When confronted with the truth

[sirs]

...yell "racist" (or at least make the accusation it's racially motivated)

Frank says GOP housing attacks racially motivated  
 
Oct 6, 2008
By GLEN JOHNSON

BOSTON (AP) - Rep. Barney Frank said Monday that Republican criticism of Democrats over the nation's housing crisis is a veiled attack on the poor that's racially motivated.

The Massachusetts Democrat, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the GOP is appealing to its base by blaming the country's mortgage foreclosure problem on efforts to expand affordable housing through the Community Reinvestment Act.

He said that blame is misplaced, because those loans are issued by regulated institutions, while far more foreclosures were triggered by high-cost loans made by unregulated entities.

"They get to take things out on poor people," Frank said at a mortgage foreclosure symposium in Boston. "Let's be honest: The fact that some of the poor people are black doesn't hurt them either, from their standpoint. This is an effort, I believe, to appeal to a kind of anger in people."

Frank also dismissed charges the Democrats failed on their own or blocked Republican efforts to rein in the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The federal government recently took control of both entities.

House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio called Frank's remarks "a lame, desperate attempt to divert Americans' attention away from the Democratic party's obstruction of reforms that would have reined in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and helped our nation avoid this economic crisis."

"Congressman Frank should retract his ridiculous statements and start taking responsibility for the role he and other top Democrats played in putting Main Street Americans in this mess," Boehner said.

Frank said Republicans controlled Congress for 12 years and passed no regulation, while Democrats passed a Bush administration Fannie and Freddie regulation package since gaining control of the House and Senate in January 1997.

"If I could have stopped a Republican bill during the Bush years, I would have started with the war in Iraq. Then I would have gone to the Patriot Act. Then I would have gone on to the hundreds of millions in tax cuts," said Frank, to applause from the audience.

The longtime congressman is being challenged this fall by both Republican and independent candidates. He has been criticized in his liberal district for being one of the leaders of congressional efforts last week to win approval of a $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan.
 

Article

Did anyone catch, that Frank's boytoy was in a direct position to receive $$$$$, by Frank & Co's obstructive efforts towards the application of more stringent regulations & oversight over Fannie & Freddie?  But naaaaaa, no conflict of interest, here.  Look over there. they're racist    

[Michael Tee]

That's what I thought too.  HAS to be racial.  Lehman Bros., Merill Lynch, Bear Stearns, AIG, Washington Mutual, IndyMac, Countrywide Financial . . . WHY all this focus on Fanny and Freddy, as if they are the only cause or symptom that requires closer examination?

This is a real no-brainer.  Fanny and Freddy were in the business of trying to get better housing for poor people.  Get it?  No?  How about KNEE-GROWS, you get THAT?  Sure ya do.  OK, so now all you white-trash Palin fans have a good grasp of the subject, ya know what Fannie and Freddie were up to, lemme ask ya, ever get a good look at the, uh, fine, healthy sun-tans , nudge, nudge, wink, wink that all those Fanny and Freddy executive officers seemed to be sporting, get my drift??

The Republican attack ads built around Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are just naked racism at its worst, the almost lily-white financials with ties to the McCain campaign aren't even mentioned, McCain's staff links to Fannie and Freddie aren't mentioned either.  We are witnessing a really sleazy attempt to tie the financial collapse, the biggest failure to date of the Bush administration that affects the nation rather than a handful of families, is being pinned on Democrats, blacks and Obama.

But this time, I think it'll be just too much to expect the American electorate, dumb as they are, to buy it.  Their intelligence has been insulted just one time too many.  NOTHING can now save the Insane Campaign.

[sirs]

That's what I thought too.  HAS to be racial.  Lehman Bros., Merill Lynch, Bear Stearns, AIG, Washington Mutual, IndyMac, Countrywide Financial . . . WHY all this focus on Fanny and Freddy, as if they are the only cause or symptom that requires closer examination?

Probably because no one has said that (Fannie and Freedie are THE ONLY sources of the current housing mess).  Doesn't stop that lie from being perpetuated now though, doesn't it.  Poor deflection, BTW as well

[Michael Tee]

<<Probably because no one has said that (Fannie and Freedie are THE ONLY sources of the current housing mess).  Doesn't stop that lie from being perpetuated now though, doesn't it.  Poor deflection, BTW as well>>

They don't HAVE to say it.  Their ads keep zeroing in on those two AS IF they were the sole cause and pretty soon all the watching sheeple forget all about other causes and come to think that the sole cause of the collapse were the misguided efforts of Big Government to get decent housing for "neeegros."  And of course that Barak will push more of same.

[sirs]

<<Probably because no one has said that (Fannie and Freedie are THE ONLY sources of the current housing mess).  Doesn't stop that lie from being perpetuated now though, doesn't it.  Poor deflection, BTW as well>>

They don't HAVE to say it. 

They do in order to make the accusation valid.  Otherwise, it remains a perpetual lie, that they, and they alone are the source of everything evil in the housing & economic mess.  But by all means, continue with the lie.  SOP

[Amianthus]

WHY all this focus on Fanny and Freddy, as if they are the only cause or symptom that requires closer examination?

