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The Subprime home mortgage collapse...a Primer. It's ALL about the CRA of 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 - This required banks to offer credit throughout their entire market area for “underserved” populations and small businesses. The CRA gave incentives to help low income borrowers become “home owners”. Liberals call this group “low income borrowers”. Conservatives call them a RISK!The CRA was passed by the Carter administration. In 1995 the Clinton administration authorized subprime loans under the CRA. Democrats added these provisions for the securitization of subprime loans and then ENFORCED the lending to high risk individuals. By 2000,...

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending The New York Times STEVEN A. HOLMES Published: September 30, 1999 In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, Fannie Mae is easing credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders. The action will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people ''Fannie Mae has expanded...

Next time when your liberal friend / relative* starts whining about how Bush economic policies caused the financial meltdown and how Obama will save America with his GigaPork stimulomarxist package, hit him back hard with this video. Read on

<p>Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) simply can't tell the whole truth about his cut-rate, quid pro quo mortgage deals.</p> <p>The taped exchanges between Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Franklin Raines in the 2004 House financial-oversight hearings are metaphors for the entire subprime crisis.</p>

Regulation: The Community Reinvestment Act is to blame for the financial crisis, but it so powerfully serves Democrats' interests that they'll do anything to protect it — including revising history.The CRA coerces banks into making loans based on political correctness, and little else, to people who can't afford them. Enforced like never before by the Clinton administration, the regulation destroyed credit standards across the mortgage industry, created the subprime market, and caused the housing bubble that has now burst and left us with the worst housing and banking crises since the Great Depression. The CRA should be abolished, along with...

It's only the biggest financial scandal in the nation's history

Video here.

Democrats are giving Republicans the hearing they’ve been demanding to dig into the failures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but it won’t happen until after the election. House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) Monday announced that he will hold a hearing into the collapse of the mortgage giants on Nov. 20, and plans to call several of the firms’ ex-CEOs, including Fannie Mae's Franklin Raines. Republicans view the two companies as Democrats’ political Achilles heel amid a financial meltdown that has led to calls for more regulation of the financial sector. The GOP dubbed the companies...

Democrats are giving Republicans the hearing they’ve been demanding to dig into the failures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but it won’t happen until after the election. House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) Monday announced that he will hold a hearing into the collapse of the mortgage giants on Nov. 20, and plans to call several of the firms’ ex-CEOs, including Fannie Mae's Franklin Raines. Republicans view the two companies as Democrats’ political Achilles heel amid a financial meltdown that has led to calls for more regulation of the financial sector. The GOP dubbed the companies...

So far we know that the meltdown of Frannie and Freddie, abetted by Wall Street greed, caused the larger financial panic. Yet, there is little outrage that a Franklin Raines or Jim Johnson gave money to oversight members of Congress, hid behind a mantle of political-correctness in boasting about home ownership for everyone, and then cooked the books and borrowed to the hilt to justify mega-bonuses for themselves and their friends. I don’t think a special prosecutor will ever look into the maze of conflict of interest problems of a Barney Frank, or the political associations of a Franklin Raines,...

For most of my life I've been told that the government was to protect our rights and freedoms in the United States, how is it doing these days? Not well as I see it and here's why: Socialist government now is to raise us all from cradle to grave so we can all be equally unhappy. Government now knows best what to do with your money; you are too ignorant! Do you really want this government to run your health care? They tried to run the mortgage industry, see where that got us - $800 trillion in debt and no...

Worse than the AIG Spa Vacation (updated)Thomas Lifson October 09, 2008 The last few days we have been treated to hyperventilation over the outrage of AIG executives attending a lavish sales incentive meeting at a ritzy California spa. I hope that Henry Waxman and his committee will be evenhanded in exposing this outrage. But I bet they will ignore Raines. Franklin Raines, the Democrat who inflated Fannie Mae earnings in order to pay himself fabulous bonuses, earning $90 million dollars, is feeling none of the real estate market pain he helped to create for so many others. The Washingtonian reports:...

