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<DIV>Preliminary response, 3 corporate officers from Fannie Mae are not THE
financial advisors, because two of Obama's financial advisors are Robert Rubin,
who was Sec. of Treasury under Clinton, and spear-headed the drive to pay down
the national debt, and Paul Volcker, a rather conservative former head of the
Federal Reserve. I'll look around, but you know the web as well as I do. I doubt
that any officers of Fannie Mae are advising Obama now, he's not that stupid,
and I have never heard that any of them were previously. It would be maybe one
at the most.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Obama, like almost everyone in both parties with positions in Washington,
has received campaign contributions from officers of Fannie Mae. McCain's
campaign features a man who until the last few weeks represented Freddie Mac as
a lobbyist. Nobody is what any of us would call clean on this.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Siarlys</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>On Thu, 2 Oct 2008 11:06:55 -0700 "Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies
List" <<A href="mailto:gcfl-discuss@gcfl.net">gcfl-discuss@gcfl.net</A>>
writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 10px; PADDING-LEFT: 10px">
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV>Can anyone confirm, is Obama's 3 financial advisors the 3 Corporate
Officers from Fannie Mae?</DIV>
<DIV>I've seen a few e-mails and many sources sited... but can has anyone seen
the true confirmation of it?<BR>~Lance<BR></DIV>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 6:57 PM, Discussion of the Good,
Clean Funnies List <SPAN dir=ltr><<A
href="mailto:gcfl-discuss@gcfl.net">gcfl-discuss@gcfl.net</A>></SPAN>
wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex"><BR> an
eye-opening email I received.<BR><BR>greenBubble<BR><BR>-----Original
Message-----<BR>From: <A
href="mailto:naomiragen@mail-list.com">naomiragen@mail-list.com</A>
[mailto:<A
href="mailto:naomiragen@mail-list.com">naomiragen@mail-list.com</A>]
On<BR>Behalf Of <A
href="mailto:nragen@netvision.net.il">nragen@netvision.net.il</A><BR>Sent:
Monday, September 29, 2008 1:30 AM<BR>Subject: Whose Financial Mess is it,
Anyway?<BR><BR><BR>Friends,<BR><BR><BR><BR>So, what really happened to the
U.S. economy, and where should the buck<BR>really land?<BR><BR>Jeff Jacoby,
one of the few U.S. journalists that you could read
during<BR>the<BR>Intifada because he always got things right,<BR>gets it
right again. Beyond the hysteria to the
facts.<BR><BR><BR><BR>Naomi<BR><BR>------------------------------------------------------------------------<BR>----<BR>------------------------------------------------------------------------<BR>----<BR>--<BR><BR>September
28, 2008<BR><BR><BR><BR>WHOSE MESS, CONGRESSMAN FRANK?<BR><BR>By Jeff
Jacoby<BR><BR>The Boston Globe<BR><BR><BR><BR>Sunday, September 28,
2008<BR><BR><BR><BR> "The private sector got us into this mess.
The government has to<BR>get us<BR>out of it."<BR><BR><BR><BR>
That's Barney Frank's story, and he's sticking to it. As
the<BR>Massachusetts Democrat has explained it<BR><<A
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1fM28w34uQ"
target=_blank>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1fM28w34uQ</A>> in
recent days, , the<BR>current<BR>financial crisis is the spawn of the free
market run amok, with the<BR>political class guilty only of failing to rein
the capitalists in. The<BR>Wall<BR>Street meltdown was caused by "bad
decisions that were made by people in<BR>the<BR>private sector," Frank said;
the country is in dire straits today<BR>"thanks to<BR>a conservative
philosophy that says the market knows best." And that<BR>philosophy goes
"back to Ronald Reagan, when at his inauguration he<BR>said,<BR>'Government
is not the answer to our problems; government is the<BR>problem.'
"<BR><BR><BR><BR> In fact, that isn't what Reagan said. His
actual words were: "In<BR>this<BR>present crisis, government is not
the solution to our problem;<BR>government is<BR>the problem." Were he
president today, he would be saying much the
same<BR>thing.<BR><BR><BR><BR> Because while the mortgage
crisis convulsing Wall Street has its<BR>share<BR>of private-sector culprits
-- many of whom have been learning lately<BR>just<BR>how pitiless<BR><<A
href="http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/09/15/lehman.merrill.stocks.turmoil/index.html"
target=_blank>http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/09/15/lehman.merrill.stocks.turmoi<BR>l/in<BR>dex.html</A>>
the private sector's discipline can be -- they weren't
the<BR>ones<BR>who "got us into this mess." Barney Frank's talking
points<BR>notwithstanding,<BR>mortgage lenders didn't wake up one fine day
deciding to junk long-held<BR>standards of creditworthiness in order to make
ill-advised loans to<BR>unqualified borrowers. It would be closer to the
truth to say they woke<BR>up<BR>to find the government twisting their arms
and demanding that they do so<BR>--<BR>or else.<BR><BR><BR><BR>
The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration.
