The 2008 Financial Crisis Explained

The Financial Crisis Explained: Why Complexity Wasn’t the Problem

We are nearing the fifth anniversary of the 2008 financial crisis, and despite an abundance of evidence, the media and the general public still seem largely misinformed about the hand of government in planting the seeds for the meltdown. The twitchy finger of that hand was the federal government’s aggressive affordable housing policies.

Most folks, however, still believe that the cause of the crisis was some combination of Wall Street greed and government deregulation of financial markets. There also exists the impression that the housing finance market, and especially securitization, had just gotten too darned complex, and that that complexity caused the crisis.

I confess that until I studied the details carefully, I held the same impression. . .

Last two paragraphs:

AEI’s Peter Wallison and Edward Pinto were courageous in identifying the real causes from the very beginning, and the numbers that subsequently emerged confirmed their claims. As a result of government efforts to expand homeownership, by 2008 about half of the loans in the market — some 27 million loans — were risky, subprime, or otherwise nontraditional. Of these, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac held almost half — 12 million. FHA and other federal agencies (such as the Veterans Administration and Federal Home Loan Banks) held 5 million, and Community Reinvestment Act and HUD programs had another 2.2 million. That’s a whopping total of 19.2 million risky loans held by entities controlled by or within the federal government, leaving just 7.8 million for Countrywide, Wall Street, and other private institutions.

Five years on, it should be obvious that the federal government’s well-meaning but misguided affordable housing policies played a decisive role in the crisis.

The mortgage crisis was government driven from the start and many years in the making.

The Origins of the Mortgage Crisis

by Kurt Vangsness on Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 9:02pm ·

The mortgage crisis was government driven from the start and many years in the making. FDR helped to create Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) as part of the New Deal and Richard Nixon chartered the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) in 1970. Then the Community Reinvestment Act was passed in 1977 to prevent "redlining" by banks of low income neighborhoods.

The Clinton Administration instructed Fannie and Freddie to increase the number of risky mortgages in their portfolio from poor and minority communities. HUD Secretary Cuomo helped to facilitate a mandate to fund poor families with down payments and low interest mortgages, which amounted to "affirmative action" lending. Also, community activist groups like ACORN harassed banks and bank executives as well as threatened action under the CRA if the banks didn't make more money available to poor neighborhoods.

Then starting in 2000 various members of Congress and other outside groups called for stricter regulations on Fannie and Freddie, but many other members of Congress, predominately Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, etc. said there was no problem and threatened to block any stricter regulation of the two GSE's (Government Sponsored Entities).

See: Setting the Record Straight: Six Years of Unheeded Warnings for GSE Reform
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=60838741791

From an interview with Barney Frank, the Boston Globe reported the following (see link below):

"Frank, in his most detailed explanation to date about his actions, said in an interview he missed the warning signs because he was wearing ideological blinders. He said he had worried that Republican lawmakers and the Bush administration were going after Fannie and Freddie for their own ideological reasons and would curtail the lenders’ mission of providing affordable housing."

Fannie and Freddie were exempted from Sarbanes Oxley reporting rules. The Democrats also threatened to filibuster any legislation designed to place stricter regulations on Fannie and Freddie in the Senate. When it was clear executives at Fannie and Freddie were guilty of accounting fraud to the tune of $200 million, no one went to jail. A number of the executives like Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick were former Clinton Administration officials and James Johnson was a Democratic Party Operative, so that had friends in high places who protected them.

Meanwhile, Fannie and Freddie continued to amass large portfolio's of mortgage debt, which were then securitized via Wall Street into CMO's (Collateralized Mortgage Obligations). Per Edward Pinto, a former executive at Fannie, starting in 1993 Fannie often misrepresented mortgages which were subprime in nature, as prime when the mortgages were securitized.

This was due to Congress wanting Fannie to pass its lower cost of funds (due to it's de facto Government backing) on to the consumer, i.e., in the form of lower interest rates on mortgages to borrowers. The problem is that Fannie can't give out a "below market" mortgages and then not expect the market to discount the principal value based on market risk pricing (e.g., a risky loan requires a higher interest rate than a low risk loan). Inherently then Fannie was encouraged to misrepresent the mortgages as prime in order to get full principal.

"There is more to this ugly situation. New research by Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer for Fannie Mae and a housing expert, has found that from the time Fannie and Freddie began buying risky loans as early as 1993, they routinely misrepresented the mortgages they were acquiring, reporting them as prime when they had characteristics that made them clearly subprime or Alt-A." see WSJ.com: "The Price for Fannie and Freddie Keeps Going Up"

Once these securities were sold as CMO's, Fannie actually bought these CMO's in the secondary market and held up to $1 trillion in CMO's. Essentially, they were making the market for CMO's and gave the market the illusion of liquidity which essentially increases the market price.

In order for Commercial Banks to buy CMO's they needed to be rated by Moody's, Fitch, and S&P due to a 1930's law, which prevents banks from investing in securities not rated by an outside agency. As reported in the WSJ article "Let's Write the Rating Agencies Out of Our Law," 85% of the tranches of CMO's containing subprime mortgages were rated "AAA" and almost all tranches were rated as investment grade. A banks capital requirements (i.e., allowable leverage) is based on the rating of the security and the type of security. Per the article:

"For every dollar of equity that insurance companies are required to hold for bonds rated AAA, $3 is needed for bonds rated BBB, and $11 is needed for bonds rated just below investment grade (BB). For banks, the sensitivity of capital requirements to ratings is generally even more extreme."

