Quote from 2003 Franklin Raines Letter to Shareholders

2003 Fannie Mae Annual Report Letter to Shareholders Excerpt | PAR

[PAR]

...Ten years ago, for example, the typical conforming mortgage required a down payment of 10 to 20 percent, and low-down payment mortgages were considered too risky. But then we helped to standardize the 3 to 5 percent down payment loan, brought it to global capital markets, and made it available to lenders and communities nationwide. Now low-down payment loans are commonplace. And we just adopted a new variance in our underwriting standards that will make the $500 down payment loan widely available as well...

In 1994, we pledged to provide $1 trillion in capital to ten million underserved families by the end of 2000. Thanks to our housing and industry partners, we met that goal early. Then in 2000, we launched our American Dream Commitment, a pledge to provide $2 trillion in capital to 18 million underserved families by the year 2010, including $400 billion targeted specifically for minority families (later raised to $700 billion in response to President Bush’s Minority Homeownership Initiative). After four of the strongest years in housing and mortgage finance history, we’ve already surpassed the top-line goals of this commitment. But our work is far from complete.

So in January 2004, we announced our Expanded American Dream Commitment and pledged significant new resources to tackle America’s toughest housing challenges. Our new commitment has three main goals.

First, we will expand access to homeownership for six million first-time home buyers in the next ten years, including 1.8 million minority first-time home buyers.We also will help raise the national minority homeownership rate from 49 percent to 55 percent, with the ultimate goal of closing it entirely.

Second, we will help new and long-term homeowners stay in their homes through a series of initiatives, and commit $15 billion to preserve affordable rental housing and $1.5 billion to support the revitalization of public housing communities.

Third, we will increase the supply of affordable housing and support community development activities in at least 1,000 neighborhoods across the country through our American Communities Fund, and through targeted investments like Low-Income Housing Tax Credits that help finance affordable rental housing.

It is because of initiatives like our Trillion Dollar Commitment and our American Dream Commitment that we have exceeded our HUD affordable housing goals for ten consecutive years. And we have increased our financing of mortgages to African Americans by over 400 percent and to Hispanic Americans by 470 percent in the past ten years, compared with a 205 percent increase in overall financing. Our Expanded American Dream Commitment will help us do even more.

[Tenacious 1]

The only hope is commericials and hammering it home during the debates.

BTW - Has the McCain campaign noticed the polling numbers in Indiana? I bet there is an Obama commericial in every program segment. Last night on Heros (don't laugh) there was even an independent "write in" commercial that looked like an 8th grade schoold project that ran. I have yet to see a McCain commercial.

[samtheman]

The only hope is commericials and hammering it home during the debates.

Absolutely.

You got it, PAR. You got it.

But the commercials have to get real. The commercials have to show those videos.

And the debate performances have to be focused on getting out the message: this is a rat trap we are in and the rats will only dig us deeper.

[Islander7]

Goal-oriented: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac every year are required to meet affordable housing goals set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). As we approach a new deadline for setting the 2004 goals, HUD may be considering putting more teeth into the goals.(Cover report: legislative / regulatory)

---

President George W. Bush, like presidents before him, has made closing the gap in the homeownership numbers a priority. He announced earlier this year an initiative to add 5.5 million new minority homeowners by 2010. And, according to the president’s 2004 budget proposal, the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs)-Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—will be tapped to help deliver on that goal.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play a critical role in the secondary market by buying mortgages from mortgage lenders and continually replenishing the supply of capital available for housing. They also can help launch innovative loan programs designed to get low-and moderate-income borrowers into homes by agreeing to buy the loans and setting the underwriting ground rules.

---

Read it a weep folks! This is the ‘New Tone’ and ‘Compassionate Conservatism’ GWB brought to D.C.

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-3381382/Goal-oriented-Fannie-Mae-and.html

[Hoffer Rand]

“underserved” — One “R” too many in most cases

[heywoodubuzzoff]

I made sure when I bought my house that I picked one where I afford to put 20% down. Mainly I did not want to pay mortgage insurance. Now with all the defaulters (wow 5%!!!) out there, where is their PMI or did they also put down 20%+??

