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President Bush publicly called for GSE reform 17 times in 2008 alone before Congress acted. Unfortunately, these warnings went unheeded, as the President's repeated attempts to reform the supervision of these entities were thwarted by the legislative maneuvering of those who emphatically denied there were problems.
2001 April: The Administration's FY02 budget declares that the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is "a potential problem," because "financial trouble of a large GSE could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting Federally insured entities and economic activity.
2002 May: The President calls for the disclosure and corporate governance principles contained in his 10-point plan for corporate responsibility to apply to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (OMB Prompt Letter to OFHEO, 5/29/02) 2003 January: Freddie Mac announces it has to restate financial results for the previous three years. February: The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) releases a report explaining that "although investors perceive an implicit Federal guarantee of [GSE] obligations," "the government has provided no explicit legal backing for them." As a consequence, unexpected problems at a GSE could immediately spread into financial sectors beyond the housing market. ("Systemic Risk: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Role of OFHEO," OFHEO Report, 2/4/03) September: Fannie Mae discloses SEC investigation and acknowledges OFHEO's review found earnings manipulations. September: Treasury Secretary John Snow testifies before the House Financial Services Committee to recommend that Congress enact "legislation to create a new Federal agency to regulate and supervise the financial activities of our housing-related government sponsored enterprises" and set prudent and appropriate minimum capital adequacy requirements. October: Fannie Mae discloses $1.2 billion accounting error. November: Council of the Economic Advisers (CEA) Chairman Greg Mankiw explains that any "legislation to reform GSE regulation should empower the new regulator with sufficient strength and credibility to reduce systemic risk." To reduce the potential for systemic instability, the regulator would have "broad authority to set both risk-based and minimum capital standards" and "receivership powers necessary to wind down the affairs of a troubled GSE." (N. Gregory Mankiw, Remarks At The Conference Of State Bank Supervisors State Banking Summit And Leadership, 11/6/03)
Ahh, you disagree, so its not intelligent.. I get it...
Wait, nope I dont..
I'm an Obama supporter - and I agree with the premise of the article.
People like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank should be voted out of office. They were major players in the sub-prime crisis.
But so were Republicans - they had the power during 2001-2006 to do something about Fannie and Freddie - yet they did nothing but political posturing - so there's plenty of blame to go around.
And sub-prime is not the only problem.
Probably more is due to the deregulation that the Republicans pushed. People like Phil Graham - who pushed a bill in 1999 that basically repealed the Glass Steagal act and allowed banks to get into much risker investments. They also allowed the derivatives market to be completely unregulated - which led to the astronomical growth in Credit Default Swaps - which Warren Buffet has referred to as 'financial weapons of mass destruction'. No one even knows how many are out there - I've heard of estimates in the hundreds of TRILLIONS of dollars worldwide - and the worldwide GDP is only around 60 TRILLION dollars... If the derivatives market starts to implode - we are all in very deep doo-doo.
No - subprime is a horrible mess, but I think that the derivatives market really stands a chance of completely undermining the world economy... Let's just pray that these governement bailouts and central bank infusions of cash pull us back from the precipice...
I'm an Obama supporter - and I agree with the premise of the article.
People like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank should be voted out of office. They were major players in the sub-prime crisis.
But so were Republicans - they had the power during 2001-2006 to do something about Fannie and Freddie - yet they did nothing but political posturing - so there's plenty of blame to go around.
And sub-prime is not the only problem.
Probably more is due to the deregulation that the Republicans pushed. People like Phil Graham - who pushed a bill in 1999 that basically repealed the Glass Steagal act and allowed banks to get into much risker investments. They also allowed the derivatives market to be completely unregulated - which led to the astronomical growth in Credit Default Swaps - which Warren Buffet has referred to as 'financial weapons of mass destruction'. No one even knows how many are out there - I've heard of estimates in the hundreds of TRILLIONS of dollars worldwide - and the worldwide GDP is only around 60 TRILLION dollars... If the derivatives market starts to implode - we are all in very deep doo-doo.
No - subprime is a horrible mess, but I think that the derivatives market really stands a chance of completely undermining the world economy... Let's just pray that these governement bailouts and central bank infusions of cash pull us back from the precipice...
After 12 attempts in 25 years, Congress finally repeals Glass-Steagall, rewarding financial companies for more than 20 years and $300 million worth of lobbying efforts. Supporters hail the change as the long-overdue demise of a Depression-era relic. On Oct. 21, with the House-Senate conference committee deadlocked after marathon negotiations, the main sticking point is partisan bickering over the bill's effect on the Community Reinvestment Act, which sets rules for lending to poor communities. Sandy Weill calls President Clinton in the evening to try to break the deadlock after Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, warned Citigroup lobbyist Roger Levy that Weill has to get White House moving on the bill or he would shut down the House-Senate conference. Serious negotiations resume, and a deal is announced at 2:45 a.m. on Oct. 22. Whether Weill made any difference in precipitating a deal is unclear.