The WSJ article, "A Silver Lining to the Financial Crisis: A More Realistic View of Capitalism," further illustrates how Commercial Banks were encouraged to hold CMO's via regulator capital requirements:

"But under the recourse rule, "well-capitalized" American commercial banks were required to spend 80 percent more capital on commercial loans, 80 percent more capital on corporate bonds, and 60 percent more capital on individual mortgages than they had to spend on asset-backed securities, including mortgage-backed bonds, as long as these bonds were rated AA or AAA or were issued by a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE), such as Fannie or Freddie.Specifically, $2 in capital was required for every $100 in mortgage-backed bonds, compared to $5 for the same amount in mortgage loans and $10 for the same amount in commercial loans." 

So to recap, Commercial banks bought "AAA" rated Mortgage-backed securities because they were safe and allowed the banks to further extend their capital (i.e., greater leverage). So banks were encouraged by banking regulations to buy Fannie or Freddie mortgage-backed securities because they required less capital than holding individual mortgages and commercial loans in which the bank performs its own credit risk assessment instead of the ratings agencies.

Then when the bottom dropped out of the market, Fannie stopped buying CMO's in the secondary market, which accounted for a large part of the market activity. This caused mortgage-backed securities to become illiquid (huge drop in price, because if you can't sell something it has less value). Mark-to-market accounting then required banks to devalue their holdings (on paper) because market prices dropped and in some cases the market price was based on a few "fire-sales" (kind of like appraising your house based on one foreclosure sale 5 blocks away). Then the ratings agencies, realized they screwed up, downgraded the ratings on existing mortgage backed securities being held by the banks even though nothing may have changed in the mortgage security pool backing the CMO's. This drove many banks to be further under-capitalized.

With mortgage-backed security prices in a free fall due to rating down grades and lack of liquidity, Credit Default Swaps based on these CMOs, required capital calls, i.e., more money being paid out (AIG). This was all due to the "perceived market value", i.e., regardless of actual value and actual mortgage defaults. When an investment is as opaque (less available information) as mortgage backed securities and market confidence drops, investors discount the value heavily to account for the unknown (unknown = greater risk = lower price relative to the yield).

This was manufactured and triggered by the government, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and banking regulators. But of course the government points to the Wall Street Investment Banks and mortgage originators as causing the problem. It like blaming the tail for wagging the dog.

REFERENCES:
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Boston Globe: Stance on Fannie and Freddie dogs Frank
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2010/10/14/frank_haunted_by_stance_on_fannie_freddie/
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"Frank, in his most detailed explanation to date about his actions, said in an interview he missed the warning signs because he was wearing ideological blinders. He said he had worried that Republican lawmakers and the Bush administration were going after Fannie and Freddie for their own ideological reasons and would curtail the lenders’ mission of providing affordable housing."
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WSJ.com: The Future of Housing Finance
We'll never get a rational mortgage system until the government's affordable housing mandates are ended.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704407804575425231311880538.html
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WSJ.com: Moving Beyond Fannie and Freddie
The experiences of other countries show there's no need for a government role in housing finance.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704353504575596872063967914.html
"    Research by Edward Pinto, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who was chief credit officer of Fannie Mae in the 1980s, has shown that by 2008 half of all mortgages in the U.S.—27 million—were subprime and other high-risk loans, often with little or no down payments by borrowers. Because of their affordable- housing requirements, the GSEs bore the risk of default on 12 million of these mortgages. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and other government agencies insured or held an additional five million. And banks under the Community Reinvestment Act, and other mortgage providers under a Department of Housing and Urban Development program, made another 2.2 million.
    Thus, more than 19 million subprime loans were the responsibility of taxpayers, courtesy of the federal government's housing policies. The balance, slightly less than eight million loans, were securitized by Countrywide and other private issuers."

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WSJ.com: Fan and Fred and the Problem of Narrative
The GSEs don't fit the left's story about how greedy bankers caused the financial crisis. That's why they haven't been reformed.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703467304575383451809694546.html
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WSJ.com: The Lesson of Basel's Bean Counters
Decades of obsession with accounting standards couldn't overcome the perverse incentives created by 'too big to fail.'
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704508904575192534100550538.html
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WSJ.com: Angels Out of America
How the Dodd bill harms start-ups.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704671904575194483171910348.html

"Mr. Dodd's bill would change all this for the worse. Most preposterously, it would require that start-ups seeking angel investments file with the Securities and Exchange Commission and endure a 120-day review. Rare is the new company that doesn't need immediate access to the capital it raises, and a four-month delay is the kind of rule popular in banana republics that create few new businesses."
=======
WSJ.com: An Economy of Liars
When government and business collude, it's called crony capitalism. Expect more of this from the financial reforms contemplated in Washington.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704508904575192430373566758.html

"The idea that multiplying rules and statutes can protect consumers and investors is surely one of the great intellectual failures of the 20th century. Any static rule will be circumvented or manipulated to evade its application. Better than multiplying rules, financial accounting should be governed by the traditional principle that one has an affirmative duty to present the true condition fairly and accurately not withstanding what any rule might otherwise allow. And financial institutions should have a duty of care to their customers. Lawyers tell me that would get us closer to the common law approach to fraud and bad dealing."
=======
WSJ.com: Staffer One Day, Opponent the Next
The revolving door can turn swiftly at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052702303450704575160043010579272.html
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WSJ.com: Fannie and Freddie Amnesia
Taxpayers are on the hook for about $400 billion, partly because Sen. Obama helped to block reform.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704671904575193910683111250.html

"The date of the Senate Banking Committee's action is important. It was in 2005 that the GSEs which had been acquiring increasing numbers of subprime and Alt-A loans for many years in order to meet their HUD-imposed affordable housing requirements accelerated the purchases that led to their 2008 insolvency. If legislation along the lines of the Senate committee's bill had been enacted in that year, many if not all the losses that Fannie and Freddie have suffered, and will suffer in the future, might have been avoided.

