The Mother Of All Financial Scandals, The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac racket - Page 6 - Big Big Forums

DrHolliday · 11-19-2008, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by anothersta

Another Dem in the pockets of Fannie and Freddie

This financial crisis lies right in the laps of the Democrats.

No question about it. The crisis started with Carter and Clinton threatening banks if they did not issue out more subprime loans. Then when the Republicans saw there was a problem and wanted action, the Democrats said, "No."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

Jolie Rouge · 02-04-2009, 06:14 PM

Watch out for Barney Frank’s paws

In theory, I have no problem with limiting the executive pay and bonuses of corporations that take billions in taxpayer-funded bailout money. As Nicole Gelinas put it: “It is untenable for taxpayers directly to support lavish pay for executives at government-guaranteed corporations. When the taxpayer is bearing all risk — as the taxpayer is now in much of the financial industry — the government should set limits.”

But the first question is: Where are the limits on Fannie and Freddie corruptocrats’ executive pay? Have those been passed yet? Are they equal to the limits on private executives’ pay?

And the second question is: Where will it stop? Barney Frank has no intention of restraining his grubby government paws. Via Financial Week:
http://www.financialweek.com/apps/pb...39977/1003/TOC

Quote:

Mr. Frank seems to be in synch with the Obama administration in his plans for executive compensation.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said last month that he might try to extend to all U.S. companies a restriction that prohibits bailout banks from taking a tax deduction of more than $500,000 in pay for each executive.

The Troubled Assets Relief Program legislation enacted in October seeks to give companies receiving aid under the $700 billion bailout a number of incentives to curb what it calls excessive executive pay.

Mr. Geithner said he would consider “extending at least some of the TARP provisions and features of the $500,000 cap to U.S. companies generally.”

Congress will consider legislation to extend some of the curbs on executive pay that now apply only to those banks receiving federal assistance, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said.

“There’s deeply rooted anger on the part of the average American,” the Massachusetts Democrat said at a Washington news conference today.

He said the compensation restrictions would apply to all financial institutions and might be extended to include all U.S. companies.

Where’s my favorite socialism/theft logo? There it is:

Quote:

“There’s deeply rooted anger on the part of the average American,”

Yeah, Barney, it’s because not 3 years ago you and your buddies were on “The Hill” pitching the solvency of Fannie and Freddie and praising the executives there for all the great work they’d done, justifying their ridiculous executive pay. How quickly you forget that it was your and your cronies’ ridiculous backing of insolvent, mismanaged organizations and years of pushing “affordable mortgages” to people who had no business getting a home loan that plunged us into this financial mess.

The goal of every American owning a home is as stupid as it is unrealistic. This financial crisis was caused by a socialistic goal of achieving equitable homeownership using government backed organizations.

The new Democratic ( and maybe Republican )motto: Socialize, Fail, Repeat.

There NEVER should have been ANY bailouts. These companies run by incompetent management should have been allowed to fail. Period.

Now we have the camel’s nose (government control) under the tent flap. The rest is following right along.

Now the government is taking control. Executive pay is just the start. As an aside, what caliber executive will you get for $500,000. Why not just go for the whole thing and install government bureaucrats to run the companies.

And as others mentioned above, they even want to extend this to companies that don’t take bailout money.

Jolie Rouge · 03-13-2009, 02:04 PM

A syndicated column today takes on racial demagogue and crony of color Maxine Waters, whose crooked ways I’ve covered since my first days at the L.A. Daily News. It’s about time the rest of the media put her under the microscope. Wait ’til she starts beating them over the head with the race card. It’s worked for decades. Now, she’ll just have to scream louder. I am looking forward to watching the Democrats try to ignore this most beastly example of the culture of corruption in their fold.

(Reminder: Go back and look at my liveblogging of the TARP debate. Note how aggressive Waters was in taking a lead role pushing congressional black caucus members to swallow the crap sandwich. No disclosure of her own self interest in the matter. She’s just a Champion of The People, speaking Truth to Power. And here’s another reminder of minority racketeers pushing for their bailout cut with Waters’ assistance. Business as usual, rainbow coalition shakedown-style.)

I think we should start referring to Waters as “Bank of OneUnited,” the same way she referred to bank execs by their company name.

***

Maxine Waters: Banking on hypocrisy
by Michelle Malkin
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/03/13...maxine-waters/

At a flail-and-wail House hearing last month, California Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters melted down in front of big banking CEOs. “Raise your hand! Raise your hand!” she shrieked as she harangued the executives on their business practices and management of federal bailout money. Sneering at the “captains of the universe” whom she refused to address by name (”You, Bank of America!”), Rep. Waters excoriated the corporate heads for their greed. ” All of my political life,” Waters bragged, “I have been in disagreement with the banking and mostly financial services community because of practices that I have believed to be not in the best interest always of the very people that they claim to serve.”

