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.
Originally Posted by ytView Post It has been a Republican dominated congress until two years ago and even now the Dems don’t have a veto-proof majority in the senate (60 votes - there are 51 dems). ps. Larisa Alexandrovna has a funny and sadly true post today: Source.
jesus quoting a far left site like that as a source is like someone using Fox News as a source for the right wingers.
Just because these guys were waving their arms around about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac doesn’t necessarily mean they were onto what ultimately befell these two institutions. I think it’s presumptuous to assume that Bush and McCain had the good of the people in mind when they made these overtures. We know that McCain is a committed “deregulator” and Bush isn’t exactly FDR either, so whatever was up their sleeve may not have been what you think it was. I’m going to look into this and if Bush and McCain were purely honorable, then good for them, but don’t forget that McCain’s campaign chairman, Rick Davis, was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Originally Posted by ytView Post Just because these guys were waving their arms around about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac doesn’t necessarily mean they were onto what ultimately befell these two institutions. I think it’s presumptuous to assume that Bush and McCain had the good of the people in mind when they made these overtures. We know that McCain is a committed “deregulator” and Bush isn’t exactly FDR either, so whatever was up their sleeve may not have been what you think it was. I’m going to look into this and if Bush and McCain were purely honorable, then good for them, but don’t forget that McCain’s campaign chairman, Rick Davis, was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
This. The lip-service thing is nothing less than apologist bullshit for a cabal of people who have done nothing to curb the shameless money-grubbing, and it’s especially hypocritical coming from Keatin…oops, I mean McCain.
Originally Posted by ytView Post I’m going to look into this and if Bush and McCain were purely honorable, then good for them, but don’t forget that McCain’s campaign chairman, Rick Davis, was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
You should look into it, but I find it funny that had these quotes been from a Democrat you wouldn’t say this at all. Also, if you talk about lobbyists on this one issue, you should also bring up the fact that Obama received lots of contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Former and future lobbyists are OK. The Obama campaign restricts current lobbyists from joining the campaign. But a bunch of former lobbyists have helped out—including deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand, Teal Baker, and Emmett Beliveau—who could easily slip back onto K Street once the campaign is over. Obama now has 14 bundlers who are also federally registered lobbyists, but they are currently inactive, according to Public Citizen.
Originally Posted by MoonBaseNickView Posthttp://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/tra...ying-ties.aspx Former and future lobbyists are OK. The Obama campaign restricts current lobbyists from joining the campaign. But a bunch of former lobbyists have helped out—including deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand, Teal Baker, and Emmett Beliveau—who could easily slip back onto K Street once the campaign is over. Obama now has 14 bundlers who are also federally registered lobbyists, but they are currently inactive, according to Public Citizen. Every side has it’s lobbyists http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aVPBaUbYV_qQ Seems like congress has no idea what to do huh..
It’s apples and oranges. McCain’s core team of advisers and the head of his transition team are some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington. And the bulk of Obama’s war chest is from individual donors, like all of those in this forum who have donated to his campaign in what was, for some of us, our first political campaign donations ever. As opposed to McCain.
And to ElCap’s post, you’re right. On this particular issue, I think it’s deregulation-mad Republicans’ cross to bear. On another issue, I might be more willing to contemplate Dem culpability, because as I’ve said many times over, Dems piss me off a lot too, but they’re leagues closer to my ideals than Repubs.
And in looking back at congress’ flirtation with addressing this looming disaster, I ran across this McCain interview from December 2007:
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Q: “Well the dimension of this problem may be surprising to a lot of people, but to many people, to many others there were feelings that there was something amiss, something was going too fast, something was a little too hot. Going back several years. Were you one of them? Or, I mean you’re a busy guy, you’re looking at a lot of things, maybe subprime mortgages wasn’t something you focused on every day. Were you surprised? McCain: “Yeah. And I was surprised at the dot-com collapse and I was surprised at other times in our history. I don’t know if surprised is the word, but… Q: “S&Ls?” McCain: “I don’t – what did you say?” Q: “The S&Ls." McCain: “Yeah, the S&Ls.” Q: "Is this bigger than that? McCain: “I don’t know the dimensions of this. It’s hard to know what the dimensions are. As I say, I never thought I’d pick up the paper and see a city in Norway is somehow dramatically impacted by it. When I say ‘surprised’ I’m not surprised when in capitalist systems that there’s greed and excess. I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said ‘unfettered capitalism leads to corruption’ or something like that, that people have disputed for years. “But so, in this whole new derivative stuff, and SIBs and all of this kind of new ways of packaging mortgages together and all that is something that frankly I don’t know a lot about. "But I do rely on a lot of smart people that I have that are both in my employ and acquaintances of mine. And most of them did not anticipate this. Most of them, I mean I can find some that did. But, a guy that’s on my staff named Doug Holtz-Eakin, who was once the head of the Office of Management and Budget, said that there was nervousness out there. There’s nervousness. There was nervousness that we had such a long period of prosperity without a downturn because of the history of our economy. But I don’t know of hardly anybody, with the exception of a handful, that said ‘wait a minute, this thing is getting completely out of hand and is overheating.’ "So, I’d like to tell you that I did anticipate it, but I have to give you straight talk, I did not.”
And again, there’s the Gramm-Leach-Billey act during Clinton’s administration in which the Republicans in Congress stripped away the Glass-Steagall act which protected Americans from exactly this kind of disaster. McCain was one of the Senators that voted for it, giving it a veto-proof majority. His best pal Phil Gramm was one of the sponsors. Phil Gramm and his wife, who went to work for Enron and made a killing. Phil Gramm who is even now a lobbyist for French bank UBS, in addition to being McCain’s shadow economic adviser.