Why was there no action in the full Senate? As most Americans know today, it takes 60 votes to cut off debate in the Senate, and the Republicans had only 55. To close debate and proceed to the enactment of the committee-passed bill, the Republicans needed five Democrats to vote with them. But in a 45 member Democratic caucus that included Barack Obama and the current Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), these votes could not be found."
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WSJ.com: The Dodd Bill and U.S. Competitiveness
Its new taxes and regulations will make the U.S. an unattractive jurisdiction for financial companies.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704117304575137980120672008.html
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WSJ.com: If You Liked Fannie and Freddie...
... You'll love Chris Dodd's latest reform proposal. It would make many more companies too big to fail and lead to far greater financial consolidation.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704743404575127541719271252.html

"If passed in its current form, the bill would give the government control over the financial system in roughly the same way, and to the same extent, that ObamaCare would take over the nation's health care. There isn't a public option, exactly, but the private firms involved would be so heavily regulated that they would be effectively controlled by the government."
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WSJ.com: Most Pundits Are Wrong About the Bubble
The repeal of Glass-Steagall has helped us weather the storm.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122428270641246049.html

"As for the evils of deregulation, exactly which measures are they referring to? Financial deregulation for the past three decades consisted of the removal of deposit interest-rate ceilings, the relaxation of branching powers, and allowing commercial banks to enter underwriting and insurance and other financial activities. Wasn't the ability for commercial and investment banks to merge (the result of the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed part of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act) a major stabilizer to the financial system this past year? Indeed, it allowed Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch to be acquired by J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America, and allowed Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to convert to bank holding companies to help shore up their positions during the mid-September bear runs on their stocks."
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WSJ.com: "A Silver Lining to the Financial Crisis: A More Realistic View of Capitalism"
Two familiar scapegoats for the financial crisis---deregulation and bankers' bonuses--- don't appear to be responsible for the disaster.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704454304575081680480599148.html

"Regulators of banks, insurance companies and broker dealers have all incorporated the work of the ratings agencies into their regulations in myriad ways. Most importantly, bond ratings determine -- as a matter of law -- how much capital regulated institutions need in order to own the bonds.

For every dollar of equity that insurance companies are required to hold for bonds rated AAA, $3 is needed for bonds rated BBB, and $11 is needed for bonds rated just below investment grade (BB). For banks, the sensitivity of capital requirements to ratings is generally even more extreme.

The Bank for International Settlements also uses ratings to drive capital requirements, so the rating agencies have the same role in global capital markets that they have in the U.S.

For money market funds, ratings are equally critical: They are typically barred altogether from investments rated lower than AAA. In short, the ratings agencies are like a Consumer Reports for financial instruments -- but with the force of law behind their ratings. It is as if you were forbidden by law from buying an iron or a toaster unless it is rated 'Excellent.'"
---
"But under the recourse rule, "well-capitalized" American commercial banks were required to spend 80 percent more capital on commercial loans, 80 percent more capital on corporate bonds, and 60 percent more capital on individual mortgages than they had to spend on asset-backed securities, including mortgage-backed bonds, as long as these bonds were rated AA or AAA or were issued by a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE), such as Fannie or Freddie. Specifically, $2 in capital was required for every $100 in mortgage-backed bonds, compared to $5 for the same amount in mortgage loans and $10 for the same amount in commercial loans."
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WSJ.com: "The Price for Fannie and Freddie Keeps Going Up"
Barney Frank's decision to 'roll the dice' on subsidized housing is becoming an epic disaster for taxpayers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703278604574624681873427574.html

"There is more to this ugly situation. New research by Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer for Fannie Mae and a housing expert, has found that from the time Fannie and Freddie began buying risky loans as early as 1993, they routinely misrepresented the mortgages they were acquiring, reporting them as prime when they had characteristics that made them clearly subprime or Alt-A."
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WSJ.com: Let's Write the Rating Agencies Out of Our Law
By Robert Rosenkranz
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123086073738348053.html

"Indeed, that is the entire raison d'être of the $6 trillion structured-finance business, which serves little economic function other than as a rating-agency arbitrage. Subprime mortgages (and all manner of other risky loans) held directly by financial institutions are questionable assets with high associated capital charges. Each one alone would deserve a "junk" rating. Structured finance simply piles such risky assets into bundles and slices the bundles into tranches. The rating agencies deemed some 85% of the tranches by value as AAA, and nearly 99% as investment grade -- thus turning dross into gold by a sort of ratings alchemy."
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AmericanThinker.com: Why the Mortgage Crisis Happened
By M. Jay Wells
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/what_really_happened_in_the_mo.html
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Townhall.com: Frank Data: How Federal Policy Triggered the Mortgage Meltdown
http://townhall.com/columnists/CarlHorowitz/2010/05/29/frank_data_how_federal_policy_triggered_the_mortgage_meltdown
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Video of the CSPAN congressional hearings on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Accounting scandal which came to light in 2004.
see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
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Clinton administration's "BANK AFFIRMATIVE ACTION"
Andrew Cuomo references a Federal Reserve Report that was later discredited.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivmL-lXNy64
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IBDeditorials.com: How the Fed, Media and Academia Aided and Abetted Lending Debacle
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=459798
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WSJ.com: A Mortgage Fable
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122204078161261183.html
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WSJ.com: The Fannie Mae Gang
By Paul A. Gigot
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121677050160675397.html
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WSJ.com: Information Haves and Have-Nots
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122203382068860947.html
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NationalReview.com: Inside Obama’s ACORN
By Stanley Kurtz
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDZiMjkwMDczZWI5ODdjOWYxZTIzZGIyNzEyMjE0ODI=
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IBDeditorials.com: Congress Tries To Fix What It Broke
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=490605
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WSJ.com: Faith in Ratings
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212668589565225.html
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WSJ.com: The Moody's Blues
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120303641478270219.html
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WSJ.com: AAA Oligopoly
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120398754592392261.html
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WSJ.com: Another 'Deregulation' Myth
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122428201410246019.html
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WSJ.com: Spitzer and Sarbox Were Deregulation?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122541609109386729.html
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WSJ.com: The Ratings Racket
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121435051391301517.html
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WSJ.com: The Meltdown That Wasn't - A primer on credit default swaps, the latest Beltway scapegoat.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122670411909729683.html
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WSJ.com: Bad Accounting Rules Helped Sink AIG
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122169320421449849.html
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NYTimes.com: Dear A.I.G., I Quit! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html
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SeattlePI.com: Activists vent at AIG executives http://www.seattlepi.com/business/404117_aigbus22.html

