Posted on 03/20/2013 2:48:32 PM PDT by Graybeard58
In his 36 years in Congress, corrupt Democrat Chris Dodd reveled in pawning himself off as an expert on everything, especially the housing and financial-services industries, foreign policy and campaign-finance laws.
History tells a different story. Mr. Dodd's vanity presidential run in 2007-08 kept him away from his duties as Senate Banking Committee chairman while the economy was imploding; the collapse was rooted in his manipulation of federal housing policies and his blocking of lending reforms that might have forestalled the Great Recession. On foreign affairs, he is known in some circles as "Sen. Wrong" for his reflexive support of communist tyrants abroad, despite their manifest threat to national security and their people's well-being.
On campaign finance, Mr. Dodd's record likewise speaks for itself. In a development largely ignored by mainstream "journalists," the Federal Election Commission has fined his 2008 presidential campaign $42,000 for financial improprieties. Mr. Dodd recently signed off on the report of FEC auditors who proved he accepted $6,000 in illegal in-kind contributions from the national firefighters union; $44,000 in improper donations from other politicians' campaign committees; and $7,100 in suspicious contributions. While it was receiving millions in matching contributions from taxpayers, Mr. Dodd's campaign improperly undercounted contributions by $355,000 and overstated expenses by $191,000, the FEC found.
The FEC report said the campaign's lawyer blamed everything on "problems experienced with the use of its financial database," fluctuations in the fair market value of the campaign's brokerage account and "misunderstandings of the law." That last excuse is extraordinary coming from a guy who portrayed himself as an authority on and dogged reformer of campaign-finance rules.
But in much the same way Bill and Hillary Clinton suffer temporary amnesia when they're caught violating laws and regulations, "misunderstanding" has been Mr. Dodd's default position in trying to excuse his improprieties, be it protecting $165 million in bonuses for campaign donors at AIG while Congress was fashioning a $170 billion bailout for the company in 2009; explaining the suspicious circumstances surrounding his acquisition of an Irish cottage in exchange for a presidential pardon for an insider trader; and failing to disclose the cut-rate mortgages he and his wife got from the mother of all subprime lenders, Countrywide Financial.
And just as the Senate ethics committee whitewashed the Countrywide affair, the FEC, five years after Mr. Dodd dropped out of the presidential race and moved back to Connecticut after his drubbing in the Iowa caucuses, essentially has slapped him on the wrist for his campaign's illegalities. By design, the FEC lacks the juice to force his campaign committee to pay the fine, and its admonishment to Mr. Dodd to "cease and desist" violating campaign laws is meaningless now that he's left Congress in disgrace to become Hollywood's chief Capitol Hill lobbyist. It's not called the feckless FEC for nothing.
A small consolation, there'll never be a dam in Connecticut named after him. Can you imagine a "Dodd Dam"?
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this ping list, let me know.
Dudd is an arrogant bastard.
Like father like son. Kleptomaniacs
I thought this pig was in jail.
If not, why not?
Excerpt ...Ten years ago the typical conforming mortgage required a down payment of 10-20%, and low-down payment mortgages were considered too risky. But then we helped to standardize the 3-5% 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. (End Raines excerpt.)
Underestimating the Horrors of Dodd-Frank (Banks have hundreds of lawyers working just to comply)
IBD via RealClearMarkets ^ | 01/25/2012 / FR Posted by SeekAndFind
Regulation: Tuesday's GOP debate moderator was shocked by the front-runners' broadside against Dodd-Frank banking rules. He seemed to think they were hyping their damage. They weren't. The media elite are under the assumption that all government regulations are good. So when both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich took shots at Dodd-Frank, NBC News anchor Brian Williams was flabbergasted.
He expressed skepticism that its new rules posed any problem. Gingrich straightened him out, arguing the media and the public don't know how "bad" the Democrats' law is. "If you could repeal Dodd-Frank tomorrow morning, you would see the economy start to improve overnight," Gingrich asserted. "It is crushing independent banks" by clamping down on lending for both housing and small businesses. Indeed, the American Bankers Association predicts the law will shutter 1,000 banks by 2020.
"The Dodd-Frank Act and the related burdens are threatening not just our industry but our very banks," outgoing ABA chair Stephen Wilson last year wrote to FDIC chief Sheila Bair. "The most conservative estimates that we have seen predict that by the end of the decade there will be 1,000 fewer banks in the United States than there are today."(Excerpt) Read more at realclearmarkets.com ...
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Dodd even knows where all the bailout money is hidden---to finance Hollyweird's trashy output.
FOURTEEN TRILLION DOLLARS Behind The Real Size of the Bailout; A guide to the abbreviations, acronyms, and obscure programs that make up the $14 trillion federal bailout of Wall Street
SOURCE motherjones.com
Mon Dec. 21, 2009 12:23 PM PST
The price tag for the Wall Street bailout is often put at $700 billion—the size of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. But TARP is just the best known program in an array of more than 30 overseen by Treasury Department and Federal Reserve that have paid out or put aside money to bail out financial firms and inject money into the markets.
To get a sense of the size of the real $14 trillion bailout, see our chart at web site. Below, a guide to the pieces of the puzzle:
Treasury Department bailout programs
(Remember that Obama's Treasury Dept was controlled by his then-COS Rahm Emanuel---a G/S lobbyist in the WH)
Money Market Mutual Fund: In September 2008, the Treasury announced that it would insure the holdings of publicly offered money market mutual funds. According to the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), these guarantees could have potentially cost the federal government more than $3 trillion [PDF].
Public-Private Investment Fund: This joint Treasury-Federal Reserve program bought toxic assets from banks and brokerages—as much as $5 billion of assets per firm. According to SIGTARP, the government's potential exposure from the PPIF is between $500 million and $1 trillion [PDF].
TARP: As part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Treasury has made loans to or investments more than 750 banks and financial institutions. $650 billion has been paid out (not including HAMP; see below). As of December 21, 2009, $117.5 billion of that has been repaid.
Government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) stock purchase: The Treasury has bought $200 million in preferred stock from Fannie Mae and another $200 million from Freddie Mac [PDF] to show that they "will remain viable entities critical to the functioning of the housing and mortgage markets."
GSE mortgage-backed securities purchase: Under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, the Treasury may buy mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. According to SIGTARP, these purchases could cost as much as $314 billion ---SNIP---.
LONG READ---go to web site to read more and checkout the shocking financial charts.
SOURCE http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/12/behind-real-size-bailout
TO THE POINT Newt's debate response when asked about SOPA..... When debate mod tried to nail Newt on SOPA. Newt parried with: "You're asking a conservative about the economic interests of Hollywood?
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