Free Republic

Bartiromo Takes Frank to Task Over Lack of ’08 Financial Crisis Prosecutions • Frank: 'Individuals' should be prosecuted on Wall Street, will not say who Former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) advocated criminal prosecutions against “individuals” involved in the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent collapse on Wall Street Friday on CNBC. Maria Bartiromo reacted incredulously to Frank’s refusal to name specific individuals who may have perpetrated criminal wrongdoing, accusing the former Congressman of playing populist politics by making specious allegations against the financial industry. Frank attempted to deflect the criticism by stating as Chair of House Financial Services...

The exodus of senior aides from the White House continued as Gen James Jones, Barack Obama’s head of National Security, resigned. His departure, which comes a week after Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff, resigned, removes one of the few senior officials not belonging to the US president’s coterie of long-time advisers. Brought in originally for his vast experience and independent voice, it had been clear for some time that the former Nato supreme commander had failed to gel with the president’s inner circle. Gen Jones is being replaced by one of those close aides, his former deputy Thomas Donilon....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will name close aide Tom Donilon as his new national security adviser on Friday in a move that could have implications for the struggli

A new study from the widely respected National Bureau of Economic Research released this week has confirmed beyond question that the left's race-baiting attacks on the housing market (the Community Reinvestment Act

A new and extensive analysis of 2.4 million loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration in recent years shows a pattern of risky lending that could generate $20 billion in losses and harm thousands of the nation’s most vulnerable borrowers. By ignoring risks in loans it insured in 2009 and 2010, the study concludes, the F.H.A. is imperiling both borrowers and taxpayers who stand behind the agency. The analysis emerged less than a month after the F.H.A.’s auditor submitted a troubling report on the financial soundness of its insurance fund. In mid-November, the auditor estimated that the fund, which backs...

A government report finds median pay for nearly 2,000 senior managers at government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exceeded $200,000 last year. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees the two mortgage giants, also did an inadequate job monitoring pay, according to the report released Monday from the inspector general for the FHFA. The median figure means that half the managers received salaries above $200,000 and half received less. Compensation for senior managers at the companies cost about $455 million in 2011, according to the report. Taxpayers so far have paid roughly $170 billion to rescue Fannie and Freddie, which...

A new book offers an instructive lesson on the unhappy surprises caused by the government’s attempts to manipulate the housing market. James R. Hagerty’s new book, The Fateful History of Fannie Mae: New Deal Birth to Mortgage Crisis Fall, shows how hard it is for administrations throughout history to know what they are really doing in their political attempts to manipulate the housing market.As Hagerty explains, the Eisenhower administration, working through the Housing Act of 1954, tried to wean Fannie off the government’s credit and make it operate with private capital. It succeeded instead in creating the essence of the...

How about all those solutions to the housing crisis put forward by Obama and Romney during the debates? We actually should celebrate because there are no proposals. It was government manipulation of credit markets, social engineering, and GSE’s Fannie and Freddie that caused the housing collapse. The solutions implemented by the Obama administration only prove Reagan correct; the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan. Had the housing market been left alone to self-correct we could be well on the way to recovery. Not to be when the central planners and the central bankers have their arms up...

The market has taken several days to digest The Fed’s decision to continue Operation Twist and start purchasing $40 billion per month in agency mortgage-backed securities. The MBS market thrives on uncertainty concerning future rates and prepayment speeds. When The Fed intentionally reduces mortgage rates through quantitative easing, it takes away one of the attractions of the MBS market: risk. Now agency MBS is pricing close to Treasuries. Freddie Mac’s 30 year mortgage commitment rate fell to 3.49%, almost to a new low. The spread between Fannie Mae current coupon and 10 year Treasury yields have fallen to 13.75 basis...

The Justice Department is beginning a major campaign against banks and mortgage brokers suspected of discriminating against minority applicants in lending, opening a new front in the Obama administration’s response to the foreclosure crisis. Tom Perez, the assistant attorney general for the department’s Civil Rights Division, is expected to announce Thursday in New York that the administration is creating a new unit that will focus exclusively on unfair lending practices. “We are looking at any and every practice in the industry,” Mr. Perez said in a recent interview. As part of an expansion of the Civil Rights Division approved by...

