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Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said the congressional supercommittee's failure Monday to come to an agreement on spending reforms was “good news” because it will help to end the Bush-era tax cuts and give Democrats more bargaining power in budget negotiations. Groups on the edges of both the liberal and conservative spectrums have cheered the death of the supercommittee. Liberal groups like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee were happy that programs such as Social Security and Medicare were spared, while Tea Party conservative groups applauded the breakdown in talks because no tax increases emerged from the deficit-reduction panel. The supercommittee’s failure...

Closer to the actual event Bill Clinton blames the Democrats for blocking Republican efforts in reigning in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae problems. Recently Barney Frank tries to blame Republicans wholly for the mess. h/t to 116falconer: http://youtu.be/ti-1XaapR0s

A war of words between US Representative Barney Frank and Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich reached new heights today after a report that the former Speaker of the House earned at least $1.5 million in consulting fees from mortgage giant Freddie Mac. It all started in October, when Gingrich during a GOP debate suggested that Frank should be imprisoned for his role in the subprime mortgage crisis. “If you want to put people in jail ... you ought to start with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd,” he said, referring to the Newton Democrat and the US senator from Connecticut. Then,...

A local congressman is joining three other openly gay colleagues in a new video message to help teens cope with bullying over their sexual orientation. U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, who represents Foxboro,

The collapse of MF Global Holdings gives Americans yet another reason not to trust Wall Street. The firm filed for bankruptcy as federal regulators were looking for $600 million missing from customer accounts. Its CEO, former Democratic New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, had bet that European leaders would bail out smallish countries that were too big to fail. His bet did not pay off. The only good news out of this story is that Washington won't be bailing out MF Global. Corzine said he won't take a reported $12 million in severance. If he truly wants to atone, then Corzine...

Fannie Mae taps $7.8 billion from Treasury, loss widens Photo 6:42pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fannie Mae, the biggest source of money for U.S. home loans, on Tuesday said it needed a further $7.8 billion in federal aid to stay afloat as a shaky housing market widened its third-quarter loss to $5.1 billion. Fannie Mae also attributed the deeper cash drain to losses on derivatives that are used to hedge the firm's exposure to swings in interest rates and expenses related to home loans made prior to the 2008 financial collapse. In the year-earlier quarter it had a loss of...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Government-controlled mortgage giant Freddie Mac has requested $6 billion in additional aid after posting a wider loss in the third quarter. Freddie Mac said Thursday that it lost $6 billion, or $1.86 per share, in the July-September quarter. That compares with a loss of $4.1 billion, or $1.25 a share, in the same quarter of 2010. This quarter's $6 billion request from taxpayers is the largest since April 2010. Freddie's losses are increasing mainly for two reasons: Many homeowners are paying less interest because they are able to refinance at lower mortgage rates. And failing and bankrupt...

Frank McCourt agreed Tuesday to sell the Dodgers, abruptly surrendering the team after fighting to retain it over two years and in two courts. McCourt and Major League Baseball have agreed to seek approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for an auction of the Dodgers. The sale is expected to include the team, Dodger Stadium and the surrounding parking lots, a package bought by McCourt for $421 million in 2004 and likely to sell for two to three times as much now. The league hopes a new Dodgers owner can be in place by opening day. The new owner would...

President Barack Obama may be smarting because his sweeping jobs bill has mostly stalled in Congress, but the Dodd-Frank bill—much maligned as a job killer—could boost the kind of work Democrats find hard to tout. The Dodd-Frank financial reform overhaul last year aimed to curb the excessive Wall Street risk-taking that nearly leveled the financial system. It subjected the $600 trillion global derivatives market to regulation, increased banking oversight and created a new consumer protection bureau, among other measures. And a debate has raged ever since over the impact of Dodd-Frank, with Republicans asserting the costs and uncertainty created by...

Barney Frank Unhappy With Occupy Wall Streeters Who ‘Blame Me For Consequence Of Their Not Voting’by Colby Hall | 8:17 am, October 18th, 2011 On Monday night Rachel Maddow explained how the Occupy Wall Street movement defied some traditional party lines, or in her words, protesters “aren’t exactly delighted with Democrats either.” She then introduced Rep. Barney Frank, who shared some frustrations with the protesters, saying “I’m unhappy when people didn’t vote last time blame me for the consequences of their not voting.” Frank echoed the thoughts made last week by former Gov. Ed Rendell who basically asked where were...