As you’ll soon see, however, the ethically conflicted Rep. Waters has her own special definition of what’s in “the best interest” of the people she claims to serve. While she crusades against crony pseudo-capitalism, she is one of its most hypocritical beneficiaries and advocates. Cronyism comes in all colors. Waters has once again earned her title as one of the “Most Corrupt” members of Congress from the left-leaning (yes, left-leaning) Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

The bank CEOs sat meekly during Waters’ verbal flogging. But as she frothed at the mouth, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Franks covered up the microphone and chastised her briefly. To no avail. Waters’ motor mouth kept on running. Did the banks raise interest rates on credit card customers after they took Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money, she thundered? Thumping her fists on the table, she then railed about their loan modification policies (”How many require that you have to be behind by two months!?”). Blustering about underwriting fees they paid themselves on government-backed bond sales, she yelled: “You made money off the TARP money!” One of her fellow Democrats finally ended the diatribe: “I’m going to have to calm you down because when the Chairman gets back he’s going to have to penalize me.”

Fast-forward a month later. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the high-and-mighty Waters had a personal and financial stake in Boston-based OneUnited, a minority bank that received $12 million in TARP money under smelly circumstances. The banks’ executives donated $12,500 to her congressional campaigns. Her husband, Sidney Williams, was an investor in one of the banks that merged into One United. They’ve profited handsomely from their relationship with the bank:

“Congressional financial-disclosure forms show Ms. Waters acquired OneUnited stock worth between $250,000 and $500,000 in March 2004, as did Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams joined the board of OneUnited that year. Each sold shares in September 2004 — including Ms. Waters’s entire stake — but Mr. Williams continued to hold varying amount of the company’s stock. In the lawmaker’s most recent financial-disclosure form, dated May 2008 and covering the prior year, Ms. Waters reported that her husband held between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of the bank’s stock. Mr. Williams also received interest payments from a separate holding at the bank, also worth between $250,000 and $500,000. The 2008 form doesn’t specify what that is. Mr. Williams stepped down from the bank’s board last spring. It couldn’t be learned whether he still owns stock in the bank. Mr. Williams didn’t return calls seeking comment.”

Waters (along with Rep. Frank) participated directly in pressuring the feds for OneUnited’s piece of the bailout pie. She personally contacted the Treasury Department last December requesting $50 million for the company– and failed to disclose her ties to the bank to them. The government ended up coughing up $12 million in TARP funding for OneUnited — despite another government agency rapping the bank in October 2008 for “operating without effective underwriting standards and practices,” “operating without an effective loan documentation program” and “engaging in speculative investment practices.”

Oh, and get this: The favored bank of Maxine Waters was also penalized for alleged excessive executive compensation. The FDIC ordered the bank to “sell all bank-owned automobiles,” require reimbursement for executives’ car purchases (according to the Boston Business Journal, OneUnited CEO Kevin Cohee was cruising around in a 2008 Porsche SUV), and cease payments on a $6 million Santa Monica beachfront home purchased by Cohee, his wife who served as bank president, and others.

Responding to scrutiny of the bank’s special treatment, Cohee is now accusing critics of — yep, you guessed it — racism.

Now, who is sick of Democrat shakedown artists sanctimoniously lecturing others about the culture of corruption? Raise your hand! Raise your hand!

Jolie Rouge · 03-13-2009, 02:04 PM

The WSJ shines light on bank haranguer Maxine Waters’ conflict of interest.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1236..._whats_news_us

MARCH 12, 2009
Waters Helped Bank Whose Stock She Once Owned [i]
California Democrat Has Championed Minority

WASHINGTON -- When Rep. Barney Frank was looking to aid a Boston-based lender last fall, the Massachusetts Democrat urged Maxine Waters, a colleague on the House Financial Services Committee, to "stay out of it," he says.

The reason: Ms. Waters, a longtime congresswoman from California, had close ties to the minority-owned institution, OneUnited Bank.

Ms. Waters and her husband have both held financial stakes in the bank. Until recently, her husband was a director. At the same time, Ms. Waters has publicly boosted OneUnited's executives and criticized its government regulators during congressional hearings. Last fall, she helped secure the bank a meeting with Treasury officials.

Getty Images
Rep. Maxine Waters, center, with Earvin "Magic" Johnson, left, and Ms. Waters's husband, Sidney Williams, at the 2009 BET Honors Reception in Washington, D.C.
Her involvement isn't new. Ms. Waters has detailed her financial ties in a series of federal disclosure forms and has been vocal in public in support of the bank. Those ties, however, have received little public attention. Nor is it well known how the influential lawmaker has over the years acted to support the bank and its executives.