No sooner had the $805B bail-out bill passed the House than Pelosi went to the TV cameras and promised show trials under Henry Waxman to pin the blame for this mess (on Republicans). She then praised Barney Frank's courage and leadership in delivering the country from the evil of Republicans in general and Wall Street in particular. Denny Hoyer then spoke of how we must never let the greedy lenders destroy the economy and that he is going to make sure that never happens again. James Clyburn assured viewers that Congress will make sure that no one loses their home...

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-democrat-fingerprints-are-all-over-the-financial-crisis-949653.html

It was no surprise that my son plans to vote for Obama. He's been veering left throughout his college years. We had a rather heated discussion about Obama on the phone. I told him that Obama was a socialist. His response was "maybe a little socialism won't hurt". Here is my written response. Dear Son, When we discussed Barack Obama and I said he was a socialist, I remember that you responded that "maybe a little socialism won't hurt." We are now in the midst of an economic crisis of global proportions, the results of which will impact much of...

Alcee Hastings used to be a federal judge. Then he got impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. Now he's a congressman from Florida. People have a right to vote for whomever they want, even one of the six federal judges in America ever to be removed by Congress. But with friends like Hastings making the case for him, Barack Obama doesn't need enemies. Participating in a panel discussion in Washington this week sponsored by the National Jewish Democratic Council (I don't even want to ask why they invited him — maybe everybody else was busy trying to...

Democrats Defend Fannie/Freddie from Regulation - 2004 Video Rep. Maxine Waters, 2004: "We’ve been through nearly a dozen hearings where frankly we were trying to fix something that wasn’t broke. Mr. Chairman we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac and in particular at Fannie Mae under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL36nwCSYUM

Per AP, Freddie and Fannie are facing a Grand Jury as a U. S. Attorney's Investigation is underway. Folks, this is huge! It is now a SCANDAL, the repercussions of which are TEN to TWENTY times the impact of the Enron Scandal!!! We need to write to the editors of our newspapers and publicize this every way possible. Of course, we need to trace the money path through Dodd, Frank and company, directly to the annoited one. Get excited, this is great news!

[note: this article is from July 23, 2008] A $25 billion bailout of government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae is now planned. But Fannie Mae has such political power that its crooked managers will probably never be held accountable for their fraud in any way, unlike the Enron executives who went to jail. Instead, its lending authority will likely expand under federal mortgage bailout bills. Paul Gigot, a Wall Street Journal editor, describes the personal vilification he has received over the years after the Journal began warning, prophetically, that Fannie Mae was engaged in fraudulent accounting, and that the taxpayers might...

Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage Association and Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, own about half of America’s $12 trillion mortgage market. Even though Fannie Mae goes back to President Roosevelt’s New Deal, it is commonly known that the present focus of both Fannie and Freddie are “creations of the congressional Democrats (particularly the Congressional Black Caucus) and the Clinton White House, designed to make mortgages available to more people,” meaning minorities. Jesse Jackson, according to the National Legal and Policy Center, has had a cozy relationship with Fannie and Freddie since 1998, when he accused Freddie...

John McCain's campaign is under fire for his campaign manager's ties to Freddie Mac. Rick Davis's lobbying firm, it turns out, was still receiving monthly payments until very recently, despite previous assurances that the relationship had ended three years ago. Meanwhile, McCain is running television ads tying Sen. Barack Obama to Franklin Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who was forced out for misstating the company's earnings. Obama vigorously protests that Raines isn't really one of his advisers, though Raines had previously said that he advised the campaign. But McCain doesn't need to focus on Raines. Obama selected another Fannie...

Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson STILL advising Obama, Further this was reported by e-mail from Tom Daschle to Democrat insiders to see updates daily on political progress from the campaign, by Tom Daschel and Jim Johnson. Gibson also reported today that Franklin Raines was still advising Obama on housing! As you all well know that Jim Johnson was in charge of Fannie Mae with Franklin Raines. They also were paid very well with Johnson getting in excess of 20 million dollars and Franklin Raines getting 90 million dollars in executive pay.

