October 7, 2008

Freddie & Fannie & Frank & Moses

Hatched by Dafydd

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA, 95%) has emerged as the face of the Democratic Party, explaining why the current fiscal crisis is all the fault of the Republican culture of corruption, laissez-faire Capitalism, and racism:

The Massachusetts Democrat, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the GOP is appealing to its base by blaming the country's mortgage foreclosure problem on efforts to expand affordable housing through the Community Reinvestment Act.

He said that blame is misplaced, because those loans are issued by regulated institutions, while far more foreclosures were triggered by high-cost loans made by unregulated entities.

"They get to take things out on poor people," Frank said at a mortgage foreclosure symposium in Boston. "Let's be honest: The fact that some of the poor people are black doesn't hurt them either, from their standpoint. This is an effort, I believe, to appeal to a kind of anger in people."

Frank also dismissed charges the Democrats failed on their own or blocked Republican efforts to rein in the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The federal government recently took control of both entities.

However, prior to emerging as the voice of restraint and regulation, Barney Frank was the voice of "nothing to oversee here, just move on" denial:

''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.''

Frank made this argument to stop a proposal by the Bush administration to increase the regulation and oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, creating a firewall that might have stopped exactly the crisis we face today. Barney Frank and his cohorts were successful; the plan was killed in Congress.

Going back at least to 1995, Frank has successfully fought against any sort of biting regulation of either Fannie or Freddie -- as well as against any curtailing of the Jimmy Carter written, Bill Clinton revised Community Reinvestment Act, which forces financial institutions to make low-interest, zero-down mortgages to poor people with lousy credit... the "subprime" component of the subprime mortgage crisis.

But on Friday we learned that there may be another, more personal reason why Barney Frank has been so adamant all these years against changing any of the corrupt financial practices at these institutions. Ace reporter Bill Sammon reports for Fox News:

Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.

So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions. [Note that "partner" doesn't just mean business partner or even partner in crime; it means domestic partner.]

Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.

Well! In fact, Moses was one of the progenitors of the very project that has crippled the world's credit market and led to a staggering loss on world stock markets. As "assistant director of product initiatives," he helped create the very "subprime" mortgage instruments that collapsed last month, leading to the financial meltdown.

Frank "spent years" preventing the Republican-sponsored regulations that would have trimmed the subprime market -- and incidentally hurt the pocketbook of Herb Moses and his domestic partner, Barney Frank. This is about as direct a conflict of interest as one can imagine, as Frank's deregulation fervor directly impacted his "spouse's" salary:

Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants. In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively.

Amazingly, even Bill Clinton agrees that the Republicans kept trying to rein in the out of control securitization of bad mortgages, but the Democrats (led by Frank and other corrupt leaders) thwarted every attempt. How galling that Barack H. Obama now goes on television at every opportunity to blame John S. McCain and his fellow Republicans and their supposed "deregulate everything" attitude for the crisis... which would actually have been averted if Democrats such as Rep. Barney Frank had not been so bloody determined to stop any scrutiny of the subprime mortgage market -- and its enablers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

At least in Frank's case, we now know why he was so adamant.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, October 7, 2008, at the time of 8:20 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this hissing: http://biglizards.net/mt3.36/earendiltrack.cgi/3279

Comments

The following hissed in response by: hunter

Barney Frank has hurt this nation over and over. His slimy whiney evasive school boy diatribes pass for good debate, but he is one of the worst, most corrupt public servants this nation has ever elected.
From his pedophilia, to his pimping for his prostitute lover to his corruption with his FNMA lover, his continued presence in Congress is condemnation on the people of his district and much worse than an embarrassment to the Congress. But then, Congress, under the democrats, has had no shame since Ted Kennedy drowned Mary Jo in 1969.

The above hissed in response by: hunter [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 8, 2008 5:53 AM

The following hissed in response by: Rovin

The social experiment of providing affordable housing to the unqualified buyer IS the major cause of the current financial crisis. While attempts were made, no one put this policy in check while the program swelled to catastrophic debt levels.

Obama’s UNIVERSAL health care policy/program goes far beyond McCain’s health care credit plan to purchase private care. Obama’s plan IS another government owned program that will make FM/FM look like a popsicle stand.

Next up, Obama’s insistence that higher education should also be “free” (with the government again picking up the tab)

Throw in Obama’s “tax give-away” to 95% of the “middle class”—-40% who PAY NO TAXES—-and you have spending and entitlement plans the run into the TRILLIONS.

AND GUESS WHO PAYS FOR ALL THESE GRAND SOCIAL SCHEMES? Every middle class worker/taxpayer who’s struggling to make ends meet.

Can this nation really afford even four years of Barack Obama’s socialist disaster?

The above hissed in response by: Rovin [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 8, 2008 7:44 AM

The following hissed in response by: Xpressions

This crisis didn't just come about, it's been in the making. The liberal illuminati chose to turn the other direction, verses dealing with it in the beginning. Like anything else that is on the verge of destructing, it eventually does.

The above hissed in response by: Xpressions [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 20, 2008 7:17 PM

Post a comment

Thanks for hissing in, . Now you can slither in with a comment, o wise. (sign out)

(If you haven't hissed a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Hang loose; don't shed your skin!)


Remember me unto the end of days?


© 2005-2009 by Dafydd ab Hugh - All Rights Reserved