Such potential conflicts of interest are more serious as the banking system's crisis has led the government to take an increasingly active role in overseeing financial institutions, including OneUnited. The financial-services committee on which Ms. Waters sits oversees banking issues, and the lawmaker is a potential future chairman.

Representatives of the bank and Ms. Waters didn't return calls seeking comment. Ms. Waters's congressional staff didn't respond to written questions about her and her husband's relationship with the bank.

Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group, says Ms. Waters should have recused herself from any matters involving the bank. If her support helped OneUnited, "it was a disservice to her constituents," Ms. Krumholz says.

Ms. Waters, who represents inner-city Los Angeles, hasn't made a secret of her family's financial interest in OneUnited. Referring to her family's investment, she said in 2007 during a congressional hearing that for African-Americans, "the test of your commitment to economic expansion and development and support for business is whether or not you put your money where your mouth is."

OneUnited's executives have donated $12,500 to Ms. Waters's election campaigns.

Through a series of acquisitions, OneUnited grew to become what it says is the largest African-American-owned bank in the country. It once counted the late Motown Records boss Jheryl Busby as a vice chairman.

Ms. Waters and her husband, Sidney Williams, were investors in two African-American owned California banks that merged with other lenders in 2002 to form OneUnited. Congressional financial-disclosure forms show Ms. Waters acquired OneUnited stock worth between $250,000 and $500,000 in March 2004, as did Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams joined the board of OneUnited that year.

Each sold shares in September 2004 -- including Ms. Waters's entire stake -- but Mr. Williams continued to hold varying amount of the company's stock. In the lawmaker's most recent financial-disclosure form, dated May 2008 and covering the prior year, Ms. Waters reported that her husband held between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of the bank's stock.

Getty ImagesMr. Williams also received interest payments from a separate holding at the bank, also worth between $250,000 and $500,000. The 2008 form doesn't specify what that is. Mr. Williams stepped down from the bank's board last spring. It couldn't be learned whether he still owns stock in the bank. Mr. Williams didn't return calls seeking comment.

At a hearing on minority lending in 2007, Ms. Waters criticized regulators for not doing enough to help minority banks stave off mergers with non-minority institutions. The lawmaker said she had contacted the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2002 over such concerns and "I was told that there was nothing that could be done."

In her 2007 remarks, Ms. Waters alluded to two banks, Independence Bank of Washington, D.C., and "another bank that was about to be acquired by a major white bank out of Illinois."

Ms. Waters didn't mention that OneUnited had been an unsuccessful suitor of Independence, which had been taken over several years earlier. The second bank, which she didn't name, appears to have been Family Savings Bank of Los Angeles. In 2002, that bank backed out of a merger agreement with FBOP Bank of Oak Brook, Ill., and shortly afterward was acquired by OneUnited.

News reports at the time credited the intervention of Ms. Waters and others for Family Savings's change of heart.

At the hearing, Ms. Waters praised OneUnited's senior counsel, Robert P. Cooper, as "typical of the young, brilliant minds that have been amassed at OneUnited Bank."

OneUnited's minority-lending record is mixed. The bank received "outstanding" Community Reinvestment Act ratings for lending in Los Angeles. It has weak ratings in Massachusetts and failed to meet minimum standards in Florida.

In January, Ms. Waters acknowledged she made a call to the Treasury on OneUnited's behalf. The bank's capital, which was heavily invested in shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was all but wiped out with the federal takeover of the two mortgage giants, and the bank was seeking help from regulators.

OneUnited eventually secured bailout funds under the government's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was set up later that month.

In a brief interview in January, Ms. Waters said she was unaware the bank received $12 million of TARP money, which arrived in December. OneUnited was "just a small" bank, she said.

A provision designed to aid OneUnited was written into the federal bailout legislation by Mr. Frank, who is chairman of the financial-services panel. Mr. Frank has said he inserted the provision to help the only African-American owned bank in his home state. He said in an interview that Ms. Waters's interest "had zero impact on the outcome because I would have done it anyway."

In October, regulators demanded that OneUnited raise fresh capital and name an independent board. The bank was ordered to stop paying for a Porsche used by one of its executives and its chairman's $6.4 million beachfront home in Pacific Palisades, Calif., a luxury enclave between Malibu and Santa Monica.

Jolie Rouge · 03-13-2009, 02:11 PM

NAACP: Big Banks Gave Blacks Bad Loans

From the NAACP’s amanuenses at the Associated Press: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090313/...discrimination

The NAACP is accusing Wells Fargo and HSBC of forcing blacks into subprime mortgages while whites with identical qualifications got lower rates.