DEFINITELY worth re-posting!

The one thing about George W. Bush that the media refuses, to this day, to write about--in fact, in a video (conveniently since removed from YouTube) of the 2004/2005 hearings on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae--is this...(and the Congressional Black Caucus called it a would-be "economic lynching")!

A history lesson

How the truth terrifies the Left. Proof Bush Is Not To Blame!

The video that was banned in the United States

Congress refused to listen, along with the arrogant Congressman Barney Frank (and also Sen. Chuck Schumer). This video says it all. The liberal media reportedly did not want this video on YouTube and it was taken off.

This link is of the same video, but is routed through Canada. Everyone in America needs to see this before it is yanked off the Internet again!

Let's see how far we can spread it before it's pulled off the Canadian site.

VIDEO

Did you know that Lee Harvey Oswald had attempted to assassinate a right-wing general named Edwin Walker before he shot Kennedy?

In 1963, a popular Democratic president was assassinated by a Marxist named Oswald, who had actually defected to the Soviet Union and returned to the U.S. with a Soviet wife, was an active member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and had attempted to assassinate a right-wing general named Edwin Walker earlier in the year.

Yet those who write history found these facts inconvenient. They created a different history in which the "atmosphere of hate" in the southern city of Dallas, Texas, led to the terrible political violence. In other words, it was political conservatism that led to John F. Kennedy's assassination.

How the Democrats Nearly Destroyed the Economy

Gov't policies promoted systematic loosening of underwriting standards to promote affordable housing, which then contributed to housing bubble, mortgage meltdown and financial crisis

Conclusion: The major cause of the financial crisis in the United States was the collapse of housing and mortgage markets resulting from an accumulation of an unprecedented number of weak and risky Non-Traditional Mortgages (NTMs). These NTMs began to default en masse beginning in 2006, triggering the collapse of the worldwide market for mortgage-backed securities and in turn triggering the instability and insolvency of financial institutions that we call the financial crisis. Government policies forced a systematic industry-wide loosening of underwriting standards in an effort to promote affordable housing, compounded by moral hazard spread by Fannie and Freddie."

Here are six facts about the government's role in the crisis...

"If the GOP can make this narrative mainstream, and put this picture into the heads of voters nationwide, the Democrats are toast..."

The Tea Party WMD stockpile is currently stored in book form: Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon. By Gretchen Morgenson, one of America’s best business journalists who is currently at The New York Times, and noted financial analyst Joshua Rosner, Reckless Endangerment gives the best available account of how the growing chaos in the mortgage and personal finance markets and the rampant bundling of dubious loans into exotically toxic securities plunged the world, and millions of American families, into the gravest financial crisis since World War Two.

Fanniegate: Gamechanger For The GOP?

Big Government: "Some of us who don’t even own homes are paying to support others and their home ownership..."

For American taxpayers, now on the hook for some $145 billion in housing losses connected to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans, that amount could be just the tip of the iceberg.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the losses could balloon to $400 billion. And if housing prices fall further, some experts caution, the cost to the taxpayer could hit as much as $1 trillion.

Fannie-Freddie Bailout Could Cost Taxpayers $1 Trillion

What actually caused the financial crisis in the United States?

From a financial consultant to major corporations (who wishes to remain anonymous):

This was government driven from the start. The systemic risk was injected by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and fueled by the Fed. Congress continued to encourage the bad behavior by not reining in Fannie and Freddie and in many cases encouraged them to go further. Regulation also encouraged banks to load up on the hidden systemic risk.

Wall Street is primarily a symptom of the Governments off balance sheet social program financing scheme. It makes Enron look like child's play. Those in Government who are responsible are using the typical populist scapegoat ploy to avoid scrutiny.

The Fed provided the fuel in greater dollars. Fannie and Freddie were the conduit which incentivized the banks to increase loan originations. Fannie and Freddie fed the junk to Wall Street often misrepresenting subprime mortgages as prime, which were then packaged into opaque securities obscured through multiple parties and sheer numbers in a pool. The securities were then often mis-rated by S&P, Fitch, & Moody's (required by gov't regulation for bank investment) a defacto government oligopoly, which then affected the eventual under capitalization by the banks once the securities ratings were downgraded. Again banks were encouraged to invest in mortgage-backed securities by capital requirement regulations because they were perceived by regulators to be less risk than individual mortgages or typical securities such as bonds or commercial loans, etc.

Then Fannie was purchasing a large number of mortgage-backed securities essentially making the market and giving the market the impression these securities were more liquid than they really were, which increased the price. If these people were not in the government or in a Government Sponsored Entity, they would all be in jail today.