In this week’s Republican presidential candidate debate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich blamed the 2008 financial crisis on “reforms” enacted through the efforts of former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank (D-Mass) and former Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn). Gingrich suggested that the two ought to go to jail for their “crimes.” Representative Frank defended his actions in support of the legislation that compelled banks to lend to untrustworthy borrowers as “well-intended,” and insisted that any blame for any bad outcomes really belongs to former President Bush because “he let me do it. He could’ve vetoed...

In today’s Wall Street Journal: Asked who was to blame for the 2008 financial crisis and whether any bankers should have been prosecuted, Mrs. Bachmann and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich put the onus on the federal government, with Mr. Gingrich suggesting that former Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank, former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, should both be jailed.“It was the federal government that pushed the subprime loans . . . that pushed the community reinvestment act,” said Mrs. Bachmann, citing what she considered the causes of the housing meltdown.Mr. Frank released an emailed...

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich got worked up when asked about the Occupy Wall Street protests at last night's Bloomberg-Washington Post debate. Gingrich first sought to tie the protests to "left-wing agitators" before calling for the firing of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. He then doubled down, calling on former Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank to be thrown in jail, not anyone on Wall Street. Asked if he actually meant for them to do prison time, Gingrich said he did, alluding to past ethical scandals. Watch the video below: CLICK ABOVE LINK...

Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois is telling Americans to "Get the heck out of that bank", right on the Senate Floor. His comments are in response to Bank of America hiking fees on debit cards. Please consider BofA Customers Urged by Lawmakers to Quit Lender Over Debit Fee Congressional Democrats are pushing customers to quit doing business with Bank of America Corp. and one lawmaker is looking to make it easier for them to do so as the biggest U.S. lender announced plans for new debit-card fees. U.S. Representative Brad Miller, a North Carolina Democrat, introduced a bill today that would...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The fees keep coming. Citi is the latest big bank to slap customers with a round of fee hikes. This time, on its checking accounts. Starting in December, customers who hold its mid-level Citibank Account will be charged $20 a month if they fail to maintain a minimum balance of $15,000 in their combined accounts. Previously, account holders had to carry a minimum balance of $6,000. At the same time, customers who have the bank's EZ Checking account will start being charged $15 a month if they don't carry a minimum balance of $6,000. Citi says...

Hold on to your wallet: The Durbin Amendment goes into effect Saturday. The once-obscure amendment to the Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill limits “interchange fees,” which banks charge to merchants for providing the service that allows stores to accept debit-card payments. The fees were cut by some 80 percent, which makes it less profitable for banks to offer debit-card services. So the banks have done the natural thing and begun to transfer the fee from merchants to their customers, with Bank of America announcing a new $5-per-month fee for debit-card users. Naturally, the amendment’s author, Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) is in...

Government imposes new price controls on an industry. Industry raises prices elsewhere to make up for the artificial cap on cost recovery. Government expresses shock, shock at the development. For those of us old enough to remember the 1970s, this seems like deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once said. For those either too young or too “dim,” as the Washington Examiner puts it, the surprise should be a learning experience, even for a “dim bulb” like Dick Durbin During the debate over the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, when Democrats controlled Congress, Durbin insisted on including an amendment...

As I detailed here in February in "Dick Durbin Is Stealing Your Free Checking," thanks to price controls on debit card transactions from the Durbin Amendment of the 2010 Dodd-Frank "financial reform" law, free checking is going the way of the dodo bird. The Durbin price controls on interchange fees -- the so-called "swipe fees" that retailers pay to bank and credit unions that process debit card transactions, go into effect this Saturday, October 1, and are already showing more dire effects than originally predicted. Not only is free checking disappearing at a rapid pace -- a new Bankrate.com survey...

The Dodd-Frank Act goes on for 2,319 pages. Like Nancy Pelosi's "pass it to find out what's in the O'care Bill" statement, Senator Dodd said, "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we've done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done." The Wall Street Journal reported on July 14, 2010, just one week before Obama signed Dodd-Frank into law that it will "unleash the biggest wave of new federal financial rule-making...

“Call it Dodd-Frank Inc. A year after Congress passed the broadest financial overhaul since the Great Depression, the law has spawned a host of new businesses to help Wall Street comply — and capitalize — on the hundreds of new regulations. Besides the lawyers, there are legions of corporate accountants, financial consultants, risk management advisers, turnaround artists and technology vendors all vying for their cut.” “It is a full-employment act,” said Gregory J. Lyons, a partner at Debevoise, where a team of a half-dozen lawyers has drafted 30-plus comment letters in the last six months. “The law is passed, but...