Class-action lawsuits were to be filed against the banks Friday in federal court in Los Angeles, Austin Tighe, co-lead counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, told The Associated Press.

Black homebuyers have been 3 1/2 times more likely to receive a subprime loan than white borrowers, and six times more likely to get a subprime rate when refinancing, Tighe said. Blacks still were disproportionately steered into subprime loans when their credit scores, income and down payment were equal to those of white homebuyers, he said.

Melissa Murray, vice president of corporate communications for Wells Fargo & Co., called the lawsuit "totally unfounded and reckless." The bank is receiving federal bailout funds.

"We have never tolerated, and will never tolerate, discrimination in any way, shape or form in any of our business practices, products, or services," Murray said.

HSBC said it does not comment on litigation. "HSBC stands by its fair lending and consumer protection practices, and we are confident that we are treating our customers fairly and with integrity," said Neil Brazil, vice president for public affairs.

An NAACP member, Amara Weaver of Milwaukee, said she was one of the victims of predatory lending. She bought her first home in 1984, receiving a 6.25 percent fixed-rate mortgage. She says she had a steady job as a human resources director for a social services agency, never missed a mortgage payment and maintained excellent credit.

In 2004, she wanted to buy the house next door for her son to live in. She said the bank promised her a low fixed rate for a $40,000 loan, but at the closing, when reading the fine print, she noticed that the rate was actually 11 percent.

"I was blown away," said Weaver, an NAACP member. "I didn't have any choice (but to sign). ... It made me feel violated."

Similar NAACP lawsuits are pending against a dozen other subprime lenders.

"This is systematic, institutionalized racism," Tighe said. "Once you take out factors relative to income and credit risk, the only difference between the borrowers is the color of their skin."

Tighe estimated that "tens of thousands" of blacks had been forced into bad loans, but said it was difficult to gauge the scope of the problem because banks keep much of their internal data private. The lawsuits could force banks to divulge closely guarded information, such as how banks can determine the race of a loan applicant and how federal bailout funds are being spent.

The NAACP is seeking reforms from the banks such as increased transparency in the loan process, educational outreach and internal training.

Jolie Rouge · 10-30-2009, 01:01 AM

See Congresswoman, Tied to Bank, Helped Seek Funds

California Rep. Waters is under investigation
By Larry Margasak, Associated Press Writer
Thu Oct 29, 7:23 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The House ethics committee said Thursday it's investigating whether California Rep. Maxine Waters used her influence to help a bank in which her husband owned stock — and whether the couple benefited as a result.

Waters is the No. 3 Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee and chairwoman of its subcommittee on housing. She has been an influential voice in the committee's work to overhaul financial regulations.

Waters came under scrutiny after former Treasury Department officials said she helped arrange a meeting between regulators and executives at OneUnited Bank last year without mentioning her husband's financial ties to the institution.

Her husband, Sidney Williams, holds at least $250,000 in its stock. He previously served on the bank's board. Waters' spokesman, Michael Levin, said Williams was no longer on the board when the meeting was arranged.

Waters has said the National Bankers Association, a trade group, requested the meeting. She defended her role in assisting minority-owned banks in the midst of the nation's financial meltdown and dismissed suggestions she used her influence to steer government aid to the bank.

"I am confident that as the investigation moves forward the panel will discover that there are no facts to support allegations that I have acted improperly," Waters said in a statement.

The committee unanimously voted to establish an investigative subcommittee to gather evidence and determine whether Waters violated standards of conduct.

The committee said it would investigate "alleged communications and activities with, or on behalf of, the National Bankers Association or OneUnited Bank" and "the benefit, if any, Rep. Waters or her husband received as a result."

The committee also voted unanimously to investigate whether Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Calif., violated rules of the House, its Code of Conduct or the Ethics in Government Act by failing to disclose property, income and liabilities on her financial disclosure forms.

The investigation also will determine whether Richardson received an impermissible gift or preferential treatment from a lender, "relating to the foreclosure, recission of the foreclosure sale or loan modification agreement" for her Sacramento property.

Richardson said she has been subjected to "premature judgments, speculation and baseless distractions that will finally be addressed in a fair, unbiased, bipartisan evaluation of the facts."

"Like 4.3 million Americans in the last year who faced financial problems because of a personal crisis like a divorce, death in the family, unexpected job and living changes and an erroneous property sale, all of which I have experienced in the span of slightly over a year, I have worked to resolve a personal financial situation," she said in a statement.

The committee ended an investigation of Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., and released a report finding no ethical violations. It investigated whether Graves used his position on the Small Business Committee to invite a longtime friend, and business partner of his wife, to testify at a committee hearing on the federal regulation of biodiesel and ethanol production.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091029/...FsaWZvcm5pYXJl