WSJ.com: The Lesson of Basel's Bean Counters
Decades of obsession with accounting standards couldn't overcome the perverse incentives created by 'too big to fail.'
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704508904575192534100550538.html
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WSJ.com: Angels Out of America
How the Dodd bill harms start-ups.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704671904575194483171910348.html

Mr. Dodd's bill would change all this for the worse. Most preposterously, it would require that start-ups seeking angel investments file with the Securities and Exchange Commission and endure a 120-day review. Rare is the new company that doesn't need immediate access to the capital it raises, and a four-month delay is the kind of rule popular in banana republics that create few new businesses.

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WSJ.com: An Economy of Liars
When government and business collude, it's called crony capitalism. Expect more of this from the financial reforms contemplated in Washington.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704508904575192430373566758.html

The idea that multiplying rules and statutes can protect consumers and investors is surely one of the great intellectual failures of the 20th century. Any static rule will be circumvented or manipulated to evade its application. Better than multiplying rules, financial accounting should be governed by the traditional principle that one has an affirmative duty to present the true condition fairly and accurately—not withstanding what any rule might otherwise allow. And financial institutions should have a duty of care to their customers. Lawyers tell me that would get us closer to the common law approach to fraud and bad dealing.

=======
WSJ.com: Staffer One Day, Opponent the Next
The revolving door can turn swiftly at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052702303450704575160043010579272.html
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WSJ.com: Fannie and Freddie Amnesia
Taxpayers are on the hook for about $400 billion, partly because Sen. Obama helped to block reform.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704671904575193910683111250.html

The date of the Senate Banking Committee's action is important. It was in 2005 that the GSEs—which had been acquiring increasing numbers of subprime and Alt-A loans for many years in order to meet their HUD-imposed affordable housing requirements—accelerated the purchases that led to their 2008 insolvency. If legislation along the lines of the Senate committee's bill had been enacted in that year, many if not all the losses that Fannie and Freddie have suffered, and will suffer in the future, might have been avoided.

Why was there no action in the full Senate? As most Americans know today, it takes 60 votes to cut off debate in the Senate, and the Republicans had only 55. To close debate and proceed to the enactment of the committee-passed bill, the Republicans needed five Democrats to vote with them. But in a 45 member Democratic caucus that included Barack Obama and the current Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), these votes could not be found.

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WSJ.com: The Dodd Bill and U.S. Competitiveness
Its new taxes and regulations will make the U.S. an unattractive jurisdiction for financial companies.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704117304575137980120672008.html
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WSJ.com: If You Liked Fannie and Freddie...
... You'll love Chris Dodd's latest reform proposal. It would make many more companies too big to fail and lead to far greater financial consolidation.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704743404575127541719271252.html

If passed in its current form, the bill would give the government control over the financial system in roughly the same way, and to the same extent, that ObamaCare would take over the nation's health care. There isn't a public option, exactly, but the private firms involved would be so heavily regulated that they would be effectively controlled by the government.

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WSJ.com: Most Pundits Are Wrong About the Bubble
The repeal of Glass-Steagall has helped us weather the storm.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122428270641246049.html

As for the evils of deregulation, exactly which measures are they referring to? Financial deregulation for the past three decades consisted of the removal of deposit interest-rate ceilings, the relaxation of branching powers, and allowing commercial banks to enter underwriting and insurance and other financial activities. Wasn't the ability for commercial and investment banks to merge (the result of the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed part of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act) a major stabilizer to the financial system this past year? Indeed, it allowed Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch to be acquired by J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America, and allowed Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to convert to bank holding companies to help shore up their positions during the mid-September bear runs on their stocks.

=======
WSJ.com: "A Silver Lining to the Financial Crisis: A More Realistic View of Capitalism"
Two familiar scapegoats for the financial crisis---deregulation and bankers' bonuses--- don't appear to be responsible for the disaster.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704454304575081680480599148.html

But under the recourse rule, "well-capitalized" American commercial banks were required to spend 80 percent more capital on commercial loans, 80 percent more capital on corporate bonds, and 60 percent more capital on individual mortgages than they had to spend on asset-backed securities, including mortgage-backed bonds, as long as these bonds were rated AA or AAA or were issued by a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE), such as Fannie or Freddie. Specifically, $2 in capital was required for every $100 in mortgage-backed bonds, compared to $5 for the same amount in mortgage loans and $10 for the same amount in commercial loans.

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WSJ.com: "The Price for Fannie and Freddie Keeps Going Up"
Barney Frank's decision to 'roll the dice' on subsidized housing is becoming an epic disaster for taxpayers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703278604574624681873427574.html

There is more to this ugly situation. New research by Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer for Fannie Mae and a housing expert, has found that from the time Fannie and Freddie began buying risky loans as early as 1993, they routinely misrepresented the mortgages they were acquiring, reporting them as prime when they had characteristics that made them clearly subprime or Alt-A.

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WSJ.com: Let's Write the Rating Agencies Out of Our Law
By Robert Rosenkranz
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123086073738348053.html

Indeed, that is the entire raison d'être of the $6 trillion structured-finance business, which serves little economic function other than as a rating-agency arbitrage. Subprime mortgages (and all manner of other risky loans) held directly by financial institutions are questionable assets with high associated capital charges. Each one alone would deserve a "junk" rating. Structured finance simply piles such risky assets into bundles and slices the bundles into tranches. The rating agencies deemed some 85% of the tranches by value as AAA, and nearly 99% as investment grade -- thus turning dross into gold by a sort of ratings alchemy.

