Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 11/07/2009 9:37:39 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Treasury Blocks the Sale of Tax Credits by Fannie
By NICK TIMIRAOS
The U.S. Treasury blocked Fannie Mae's proposed sale of nearly $3 billion in low-income housing tax credits to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. on Friday after concluding that the deal was too costly for taxpayers.
The extraordinary move was the latest sign of tensions within the Obama administration over how to balance political and financial pressures resulting from the housing crisis.
Fannie Mae had agreed to sell roughly half of its $5.2 billion tax-credit portfolio and had received approval to proceed with the sale from its federal regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Those credits are virtually worthless to Fannie because the company doesn't have any taxable income to offset, and it is forced to write down the value of those credits every quarter as their value declines.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Ping!
This is stupid. If they sell them they will get cash if they do not sell them they will expire worthless and the governments loss will be greater. I would love to buy them.
WoW! aint it a good thing the recession is over or this could be much worse? 10.2% unemployment! Just ask yourself what would be happening if there was a Republican in the White House!
Just more non-transparency giving rise to the notion of thieving rascals screwing the general public.
How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash
McClatchy Newspapers | November 1, 2009 | Greg Gordon
Posted Sunday, November 01, 2009 by crosstimbers
WASHINGTON — In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting. Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies. Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk. Now, pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses, and a five-month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman's failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws. (Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
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Goldman Sachs Will Be Sitting Pretty With Emanuel in the Obama White House
By Timothy P. Carney, Examiner Columnist, Nov 21, 2008
EXCERPT Today, in these tumultuous times of bailouts and meltdowns when the investment banking leviathan needs Washington more than ever before, Goldman Sachs can leverage its most valuable asset yet White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
Traditionally a Democratic booster, and one of Barack Obama’s top sources of funds in this past election, Goldman has always had particularly strong allies in government.
Rahm Emanuel is one such ally. An interesting early chapter in the Goldman-Emanuel relationship took place in the setting of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign for the White House. Clinton hired Emanuel as his chief fundraiser.At the same time, however, Emanuel was on the payroll of Goldman Sachs, receiving $3,000 per month from the firm to “introduce us to people,” in the words of one Goldman partner at the time. This is certainly a noteworthy relationship, but it’s one that has almost entirely escaped scrutiny. (snip)
In his four terms in Congress, Emanuel raised $74,750 from Goldman, making the firm his number four source of funds. Goldman has helped Emanuel. How has Emanuel helped Goldman? The most obvious answer, as mentioned in this column two weeks ago, is in Emanuel’s lead role in shepherding the “$700 billion” bailout—first proposed by former a Goldman CEO, Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson—through the skeptical House.
Of course, back in the Clinton days, Goldman benefited from NAFTA and the bailout of the Mexican currency, with Emanuel pushing NAFTA through Congress, and Rubin hammering out the peso bailout.
Did Goldman improperly funnel money to the Clinton campaign by subsidizing Emanuel’s salary in 1992? Did Goldman’s help to Clinton spur the Democratic president to push NAFTA and the Mexican bailout?
The answers to these questions are opaque, and with Emanuel burrowed deep within the Obama White House, the continued relationship between Goldman Sachs and Obama’s right hand man won’t be easy to follow.
Watch which regulations of Wall Street Obama fights for. Watch where the bailout money goes.
SOURCE http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/TimothyCarney/ Goldman_Sach_Will_Be_Sitting_Pretty_With_Emanuel_in_the_Obama_White_House_112108.html
THINGS WE DO NOT KNOW ABOUT RAHM EMANUEL Did Rahm reveal all of his ties to financial institutions involved in Obama's trillion dollar federal bailout of financials?
Reminds me of Obama's "Buy America Bonds" created to help states and local governments issue federally backed bond debt. Geithner would pick up 35% of the bond interest payments.
The socialist financiers figgered that since these interest payments are taxable, they would recoup it with the 35% income tax.
One small problem, most of the bonds were gobbled up by tax exempt foundations, trusts, and IRA accounts.