Because Fannie and Freddie created the mortgage pools, while those other companies only bought their products...

[Christians4LessGvt]

Yeah Barney Frank is really a man we can trust!

Before Barney Frank was having homo sex with a Fannie Mae Executive he had
over-sight responsibilities over, he was caught with a male hooker who ran
a bisexual prostitution service out of Frank's apartment!

[Michael Tee]

<<Because Fannie and Freddie created the mortgage pools, while those other companies only bought their products...>>

I get it.  So all those other companies that bought the products were unable to evaluate their toxicity.  Their critical faculties suddenly evaporated once Fannie and Freddie laid the products out on the table for them.

How does your theory explain Washington Mutual, one of the largest retail banks in the U.S.A.?  They must have had a huge mortgage lending business direct to consumers, they didn't have to buy from Fannie or Freddie.

I guess your theory really helps lung cancer victims, though.  RJR creates the product and the poor cancer victim only bought their products.  Do you think lung cancer victms should collect big damages from major tobacco growers, producers and distributors?

[Plane]

Do you think lung cancer victms should collect big damages from major tobacco growers, producers and distributors?

The winnings from those suits have been accepted by the State governments involved.

[Amianthus]

How does your theory explain Washington Mutual, one of the largest retail banks in the U.S.A.?  They must have had a huge mortgage lending business direct to consumers, they didn't have to buy from Fannie or Freddie.

I'm guessing you don't understand how Fannie and Freddie work.

Basically, twice a month, both of them buy up mortgages from all of the banks that originate them (WaMu, Wachovia, Wells Fargo, etc). This is a 72 hour marathon trading session, and all IT staff were on call during these days. These mortgages are then aggregated into pools, and bonds are created based on those pools. The bond tranches are then sold to various investment houses (Lehman, Merrill Lynch, etc). Fannie and Freddie have agreements with the originating banks so that the bank will be paid by Fannie and Freddie to continue to service the mortgage (collect payments, fees, handle escrow accounts, etc) but most of the P&I goes to Freddie and Fannie to pay their bonds. This frees up lots of money in the mortgage market (because the bank that originated your mortgage is paid almost immediately, and they can use that money to go out and originate more loans) and Freddie and Fannie have a good income from the bond products they sell (which they use to buy more mortgages) and the income from the monthly mortgage payments.

At the time I worked for Fannie, basically all loans originated with less than 5% down were bought by Freddie, and all loans originated with at least 5% down were bought by Fannie (with some notable exceptions). This changed in the late '90s, Fannie started buying lots of loans that they had left to Freddie previously, which exposed them to more of the sub-prime market.

Fannie and Freddie do not originate loans themselves, they only buy mortgages from other banks. And they buy virtually all of the mortgages originated in the US. (Ginnie Mae is also involved, but it's much smaller than the other two.)

[richpo64]

>>This is a real no-brainer.  Fanny and Freddy were in the business of trying to get better housing for poor people.  Get it?  No?  How about KNEE-GROWS, you get THAT?<<

There's another fine example of what the left really think. This one believes only "KNEE-GROWS" are poor.

[richpo64]

>>I'm guessing you don't understand how Fannie and Freddie work.<<

I'd put money on it.

[Michael Tee]

Thanks, Ami, I learned something from that.  I had a pretty good idea before, since my wife had worked for Bank of Montreal's lawyers back in the 1960s, engaged in the bundling of mortgages for sale to select New York banks. 

I did realize that Fannie and Freddie were not original lenders but bought bundles of mortgages from the "retail" banks and used them as collateral on bond issues bought up by financial houses in New York and elsewhere.

What I didn't realize was that a big bank like WaMu would sell all of its residential mortgages to Fannie and Freddie, in fact I would have thought that a large portion of its residential mortgages would remain in the bank and that bundles would be sold only as and if cash was required.  I kind of had it figured that Fannie and Freddie being government, would probably be buying a lot of sub-primes in execution of policies to put minorities into decent housing, but I had no idea these were regular bi-monthly trading sessions.

It's always good to get an account from an insider and I really appreciated reading what you had to say.  The 72-hour marathon bi-monthly trading sessions were news to me.  I never gave any thought to the servicing of the mortgages after they were sold, but if I had, it would have made sense that the original lenders would continue to service the loans for a fee for reasons of convenience, customer knowledge, and probably maintaining the banker-customer relationship and being able to sell him or her further banking services and products during the term of the loan.

[Amianthus]

What I didn't realize was that a big bank like WaMu would sell all of its residential mortgages to Fannie and Freddie, in fact I would have thought that a large portion of its residential mortgages would remain in the bank and that bundles would be sold only as and if cash was required.

Well, not all, but a big bank would typically sell >90% of it's mortgages to Freddie, Fannie, or Ginnie. The "mortgage only" banks like Prime Mortgage, Countrywide, Fieldstone, etc., would sell 100% of their mortgages.

[Michael Tee]

Just out of curiosity, at the bi-monthly marathon mortgage sales, how much opportunity do the buyers have to evaluate the securities?  Is each one a package with a credit report, survey, photo, realty tax bill and appraisal or are there agencies that pre-screen and rate packages by the bundle into various classes of security, A, B, C, D etc.?