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AmericanThinker.com: Why the Mortgage Crisis Happened
By M. Jay Wells
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/what_really_happened_in_the_mo.html
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Video of the CSPAN congressional hearings on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Accounting scandal which came to light in 2004.
see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
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Clinton administration's "BANK AFFIRMATIVE ACTION"
Andrew Cuomo references a Federal Reserve Report that was later discredited.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivmL-lXNy64
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IBDeditorials.com: How the Fed, Media and Academia Aided and Abetted Lending Debacle
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=459798
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WSJ.com: A Mortgage Fable
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122204078161261183.html
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WSJ.com: The Fannie Mae Gang
By Paul A. Gigot
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121677050160675397.html
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WSJ.com: Information Haves and Have-Nots
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122203382068860947.html
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NationalReview.com: Inside Obama's ACORN
By Stanley Kurtz
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDZiMjkwMDczZWI5ODdjOWYxZTIzZGIyNzEyMjE0ODI=
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IBDeditorials.com: Congress Tries To Fix What It Broke
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=490605
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WSJ.com: Faith in Ratings
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212668589565225.html
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WSJ.com: The Moody's Blues
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120303641478270219.html
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WSJ.com: AAA Oligopoly
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120398754592392261.html
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WSJ.com: Another 'Deregulation' Myth
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122428201410246019.html
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WSJ.com: Spitzer and Sarbox Were Deregulation?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122541609109386729.html
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WSJ.com: The Ratings Racket
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121435051391301517.html
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WSJ.com: The Meltdown That Wasn't - A primer on credit default swaps, the latest Beltway scapegoat.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122670411909729683.html
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WSJ.com: Bad Accounting Rules Helped Sink AIG
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122169320421449849.html
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NYTimes.com: Dear A.I.G., I Quit! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html
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SeattlePI.com: Activists vent at AIG executives http://www.seattlepi.com/business/404117_aigbus22.html

Guess how many attempts President Bush made to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since he took office in 2001:

** 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)


** 2004

February: The President’s FY05 Budget again highlights the risk posed by the explosive growth of the GSEs and their low levels of required capital, and called for creation of a new, world-class regulator: “The Administration has determined that the safety and soundness regulators of the housing GSEs lack sufficient power and stature to meet their responsibilities, and therefore…should be replaced with a new strengthened regulator.” (2005 Budget Analytic Perspectives, pg. 83)

February: CEA Chairman Mankiw cautions Congress to “not take [the financial market's] strength for granted.” Again, the call from the Administration was to reduce this risk by “ensuring that the housing GSEs are overseen by an effective regulator.” (N. Gregory Mankiw, Op-Ed, “Keeping Fannie And Freddie’s House In Order,” Financial Times, 2/24/04)

June: Deputy Secretary of Treasury Samuel Bodman spotlights the risk posed by the GSEs and called for reform, saying “We do not have a world-class system of supervision of the housing government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), even though the importance of the housing financial system that the GSEs serve demands the best in supervision to ensure the long-term vitality of that system. Therefore, the Administration has called for a new, first class, regulatory supervisor for the three housing GSEs: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banking System.” (Samuel Bodman, House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Testimony, 6/16/04)


** 2005

April: Treasury Secretary John Snow repeats his call for GSE reform, saying “Events that have transpired since I testified before this Committee in 2003 reinforce concerns over the systemic risks posed by the GSEs and further highlight the need for real GSE reform to ensure that our housing finance system remains a strong and vibrant source of funding for expanding homeownership opportunities in America… Half-measures will only exacerbate the risks to our financial system.” (Secretary John W. Snow, “Testimony Before The U.S. House Financial Services Committee,” 4/13/05)


** 2007

July: Two Bear Stearns hedge funds invested in mortgage securities collapse.

August: President Bush emphatically calls on Congress to pass a reform package for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying “first things first when it comes to those two institutions. Congress needs to get them reformed, get them streamlined, get them focused, and then I will consider other options.” (President George W. Bush, Press Conference, The White House, 8/9/07)

September: RealtyTrac announces foreclosure filings up 243,000 in August – up 115 percent from the year before.

September: Single-family existing home sales decreases 7.5 percent from the previous month – the lowest level in nine years. Median sale price of existing homes fell six percent from the year before.

December: President Bush again warns Congress of the need to pass legislation reforming GSEs, saying “These institutions provide liquidity in the mortgage market that benefits millions of homeowners, and it is vital they operate safely and operate soundly. So I’ve called on Congress to pass legislation that strengthens independent regulation of the GSEs – and ensures they focus on their important housing mission. The GSE reform bill passed by the House earlier this year is a good start. But the Senate has not acted. And the United States Senate needs to pass this legislation soon.” (President George W. Bush, Discusses Housing, The White House, 12/6/07)


** 2008

January: Bank of America announces it will buy Countrywide.

January: Citigroup announces mortgage portfolio lost $18.1 billion in value.

February: Assistant Secretary David Nason reiterates the urgency of reforms, says “A new regulatory structure for the housing GSEs is essential if these entities are to continue to perform their public mission successfully.” (David Nason, Testimony On Reforming GSE Regulation, Senate Committee On Banking, Housing And Urban Affairs, 2/7/08)

March: Bear Stearns announces it will sell itself to JPMorgan Chase.

March: President Bush calls on Congress to take action and “move forward with reforms on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They need to continue to modernize the FHA, as well as allow State housing agencies to issue tax-free bonds to homeowners to refinance their mortgages.” (President George W. Bush, Remarks To The Economic Club Of New York, New York, NY, 3/14/08)

April: President Bush urges Congress to pass the much needed legislation and “modernize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. [There are] constructive things Congress can do that will encourage the housing market to correct quickly by … helping people stay in their homes.” (President George W. Bush, Meeting With Cabinet, the White House, 4/14/08)

May: President Bush issues several pleas to Congress to pass legislation reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the situation deteriorates further.