[EyeGuy]

And I was an investor in FNMA.

Sharing my rationale would be therapeutic..........

[PAR]

“(later raised to $700 billion in response to President Bush’s Minority Homeownership Initiative).

Yea, I saw that I thought to myself no wonder Bush isn’t laying the blame where it needs to be. Even though he pressed for tighter regualtion of Fannie/Freddie, he appears to be vulnerable to looking like a hypocrite.

One of the problems we face is that some of the the economy’s problems result from Bush’s democratic approaches-spending for example. And the electorate sees that he is a Republican and thinks therefore we now need a democrat, not realizing that with Obama we will get much more of the same and it will make the situation much worse.

[Hoffer Rand]

This is the question my hubby keeps asking. What happened to the PMI? So many of these mortgages were done with little or no down payment, I can’t believe they were done with no PMI. The companies couldn’t have been that stupid, especially when they already knew they were dealing with high risk clients.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

“We need the War Hero to rescue us.”

B S.

[fightinJAG]

If this is a real source (sorry, there’s no link — could you scan the letter and post it here if you have it?), this explains EXACTLY how Fannie Mae-—yes, FANNIE MAE-—infected the entire global market with the Rat notion of “money for nuthin’,houses for free.”

This is another one of those “must get out” docs.

[fightinJAG]

I wonder if letters accompanying EOFY shareholder reports have to be filed somewhere with the reports?

[fightinJAG]

Thanks. I should have read farther down in the thread before posting.

[fightinJAG]

Good. Because they may be gone before too long, if yaknowwhatimean.

[Liz]

Proving you can fool most of the people most of the time until you get caught,
Franklin Raines looted and pillaged Fannie Mae as Clinton's appointee.

POSTED FOR YOU REFERENCE

CIRCA 2004----RAINING MONEY - Franklin Raines fired for cooking the books---walks away w/ $90 million tax dollars

SOURCE: 2004 archived headliner reports dot.com---- with 2006, 2008 updates.

Franklin Raines reigned for 5 years following Clinton's appointing him as CEO of Fannie Mae, the US' quasi-governmental mortgage house, has been ousted.

There are several ongoing investigations of Fannie Mae's operations and accounting practices covering the last 5 years in order to determine when accounting irregularities started and the magnitude of the financial shortfalls. Current estimates indicate that there was a $9 billion misstatement of earnings and accounting irregularities between 2000-2004.

(POSTER'S NOTE: Can you say offshore wire transfer?)

Former chief executive Franklin Raines received more than $40 million in bonuses and other pay as a result of falsely inflated earnings at the US' largest mortgage finance company. This is according to a supplement of a lawsuit filed by Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro. Fannie Mae added "tens of millions of false revenue" to meet "Raines' 1999 publicly announced goal to double" earnings over the next five years, Petro's November 23, US District Court in Washington alleges. The filing alleges that, "Raines personally profited by over $40 million by this false earnings history.

Update -- 2/22/2006: Former Senator Warren Rudman's team of investigators and auditors selected from his law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and from Huron Consulting Group presented their 600-page report calling Fannie Mae's accounting systems "grossly inadequate." It is based on a review of millions of documents.

The report found that accounting obfuscations were intended to increase stock valuations, thus increasing executive bonuses.

Raines was one of the most influential and politically savvy figures in Washington is identified by the Rudman investigation as not directly knowing that Fannie Mae's accounting practices violated rules. The report does state, "We did find, however, that Raines contributed to a culture that improperly stressed stable earnings growth and that... he was ultimately responsible for the failures that occurred on his watch".