The Democrat Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.

According to Freddie Mac, mortgage rates in the U.S. fell to a record for a third straight week. The average rate for a 30-year fixed loan dropped to 3.79 percent in the week ended today from 3.83 percent. Fannie Mae 30 year current coupons (the rate on Fannie Mae MBS) fell as well, but not to the lowest point in recent months.\ As Europe continues to experience a financial crisis, investors continue to invest in our Treasury market (driving down yields). 30 year mortgage rates follow the 10 year Treasury yield. Greece, Portugal and Spain continue to experience problems with...

Howard Zinn and Saul Alinsky must be looking down and smiling now, or up. “We reported on our Zinn Education Project Facebook site, which asked teachers about themes they planned to address in the coming month,” the editors of Rethinking Schools wrote in an editorial which appears in the Spring 2012 issue of the magazine. “The replies reflected a markedly unstandardized curriculum.” “People were teaching about the history of corporate personhood, the war in Afghanistan, the early women’s rights movement, and the link between industrialization and imperialism.” In other words, to these characters, elementary and high schools are not left-wing...

I am making public the letter that I wrote to Senator Grassley (Feb. 23, 2011) regarding circumstances that led to my firing after 2.5 months by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), particularly my writing about mortgage fraud and its roots in mortgage securitization that CBO sought to deny was a problem. I was repeatedly pressured by the CBO Assistant Director, Deborah Lucas… to not write nor discuss issues in the banking sector and mortgage markets that might suggest weakness in these sectors and their consequences on the economy and households... …Issues at the heart of the foreclosure problems pertain to...

California Attorney General Kamala Harris has called on federal mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to place a "good-faith pause" on all foreclosure sales in the state following the multi-state settlement with the nation's largest banks over mortgage abuses.

WASHINGTON — On a trip to Ireland in 1998, Speaker Newt Gingrich researched his Irish roots, discussed the prospects for peace in Northern Ireland and entertained speculation about his presidential ambitions. He even donned work gloves and blue jeans to help build a home in Belfast for a good-will project. Two of the sponsors for part of the Ireland trip were frequent partners of Mr. Gingrich: Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae — the government-backed housing industry giants that Mr. Gingrich has denounced as he fights to stay in contention against Mitt Romney in the Republican primaries.

The Bush Admin and Senator McCain warned repeatedly about Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac and what thus became the 2008 financial crisis -- starting in 2002 (and actually even earlier -- in the Clinton and Carter White Houses. Democrats resisted and kept to their party line, extending loans to people who couldn't afford them -- just like you would expect of socialists.

Chris Arnold at National Public Radio (NRP) posted this story today: “Freddie Mac Betting Against Struggling Homeowners.” The article quotes Chris Mayer from Columbia University, one of the authors of the Boyce, Hubbard and Mayer (MHM) streamlined mortgage refi plan. Streamlined mortgage refis come at a cost to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, pension funds and foreign investors who trusted the U.S. to play be the rules. I don’t really care if the benefits outweigh the costs since I am opposed to massive government intervention into the free market. It never works as expected and usually generates unintended consequences. Why isn’t...

Top Romney advisers lobbied for Freddie Mac 11:22 AM 01/25/2012 Mitt Romney’s campaign is attacking Newt Gingrich as an “influence peddler.” But it turns out that some of Romney’s closest advisers (or the firms they lobbied for) were paid hundreds of thousands — maybe millions — of dollars on behalf of failed mortgage giant Freddie Mac. The Romney campaign did not respond to requests for comment. According to the AP, former Rep. Susan Molinari — a top Romney surrogate and adviser (watch her attacking Gingrich in this video) — was one of the former GOP lawmakers paid quite handsomely to...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have already cost US taxpayers over $200 billion. If Obama gets his way on mortgage writedowns, the GSEs estimate it would take another $100 billion. Since such estimates are always overly-optimistic by a factor of 3 to 10, I estimate the cost to taxpayers would be $300 billion minimum. Please consider Fannie, Freddie writedowns too costly: regulator The regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac told lawmakers that forcing the two mortgage firms to write down loan principal would require more than $100 billion in fresh taxpayer funds. In a letter sent on Friday to...