“Americans are concerned about making their mortgage payments and keeping their homes. Yet Congress has failed to pass legislation I have repeatedly requested to modernize the Federal Housing Administration that will help more families stay in their homes, reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ensure they focus on their housing mission, and allow State housing agencies to issue tax-free bonds to refinance sub-prime loans.” (President George W. Bush, Radio Address, 5/3/08)

“[T]he government ought to be helping creditworthy people stay in their homes. And one way we can do that – and Congress is making progress on this – is the reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That reform will come with a strong, independent regulator.” (President George W. Bush, Meeting With The Secretary Of The Treasury, the White House, 5/19/08)

“Congress needs to pass legislation to modernize the Federal Housing Administration, reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ensure they focus on their housing mission, and allow State housing agencies to issue tax-free bonds to refinance subprime loans.” (President George W. Bush, Radio Address, 5/31/08)

June: As foreclosure rates continued to rise in the first quarter, the President once again asks Congress to take the necessary measures to address this challenge, saying “we need to pass legislation to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.” (President George W. Bush, Remarks At Swearing In Ceremony For Secretary Of Housing And Urban Development, Washington, D.C., 6/6/08)

July: Congress heeds the President’s call for action and passes reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as it becomes clear that the institutions are failing.


From Gateway Pundit: Pelosi Caught In Major Lie- Says Bush Didn’t Warn Congress About Financial Crisis… Records Show He Warned Congress 17 Times in 2008 Alone

Behind Obama's Phony Deficit Numbers

President Obama was disingenuous when he said that the budget deficit he faced "when I walked in the door" of the White House was $1.3 trillion. He went on to say that he only increased it to $1.4 trillion in 2009 and was raising it to $1.6 trillion in 2010.

As Joe Wilson said, "You lie."

Here are the facts...

Read more

Does this sound like Enron to anyone???

White House shenanigans--playing all of us for fools!

Barney Frank's decision to 'roll the dice' on subsidized housing is becoming an epic disaster for taxpayers

There is more to this ugly situation. New research by Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer for Fannie Mae and a housing expert, has found that from the time Fannie and Freddie began buying risky loans as early as 1993, they routinely misrepresented the mortgages they were acquiring, reporting them as prime when they had characteristics that made them clearly subprime or Alt-A.

The Price for Fannie and Freddie Keeps Going Up

If Obama passes healthcare...

Here's what you can expect:

• The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775 - they've had 234 years to get it right; it is broke, and even though heavily subsidized, it can't compete with private sector FedExp and UPS services.
  
• Social Security was established in 1935 - they've had 74 years to get it right; it is broke.
  
• Fannie Mae was established in 1938 - they've had 71 years to get it right; it is broke. Freddie Mac was established in 1970 - they've had 39 years to get it right; it is broke. Together Fannie and Freddie have now led the entire world into the worst economic collapse in 80 years.
  
• The War on Poverty was started in 1964 - they've had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our hard earned money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor"; it hasn't worked.
  
• Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 - they've had 44 years to get it right; they are both broke; and now our government dares to mention them as models for all US health care.
  
• AMTRAK was established in 1970 - they've had 39 years to get it right; last year they bailed it out as it continues to run at a loss!
  
• This year, a trillion dollars was committed in the massive political payoff called the Stimulus Bill of 2009; it shows NO sign of working; it's been used to increase the size of governments across America, and raise government salaries while the rest of us suffer from economic hardships. It has yet to create a single new private sector job. Our national debt projections (approaching $10 trillion) have increased 400% in the last six months.
• "Cash for Clunkers" was established in 2009 and went broke in 2009--after 80% of the cars purchased turned out to be produced by foreign companies, and dealers nationwide are buried under bureaucratic paperwork demanded by a government that is not yet paying them what was promised.

So with a perfect 100% failure rate and a record that proves that each and every "service" shoved down our throats by an over-reaching government turns into disaster, how could any informed American trust our government to run or even set policies for America's health care system--17% of our economy?

Maybe each of us has a personal responsibility to let others in on this brilliant record before 2010, and then help remove from office those who are voting to destroy capitalism and destroy our grandchildren's future!

A veteran - whether active duty, retired, national guard or reserve - is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America", for an amount of "up to and including my life." That is honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it. -- Author Unknown

Important financial information the Democrats don't want you to know

VIDEO: Timeline shows Bush, McCain warning Dems of financial and housing crisis; meltdown

Shocking list! Bush and Republicans repeatedly called for financial reforms and were blocked by Democrats--who took over Congress in 2006--including Chris Dodd (Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee) and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and more

VIDEO REMOVED (wonder why) but text explains all: Democrats distorted the market through the CRA and through Fannie and Freddie’s massive securitizing of bad debt, and then blocked regulators from doing their jobs...shocking Congressional Video: Democrats insist “nothing wrong” at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac (2004)

Letter to an ignorant Obama-worshipping kool aid-drinking friend

(Name removed even though none of my liberal friends would ever waste their precious Obama-worshipping time on my blog...and I say "ignorant" because every Obamaphile I know REFUSES to even glance at ANY news reflecting badly on him.)