Normally I like having checks and balances in the US government so no single party has all the control. However, in a crisis situation it's far better to have one party in control so they can actually FIX the crisis rather than spend all their time fighting over it instead of actually getting something accomplished. The Republicans had control for 6 of the last 8 years and just enough votes in the last 2 years to be able to block the Democrats from accomplishing anything via filibusters. The majority of the voters seem to agree with me and want to give the Democrats a chance to fix it. The Republicans and their anti-regulation mentality is what caused this mess and no amount of spin is going to convince the voting public otherwise.
Please remember that from 2001-2006 we were hot and heavily dealing with foreign affairs due to the attack on 911 and natural disasters, deregulation of banking/lending industry took a back seat. Not saying it was right, just what happened. Those were things that absolutely could not have been ignored.
I understand your premise, that one party does need control for a while to bypass the filibusters and bickering and get things accomplished. However I do disagree with your view of the term of "democratic control". The last time Democrats had control was during Clinton. It was during that time that things were put in place that the Republicans had to spend so much time trying to undo, such as cutting back on funding to over see sanctions in Iraq, the deregulation of the banking industry and more but these are the two we are dealing with the fall out from now. Please go back and look at the history at congress.org, read the bills, it was the Democrats that forced the deregulations of the lending industry. It was Gore (under Clinton) who allowed France to make contracts with Iraq to fund them even though there were sanctions that were working at the time in place. Democrats had their chance to make a difference when they did have majority control of all three, we have been trying to clean up the mess ever since. Lets give the Republicans a chance to resolve the issues with a focus on those issues and not special interest and pork.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pghquest
All Congree has to do is amend the constitution to get it back, but they wont, its to easy to slide pork projects into current bills. This is one reason spending is out of control..
You are preaching to the choir here my friend.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrbob
I'm an Obama supporter - and I agree with the premise of the article.
People like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank should be voted out of office. They were major players in the sub-prime crisis.
But so were Republicans - they had the power during 2001-2006 to do something about Fannie and Freddie - yet they did nothing but political posturing - so there's plenty of blame to go around.
And sub-prime is not the only problem.
Probably more is due to the deregulation that the Republicans pushed. People like Phil Graham - who pushed a bill in 1999 that basically repealed the Glass Steagal act and allowed banks to get into much risker investments. They also allowed the derivatives market to be completely unregulated - which led to the astronomical growth in Credit Default Swaps - which Warren Buffet has referred to as 'financial weapons of mass destruction'. No one even knows how many are out there - I've heard of estimates in the hundreds of TRILLIONS of dollars worldwide - and the worldwide GDP is only around 60 TRILLION dollars... If the derivatives market starts to implode - we are all in very deep doo-doo.
No - subprime is a horrible mess, but I think that the derivatives market really stands a chance of completely undermining the world economy... Let's just pray that these governement bailouts and central bank infusions of cash pull us back from the precipice...
I agree some Republicans were in on this huge mess, but honestly, it was Democrats, with Obama and Acorn (who he was the lawyer for at the time) who started it by pushing for and got, not only the deregulation of the banking/lending industry, but the ability for organizations like Acorn to sue banks who do not lend mortgages in very low income areas where they KNEW they would go into foreclosure and the banks had to eat those lost $'s and pass the loss onto higher income bracket areas in the form of higher interest rates and fees. That my friend is how Obama has historically "spread the wealth" that he is so fond of speaking of. It is called punishing those who have succeeded in this country and that in my opinion is just wrong, and I don't care which party he is with, it is just wrong.
Disclaimer: I am registered independent and have in the past at different times voted for both parties.
We NEED bipartisanship, keeping (which means us people voting with it in mind) a party balance in congress and oval office is the only way we can even hope for real resolutions that benefit us, the people.
But I have a feeling I am very much wasting my time because those who just believe the rhetoric and catch phrases no matter the truth, will still believe what they want to believe with no thought to the structure and processes of our government, mainly because they were never taught it nor care to take the time to learn it.
Sad, very sad times in deed.
Umm... we need multi-partisanship... this is not a 2 party system. It was never meant to be, but as long as no one balks at what the MSM feeds us, I fear it will conitnue and true change will once again be thwarted.
They're not being fooled, they're just naive with visions of utopia.
How true!
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