That<BR>was<BR>when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists,
began<BR>accusing<BR>mortgage lenders of racism<BR><<A
href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE1DF1E39F932A3575AC0A96F"
target=_blank>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE1DF1E39F932A3575AC0<BR>A96F</A><BR>948260<BR><<A
href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE1DF1E39F932A3575AC0A96F"
target=_blank>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE1DF1E39F932A3575AC0<BR>A96F</A><BR>948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all>
&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all> and<BR>"redlining" because
urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher<BR>rate than suburban
whites.<BR><BR><BR><BR> The pressure to make more loans to
minorities (read: to borrowers<BR>with<BR>weak credit histories) became
relentless. In 1977 Congress passed the<BR>Community Reinvestment Act <<A
href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/dcca/cra"
target=_blank>http://www.federalreserve.gov/dcca/cra</A>> ,<BR>empowering
regulators to punish banks that failed to "meet the credit<BR>needs"<BR>of
"low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods." In 1995,
under<BR>President Clinton, the law was made even more stringent.
Lenders<BR>responded<BR>by loosening their underwriting standards and making
increasingly shoddy<BR>loans. The two government-chartered mortgage finance
firms, Fannie Mae<BR>and<BR>Freddie Mac, encouraged this "subprime" lending
by authorizing ever more<BR>"flexible" criteria by which high-risk borrowers
could be qualified for<BR>home<BR>loans, and then buying up hundreds of
billions of dollars' worth of the<BR>questionable mortgages that ensued.
Some state and local governments<BR>added<BR>pressure of their own<BR><<A
href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE4D8153AF937A2575AC0A96F"
target=_blank>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE4D8153AF937A2575AC0<BR>A96F</A><BR>948260>
.<BR><BR><BR><BR> All this was justified as a means of
increasing homeownership among<BR>minorities and the poor.
Affirmative-action policies trumped sound<BR>business<BR>practices. A manual
issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston advised<BR>mortgage lenders to
disregard financial common sense. "Lack of credit<BR>history should not be
seen as a negative factor," the Fed's guidelines<BR><<A
href="http://www.bos.frb.org/commdev/commaff/closingt.pdf"
target=_blank>http://www.bos.frb.org/commdev/commaff/closingt.pdf</A>>
instructed.<BR>Applicants lacking sufficient savings to cover a down
payment and<BR>closing<BR>costs should be allowed to rely instead on "gifts,
grants, or loans from<BR>relatives, nonprofit organizations, or municipal
agencies." Lenders were<BR>even directed to accept welfare payments and
unemployment benefits as<BR>"valid<BR>income sources" to qualify for a
mortgage. Failure to comply could
mean<BR>a<BR>lawsuit.<BR><BR><BR><BR> As long as housing prices
kept rising -- and with millions of<BR>otherwise<BR>unqualified borrowers
adding to demand, they did -- the illusion that<BR>all<BR>this was good
public policy<BR><<A
href="http://articles.latimes.com/1999/may/31/news/mn-42807"
target=_blank>http://articles.latimes.com/1999/may/31/news/mn-42807</A>>
could be<BR>sustained.<BR>But it didn't take a financial whiz to
recognize that a day of reckoning<BR>would come. "What does it mean when
Boston banks start making many more<BR>loans to minorities?" I asked in this
space in 1995. "Most likely, that<BR>they<BR>are knowingly approving risky
loans in order to get the feds and the<BR>activists off their backs . . .
When the coming wave of foreclosures<BR>rolls<BR>through the inner city,
which of today's self-congratulating bankers,<BR>politicians, and regulators
plans to take the credit?"<BR><BR><BR><BR> Not Barney Frank.
And yet his fingerprints are all over this<BR>fiasco.<BR>Time and time
again, Frank insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were<BR>in<BR>good
shape. Five years ago, for example, when the Bush administration<BR>proposed
much tighter regulation of the two companies, Frank was adamant<BR>that
"these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any<BR>kind
of financial crisis." When the White House warned of
"systemic<BR>risk<BR>for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants
were curbed, Frank<BR>complained that the administration was more concerned
about financial<BR>safety<BR>than about housing.<BR><BR><BR><BR>
Now that the bubble has burst and the "systemic risk" is
apparent<BR>to<BR>all, Frank blithely declares: "The private sector got us
into this<BR>mess."<BR>Well, give the congressman points for gall. Wall
Street and private<BR>lenders<BR>have plenty to answer for, but it was
Washington and the political class<BR>that derailed this train. If Frank is
looking for a culprit to blame, he<BR>can<BR>find one likely suspect in the
nearest mirror.</BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></DIV>
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