Fannie Mae wants more money

What’s new from Fannie Mae?  Well, guess what, they are now asking the U. S. Treasury for $15.2  billion more and this is (after the bailout).

The US government-controlled Fannie  Mae reported a loss of 25.2 billion dollars in the fourth quarter driven mainly by the effects of a prolonged housing slump and a global financial crisis.

It had a third-quarter loss of 29.0 billion dollars. For the full year of 2008, the company posted a loss of 58.7 billion dollars, almost 27 times higher than the 2007 loss of 2.1 billion dollars.

Fannie Mae said it submitted a request Wednesday for 15.2 billion dollars from the Treasury “in order to eliminate our net worth deficit as of December 31, 2008.”

“We expect the market conditions that contributed to our net loss for each quarter of 2008 to continue and possibly worsen in 2009, which is likely to cause further reductions in our net worth,” the company said in a statement.

For the rest of the story. (RIP Paul Harvey)

Now, watch the video below from late 2004 how the regulatory guy who was trying to put a stop to the lending practices and fraud in Fannie Mae – how he is being berated and attacked by these people who are supposed to be representing the people of America.  We have been had.  And had bad.

Note:  Mr. Arthur Davis shown on this video was a man and stepped up and said he was wrong in his comments at the time and for that he has my admiration.  I don’t know of any other person who is shown who has done that.

H/T:  Jammie Wearing Fool

Posted:  03.01.09

What Caused Our Economic Crisis? Money For Nothing and Your Houses For Free (Repost)

This was first posted in September of 2008.

This video made it to the Mainstream Media.  New Media, the internet, and American citizens, are doing the legwork and investigative reporting so lacking in the Mainstream.

I’m not sure what version of the video this is, but what about this attempt to shut this video down?  More strong arm tactics?  That freedom of speech really does rub some people the wrong way.  And we sure don’t want them in the White House.  (Too late now)

ALERT 09/30 15:00 pm ET: YouTube has now taken down not only the first version of the Burning Down the House video produced by TheMouthPiece, but has also taken down versions 2 (9/27) and 3 (9/29).  The version directly below is now removed.

http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/burning-down-the-house-what-caused-our-economic-crisis/

HERE’S THE NEW VERSION BELOW:

The current mess would never have occurred in the absence of ill-conceived federal policies. The federal government chartered Fannie Mae in 1938 and Freddie Mac in 1970; these two mortgage lending institutions are at the center of the crisis. The government implicitly promised these institutions that it would make good on their debts, so Fannie and Freddie took on huge amounts of excessive risk.

Worse, beginning in 1977 and even more in the 1990s and the early part of this century, Congress pushed mortgage lenders and Fannie/Freddie to expand subprime lending. The industry was happy to oblige, given the implicit promise of federal backing, and subprime lending soared.

This subprime lending was more than a minor relaxation of existing credit guidelines. This lending was a wholesale abandonment of reasonable lending practices in which borrowers with poor credit characteristics got mortgages they ere ill-equipped to handle.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Reposted:  02.27.09