This person, a real estate agent, was telling me how great things are (and how Obama is cleaning up Bush's mess) so I sent this: Bloomberg reported yesterday – “U.S. Home Prices May Be Lost for a Generation”

"A major lesson of Fan and Fred and the subprime fiasco is that no one benefits when we push families into homes they can't afford. Yet that's what Congress is doing once again as it relentlessly expands FHA lending with minimal oversight or taxpayer safeguards." Wall Street Journal reports today – “The Next Housing Bust”

Wall Street Journal reports today: …the International Monetary Fund has just released a study of estimated losses on U.S. loans and securities. It was very bleak -- $2.7 trillion, double the estimated losses of six months ago. Our estimates at RGE Monitor are even higher, at $3.6 trillion, implying that the financial system is currently near insolvency in the aggregate.

PS: Your history is factually incorrect about the previous eight years.

Bush and Republicans repeatedly called for financial reforms and were blocked by Democrats--who took over Congress in 2006--including Chris Dodd (Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee) and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and more: http://tinyurl.com/5xz7d6

Democrats distorted the market through the CRA and through Fannie and Freddie’s massive securitizing of bad debt, and then blocked regulators from doing their jobs. Shocking Congressional Video: Democrats insist “nothing wrong” at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac (2004): http://tinyurl.com/4njuuv

The man who screwed America

After Gobi, Barney Frank become involved in another questionable -- and possibly criminally tainted -- relationship with a man called Herb Moses. Moses, whom Frank called his "spouse," was a high-level executive at Fannie Mae from 1991 until 1998. Dubbed a "mortgage guru" by the National Mortgage News, Moses boasted that he helped develop "many of Fannie Mae's affordable housing and home improvement lending programs." It was, of course, these kinds of programs that ultimately led to the collapse of the subprime mortgage market that wiped out trillions dollars from the economy and produced the economic turmoil that we now face. Even though there were those warning against the precarious nature of the enterprise, Barney Frank -- whose committee oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- kept resisting reforms and besmirching those voicing concerns.

When the Bush administration proposed that oversight of Fannie and Freddie be transferred to the Treasury Department, Frank strongly opposed the plan, claiming:

"These two entities... are not facing any kind of financial crisis... The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

Frank continued to claim almost until the day of the collapse that the two mortgage giants were financially sound. If we lived in a sane world, Barney Frank would be compelled to testify about his culpability in the current crisis and what role his romantic involvement with Herb Moses -- as well as the campaign contributions he received from Fannie and Freddie -- played in his shilling for these two moribund institutions.

Commenting on his shenanigans, Jeff Jacoby observed that under normal circumstances Frank's questionable relationships could have well landed him in prison. Voters in his very liberal congressional district, however, have awarded him with a string of easy re-elections.

Read the whole thing: Who Is Barney Frank?

Warning

Phony Mortgage Plan
By Dick Morris (former advisor to Bill Clinton)
Posted: 03/10/09 04:46 PM [ET]

President Obama and his big spenders are moving quickly, to the relief of those who are facing foreclosure on their mortgages. But the program they are offering will do nothing for those most in need.

In the fine print, Obama’s plan provides no relief for any homeowner whose mortgage exceeds the total value of his home. But these folks are the ones who have been conned into taking sub-prime mortgages so loaded with brokerage commissions, interest rate subsidies, bank fees and lawyer and title-company charges that the amount of the mortgage has ballooned. These high mortgage amounts, coupled with declining property values, have turned about 20 percent of American mortgages upside down, so that the debt exceeds the value of the property.

By excluding these homeowners from help, Obama is guilty of a holier-than-thou hypocrisy. Was it not Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that encouraged such over-mortgaged properties? Was it not the Democrats in Congress who passed legislation urging Fannie and Freddie to weaken the standards to allow more low- and lower-middle-income families to buy homes?

How can Obama suddenly pretend to be so shocked — shocked — that about 20 percent of America’s home mortgages are now worth more than the property they finance? It was the insistence of liberal Democrats that made it so. When Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros demanded that Fannie and Freddie invest 42 percent of their assets in buying low- and lower-middle-income mortgages, and when his successor Andrew Cuomo raised the quota to 50 percent, what did they think would happen? When they explicitly told Fannie and Freddie not to insist on down payments in the mortgages they purchased, how did they think the purchase would be funded? Obviously, if you don’t require the borrower to put money down, the full purchase price must be covered by the mortgage. To now, piously, refuse to come to the rescue of those who fell for your party’s seeming generosity and bought homes on the terms it suggested is hypocritical at best.

But it is not only the over-mortgaged whom Obama will ignore, but those who have lost their jobs! If you do not make enough money such that your mortgage payments come to 31 percent of your income, you can’t get your mortgage refinanced. If your income has dropped to a point where your monthly payments on your loan consume a greater part of your earnings than 31 percent, you are stuck.

So we have Obama rushing to the aid of those who have been hurt in this bad economy, but exempting from his proposed relief anyone who has lost his job and seen a cut in income or whose property values have dropped below the amount of his mortgage. In other words, he’ll help anyone but those most in need.

And, once again, Obama would limit his aid to those who make below $200,000 a year. While he doesn’t specify this limit in his proposal, he does limit his intervention to mortgages of less than $720,000. At standard mortgage interest rates, such a loan would call for $60,000 or so in payments a year. To qualify for relief, your mortgage payment can’t be larger than 31 percent of your income — or about $200,000. Once more, Obama makes it clear that he is not the president of anyone who makes that much money or more. He is only the president of the other people.

Obama, of course, forgets — or doesn’t care — that those making over $200,000 account for almost a third of the total national spending and that you cannot stimulate an economy while constantly cutting off those people from any consideration in any government program. But Obama is determined to try.

Morris, a former adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of Outrage. To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by e-mail or to order a signed copy of their new best-selling book, Fleeced, go to dickmorris.com.

Blame For the Financial Meltdown Heaped On Democrats

The infamous Congressional video plus some new info from Gateway Pundit