No income for Obama and a debt obligation for 20 to 30 years.
yitbos
The fact that they have them is a separate issue. For a cash strapped entity to permit an asset to go to waste is foolish and will cost you money. I realize that GS is not loved, but would you rather use their money or yours to offset the disaster at Freddie and Fannie?
These credits expire over time and therefore become worthless.
I am appalled that folks are appalled that GS who is the biggest and baddest beneficiary of the WS bailout, should have to pay taxes while some tax credits held by Freddie and Fannie expire worthless. WTF are folks thinking? The underlying notion is an outrage. This is not “free market” trading. It is a gangster’s market in scams on the public treasury.
The list, ping
Mr. Jackson,
I read your post three times and still do not understand your point other than to slam GS.
Which “underlying notion is an outrage?”
The truth of the mater is that “free market trading” has just been thwarted by the Treasury, who seems to think that letting the credits expire worthless, and therefore, to the detriment of Fannie and Freddie, i.e. the tax payers, is better than collecting on an asset.
GS is not the “biggest and baddest” it is just the smartest. When this country starts to punish the smartest you get the “Barney Franks.” Is that what you want?
Only an idiot could not see that or understand that. Indeed it is SO transparent that even the pet treasury idiot Geitner got a clue.
Your discussion of where Freddie and Fannie got the credits in the first instance, indicates you do not know what you are talking about.That always makes it harder to understand what for many would be a fairly simple issue.
Of course, since taxes only come from public law, tax credits only come from public law, and so it is from public law that Fannie and Feddie must have got their tax credits. It is just like the tax credit I get for a SEER whatever air conditioning system. Congress passes a law, the IRS adopts a regulation and I get the tax credit.
Now, what never occurred to me is that the guy down the road who pays no taxes and cannot use his credit could securitize his tax credit and sell it to someone else who doesn't buy an airconditioner, but wants the tax credit, to reduce his taxes. Say Joe pays Jim 50% of the value of the tax credit. They are both ahead 50%? The only hitch is that I the taxpayer am out 100% of the tax credit + the costs of paying the idiot feral bureaucrats who run this scheme.
But please enlighten us all, oh wise Master of the Universe, how Freddie and Fannie got tax credits that they could sell to someone else who needs to reduce his taxes. We are all ears.
You are an effin idiot. You really are. GS pays 10c on the dollar for tax credits. The tax credit comes off of their taxes. So,the US taxpayer pays $1.00 to GS so that Fannie and Freddie can get 10c from GS. There is only one screwee in this, the US taxpayer.
You sound like some sort of GS shill? Are you? Or are you just the fool you sound like? Wanna buy some bridge futures?
The source of these credits is law passed by your congress to help housing.Do not blame me or GS for these laws ask the democrats why they passed them.
You typically do not pay $.10 for a dollar of tax credits it is normally between $.65 and $.85 per dollar depending on the timing.Timing is everything as there is a time value to the credit, but you knew that.
Now lets assume that Frannie and Freddie let all their tax credits expire: that would be an asset expiring that they currently hold on their books at about 7 billion. With the asset gone their net worth declines by 7 billion and their need for equity goes up by 7 billion, which you get to pay, assuming you pay taxes, which given your remarks is in question.
In the last week Freddie and Fannie ask for another 25 billion in federal assistance unrelated to these tax credit items. You may like bleeding from the ears, but I find it painful.
While your math is off base, I do not disagree that the American tax payer is screwed, but not because of the proposed sale of tax credits.The taxpayer was screwed when these programs were set up in the first place. Why do Freddie and Fannie have all these credits? Because the politicians forced them to finance low income housing. Do not blame those who only live in the real world for the politicians who live in fantasy.
We own apartments that were built in the 60’s or before and they are in fine shape and well occupied. All the subsidized government buildings of that era have been torn down.
I rest my case.
That cash trapped entity (Fanny Mae) is owned lock stock and barrel by the USG
The USG will get less taxes from Goldman Sachs if they let GS buy them and deploy them
When Goldman Sachs is denied these tax offsets the USG has a net gain
I don't get your logic
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