This is probably an article that the New York Times wishes it didn't have in its archives because it reveals the true culprits behind the current Fannie Mae meltdown. You will find "uncomfortable" truths in this September 30, 1999 article by Steven A. Holmes starting with the title, "Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending," that you won't find in current editions of the New York Times (emphasis mine): In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase...

Fannie Mae CEOs Raines, Johnson got exemptions from standard requirements. Two Barack Obama advisers, Franklin Raines and James Johnson, received preferential home loans as industry favors, apparently in deference to their executive positions heading Fannie Mae. Raines and Johnson, as "friends of Angelo Mozilo," the chief executive of Countrywide Financial Corp. ...were funneled millions of dollars for personal home loans. Mozilo himself made exceptions from Countrywide policy to provide the two Fannie Mae CEO's "sweetheart deals." Countrywide was acquired by Bank of America in January in an emergency rescue ... Johnson earned $21 million in just his last year at...

Most important was corruption and mismanagement at the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac), which together controlled 90 percent of the secondary mortgage market. Fannie and Freddie went broke because they bought billions of dollars worth of subprime mortgages, on which borrowers defaulted when the housing bubble popped. Fannie bought most of its bad mortgages from Countrywide Financial, whose CEO, Angelo Mozilo, gave sweetheart loans to senior executives of Fannie Mae. Fannie and Freddie cooked their books so senior executives would be paid millions of dollars in bonuses to which they...

The McCain campaign is clearly exaggerating wildly in attempting to depict Raines as a close adviser to Obama on "housing and mortgage policy." If we are to believe Raines, he did have a couple of telephone conversations with someone in the Obama campaign. But that hardly makes him an adviser to the candidate himself -- and certainly not in the way depicted in the McCain video release.

NOTE: this is from several years ago with a 2006 update. Raines actually made $90 million. ================================================================== Proving you can fool most of the people most of the time until you get caught, Franklin Raines, who 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...

In recent years, under [James] Johnson, a prominent Democrat... Fannie Mae has established itself as perhaps the most politically astute of big corporations. hiring some of the best lobbyists in town, spreading campaign contributions around [snip]The company has repeatedly neutralized efforts to re-examine or scale back the benefits of its Government-chartered status, including its exemption from state and local income taxes and the widely held assumption -- nowhere written down -- that the Government would bail out Fannie Mae if it ever got into financial trouble.[snip]... Mr. Raines no doubt understands full well the power of well-placed campaign contributions. [snip]Fannie...

1.) Barack Obama, concerning former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines: "My opponent [John McCain] attacked me for being associated with a Fannie Mae guy who I met once and talked to for maybe five minutes." SOURCE: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/20/1428904.aspx 2.) Barack Obama, concerning Tony Rezko: In the South Carolina Democratic Party presidential debate on January 21, 2008, Senator Hillary Clinton said that Obama had represented Rezko, who she referred to as a slum landlord. Obama responded that he had never represented Rezko and had done only about five hours work, indirectly for Rezko's firm. SOURCE: "Obama On Rezko Deal: It was A...

Archive for Friday, October 01, 1999 Fannie Mae Moves to Loosen Home Loan Credit Rules By Daryl Strickland October 01, 1999 in print edition C-1 The nation’s largest provider of mortgage funds, moving to increase homeownership among minorities and low-income citizens, unveiled a program Thursday to loosen lending standards for people with “slightly impaired” credit. The Federal National Mortgage Assn. said it will encourage banks and other financial institutions to accept borrowers with blemished credit who may not otherwise qualify for conventional loans. The program will begin on a pilot basis in 15 states, including California, and the District of...