Raines will continue to live well being supported by Fannie Mae's shareholders. Some relevant facts include: -- Raines and his wife will be paid $114,393 a month as long as they live. -- Stock options: Raines holds vested stock options worth roughly $5.7 million. -- Stock bonuses: Raines was granted awards, payable in stock, for reaching performance goals. Under the program, he got 69,577 shares... half of what Fannie determined he should receive in January. At Monday's close, the shares are worth $4.9 million. It is unclear if he will receive the rest. -- Deferred pay: For tax planning while employed by the company, Raines was allowed to put off the receipt of payment. These deferred past payments total $8.7 million --

Future salary: Although Fannie Mae says Raines' retirement was effective December 21, 2004, he is seeking to have it effective as of June 22, 2005, and thereby receive $600,000 more in pay.

Mr. Raines followed a well-worn path in the United States during the later half of the 20th century. His humble beginnings were in Seattle. He won a scholarship to Harvard and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He worked on Wall Street for over a decade in the prestigious firm Lazard Freres. He was a member of President Clinton’s cabinet and director of his Office of Management and Budget. In 1999, Clinton selected him for the position of Fannie Mae CEO.

Following revelations of the financial scandal, Mr. Raines took early retirement from Fannie Mae so that he could collect a compensation package including $1 million per year for life and $11 million in vested stock. In 2003 Mr. Raines was paid $20 million in salary and bonus.

Fannie Mae is facing criminal investigations by the Justice Department, operational investigations by the SEC, and various Congressional investigations. There are questions regarding earnings statements being incorrectly inflated. In 2003, if derivative and other losses had been included, no bonuses would have been paid to top executives. However, deferral of the losses allowed declared earnings to reach a level which triggered maximum executive bonuses.

It is a far stretch to imagine that Franklin Raines actually was capable of satisfying the requirements of the positions he held from Harvard to Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. If he had been competent enough to hold those positions, how could he have been Fannie Mae's CEO for 5 years and allowed, not known about, or not understood that $9,000,000,000 was being mishandled.

FR POSTED http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2086744/posts?page=1

===============================================

9/26/08 UPDATE: LA grand jury probing Countrywide VIP loans
LAtimesblogs via WSJ ^ | September 25, 2008 | Peter Viles

FR Posted on 09/26/2008 5:50:44 AM PDT by stockpirate

The Wall Street Journal reports that a federal grand jury in Los Angeles is investigating the so-called "Friends of Angelo" loan program at Countrywide Financial, under which influential borrowers received preferential terms on home loans. The reported borrowers under the program have included U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), former Fannie Mae Chief Executive Franklin Raines, and California state appeals court judge Richard Aldrich. (Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...

FR POSTED http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2090987/posts

[samtheman]

It’s not BS.

We need to be rescued from the nightmare that an Obama presidency will be.

Only McCain can do it.

We can fight by his side (and outside of FR that’s exactly what I’m doing) but if he doesn’t lead, the fight will be lost.

Sure as shootin’.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

“It’s not BS. We need to be rescued from the nightmare that an Obama presidency will be.”

Ask not what the election can do for you. Ask, rather, what you are willing to do for the election.

As for me being in the McCain campaign, I don’t think his advisors would like me very much. They would want to strangle me after two sentences.

[samtheman]

In this election I believe that it is McCain himself who must take the actions necessary if he’s going to win, unlike Obama who could easily be carried across the finish line by his worshipful band of supporters.

McCain needs to grab the bull by the horns and turn things around.

We can’t do that for him.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

We can’t do that for [McCain].

We did in 2004 with the Swiftboat Ads despite Bush criticizing us. Same problem last time around — except that Obama’s legal thugs are conspiring against free speech. That’s the problem. But the ‘Burnin’ Down the House’ video is past a million hits.

[samtheman]

I’m out there pushing that video myself.

I just am of the opinion that much more than Bush in 2004, McCain in 2008 is totally dependent on what he himself does to win this thing.

Right now, he’s on the verge of giving it away.

[samtheman]

They pulled the original Burning Down the House video and substituted one with sub-standard music. Copyright issues, I guess. Anyway, the hits are at 294,000 or so, not a million.