"Obama has no background in economics. Who advises him? The Post says it's Franklin Raines, for 'advice on mortgage and housing policy.' Shocking. Under Raines, Fannie Mae committed 'extensive financial fraud.' Raines made millions. Fannie Mae collapsed. Taxpayers? Stuck with the bill." McCain campaign video release, Sept. 18 An already nasty presidential election campaign is getting nastier. The meltdown on Wall Street has touched off frantic attempts by both the McCain and Obama camps to secure political advantage and indulge in guilt by association. Over the past 24 hours, both campaigns have issued what are, in effect, video news releases...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usvG-s_Ssb0 Explosive CEO calling Obama and Dems the "Family" "Conscience" of Fannie Mae The Banking Failures are because of the Housing Crisis, which was caused by mortgage lenders handing out bad loans and the biggest offenders: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac The Democrats have been taking PAYOFFS from Fannie and Freddie to look the other way FOR DECADES! NOW VIDEO FOUND of the CEO of Fannie Mae in 2005 explaining the "FAMILY" connection with Democrats And specifically Barack Obama and the Congressional Black Caucus

Barack Obama called a summit of his senior economic advisers to help craft his response to the Wall Street financial crisis on Friday, as sparring intensified over which presidential candidate was best qualified to handle the turmoil. Mr Obama has assembled a stellar team of economists and financial leaders to advise him on the crisis, including Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor, Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, and a trio of former Treasury secretaries. Several of them met Mr Obama for talks in Florida on Friday, with others joining by telephone as the Illinois senator sought to convince...

Mike Reagan declared the runaway government bailout of Wall Street at taxpayers expense a "ROBBERY!" Los Angeles, Ca. - On his nationally syndicated radio show Reagan declared that the "Democrats Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, Jamie Gorelick, Penny Pritzker, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, are robbing the American taxpayer, and Republicans in the House and Senate had been tapped to drive the getaway car. In a political system where well paid Democrat operatives can enrich themselves at the expense of the American people with zero downside, there is no incentive to behave properly, when the taxpayer will bail you out. Enough...

McCain Attacks Obama on Ties to Former Fannie Mae CEOsSusan Davis reports on the presidential race. September 19, 2008, 10:26 am In both a new campaign ad and a speech this morning on the economy, John McCain is attacking Barack Obama for his ties to former Fannie Mae executive Jim Johnson–who headed the company a decade before the current financial crisis. Johnson, a long-time figure in Democratic Party politics, was part of the team originally tapped to help Obama find a running mate. He stepped down from that role after The Wall Street Journal first reported that he had received...

An ill-timed -- for Obama -- profile of former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, forced out in an accounting mess a few years ago. The Style Section piece reports that he's recently been taking "calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."

Now we know why Obama wants to raise taxes - to bail out those jerks who tanked our mortgage markets and nearly sent us into a real depression. First off it is good to get a little history on what led to this mess. Michael Reagan does a good job of laying out the story, but this part is worth noting and remembering: To find the donkey, you need to go back to the Clinton administration, which decided that everybody and his kid brother was entitled to a mortgage even when they didn’t begin to qualify for a home loan.In...

Even though the Obama campaign says it is. This one tries to saddle Obama with Franklin Raines, the disgraced former head of Fannie Mae, who, according to the McCain ad, has been giving Obama "advice on mortgage and housing policy" The Obama campaign has now sent out this statement from Raines:"I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters." And Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton goes on to say: "This is another flat-out lie from a dishonorable campaign that is increasingly incapable of telling the truth. Frank Raines...

This is not an easy one for the Illinois senator because of the companies' close ties to his party. To be sure, both Republican and Democratic politicos have held well-paid positions in the two firms or have partaken of the tens of millions that they spend on lobbying. But a few Republicans, such as Mr. McCain and Sen. Richard C. Shelby (Ala.), who has been chairman and ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, have taken them on over the years, warning about their use of an implicit government guarantee to pursue private profits. Meanwhile, Democrats were not only politically...

Here is the LEAD PARAGRAPH from a Washington Post article published July 17, 2008:"Franklin D. Raines has been quietly constructing a new life for himself. He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap, taken a corner office in Steve Case's D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment and health-care companies and more recently, taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters." See FR post, "On the Outside Now": http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2085965/postsTODAY, the Washington Post's "Fact Checker" (HA!)column by Michael Dobbs, entitled "Obama's Fannie Mae 'Connection'" makes an attempt for the world's record in backpedaling with...

There is so much crap coming down today, I thought we needed a little light hearted respite. Did anyone hear Bush today say the following:Those responsible will be PERSECUTED!We can only hope this will be the case.

Howard Kurtz issues a rather amazing analysis of John McCain’s ad connecting Franklin Raines to Barack Obama. The Washington Post media analyst calls the basis of the McCain ad a “disputed premise” — despite his own newspaper’s reporting on the Raines-Obama relationship: Analysis: This John McCain ad is based on a disputed premise. There’s no dispute that Obama has no background in economics — but then, neither does McCain, which makes this an odd charge for the Arizona senator to hurl. Fannie Mae did collapse, requiring a government takeover, and Raines, its former chairman, paid $25 million in April to...

With home prices in the District up almost 78 percent in the past five years, there is growing concern there is a housing bubble that is about to burst - both locally and nationwide. Fannie Mae CEO Frank Raines, however, is dispelling those concerns. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Raines, a former budget director in the Clinton administration, says the housing rally won't end like the stock market did three years ago. "We do not see any sign of a housing price decline nationwide, let alone the bursting of a bubble," Raines is quoted as saying.

In the four years since he stepped down as Fannie Mae's chief executive under the shadow of a $6.3 billion accounting scandal, Franklin D. Raines has been quietly constructing a new life for himself. He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap, taken a corner office in Steve Case's D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment and health-care companies and more recently, taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.

<p>Former Fannie Mae chairman and chief executive Franklin D. Raines has agreed to a multimillion settlement with a federal regulator over his alleged responsibility for improper accounting at the mortgage finance giant.</p> <p>The regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, said Raines had agreed to forgo stock, cash and other benefits worth $24.7 million in exchange for dismissing the charges against him. However, the regulator's estimate wasn't the only way of looking at the value of the settlement.</p>

When President George W. Bush nominated Henry Paulson to serve as Treasury Secretary, Republicans raised a red flag that Paulson, who, along with his wife, has strong ties to the Democrat party, would not be an honest broker with Republicans. That seems to have been borne out, with sources inside of Treasury reporting that Paulson briefed Sen. Barack Obama and his campaign advisers on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout plan before offering such a briefing to the McCain campaign. In fact, the McCain campaign had sought a similar briefing several days ago as word spread that a bailout...

Jan 2005... On Labor Day, he was a favorite to be Treasury Secretary should John Kerry win the White House. At yearend, he had left under a cloud. The charmed career of Franklin D. Raines -- a poor kid from Seattle who climbed through Harvard and a Rhodes Scholarship to become White House budget director and CEO of Fannie Mae (FNM ) -- crashed to a halt on Dec. 21. That was six days after the Securities & Exchange Commission's top accountant declared that mortgage giant Fannie misstated earnings for 3 1/2 years, leading to an estimated $9 billion restatement...

Franklin Raines From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Franklin Delano Raines (born January 14, 1949 in Seattle, Washington) is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Fannie Mae who served as White House budget director under President Bill Clinton. He is currently employed by Barack Obama's Presidential Campaign as an economic adviser. The son of a Seattle janitor [1], Raines graduated from Harvard University, Harvard Law School; and Magdalen College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Raines was of age during the Vietnam War, but performed no military service. He served in the Carter Administration as...

In the four years since he stepped down as Fannie Mae's chief executive under the shadow of a $6.3 billion accounting scandal, Franklin D. Raines has been quietly constructing a new life for himself. He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap, taken a corner office in Steve Case's D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment and health-care companies and more recently, taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.

The campaign puts out a statement from former Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines, disowning ties to Obama, after a McCain ad attacked him for the ties. The Washington Post reported -- with the kind of blind sourcing that suggests the source was Raines -- that Raines had "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters." Raines said in the statement through the campaign, "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters." Obama spokesman Bill Burton added an attack: This...