McCain's advisor created financial crisis

[jschuck12001]

Oh so lobbyist now equate to having the freaking vice chairman of the creator the crisis on your VP vetting committee? Are you kidding me...

he wasnt the creator. Trust me, I ran a branch for Countrywide from 2003-2008 in central Florida, I went thru the 3 phases of layoffs and the final shutdown. You have no clue, you guys just post bills and quote people but you weren't in the trenches and you didnt see what went on. Everyone was eating up the housing market and Everyone was greedy and the current Administration did nothing to stop it. Its the Presidents job to see these things coming and he didnt, he enjoyed the fruits and bragged of home ownership but has taken no responsibility.

 

[jreeves]

he wasnt the creator. Trust me, I ran a branch for Countrywide from 2003-2008 in central Florida, I went thru the 3 phases of layoffs and the final shutdown. You have no clue, you guys just post bills and quote people but you weren't in the trenches and you didnt see what went on. Everyone was eating up the housing market and Everyone was greedy and the current Administration did nothing to stop it. Its the Presidents job to see these things coming and he didnt, he enjoyed the fruits and bragged of home ownership but has taken no responsibility.

Obama is knee deep in this....

"Obama received more donations from employees of investment banks and hedge funds than from any other sector, with Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase among his biggest sources of support."Individual donors included Ken Griffin, the multi-billionaire founder and chief executive of Chicago-based Citadel Investment Group, one of the world's biggest hedge fund companies," the UK's Financial Times reported July 17, 2007.[57]

"Obama's fundraising was more heavily dominated by financial professionals than other main candidate. He received $160,760 from employees of Lehman Brothers, just over $100,000 each from employees of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase and $61,125 from Citigroup employees," the Times reported.


Barack Obama/Campaign Financing - Congresspedia


Lobbyists who have hundreds of clients doesn't equate to the Vice Chair working to select your VP.....

BTW I work in the Real Estate market I know how financial companies operate.

 

[jschuck12001]

Obama is knee deep in this....

"Obama received more donations from employees of investment banks and hedge funds than from any other sector, with Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase among his biggest sources of support."Individual donors included Ken Griffin, the multi-billionaire founder and chief executive of Chicago-based Citadel Investment Group, one of the world's biggest hedge fund companies," the UK's Financial Times reported July 17, 2007.[57]

"Obama's fundraising was more heavily dominated by financial professionals than other main candidate. He received $160,760 from employees of Lehman Brothers, just over $100,000 each from employees of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase and $61,125 from Citigroup employees," the Times reported.




Barack Obama/Campaign Financing - Congresspedia


Lobbyists who have hundreds of clients doesn't equate to the Vice Chair working to select your VP.....

BTW I work in the Real Estate market I know how financial companies operate.

Whats your point, Candidates need money for their campaigns. I know the majority of the people at these companies are not evil, just some of the top executives made some greedy decisions. The numbers you showed are low, a little over $300k in contributions. That barely buys a 30 second spot on comedy central.

PS Real Estate and Financial companies are completely different animals. While I am busting my hump in the office 12 hours a day you are showing houses and bugging loan officers to get your loans funded. Being a real estate agent doesnt make you have one clue of went on in one of these large companies.

 

[Chris]

he wasnt the creator. Trust me, I ran a branch for Countrywide from 2003-2008 in central Florida, I went thru the 3 phases of layoffs and the final shutdown. You have no clue, you guys just post bills and quote people but you weren't in the trenches and you didnt see what went on. Everyone was eating up the housing market and Everyone was greedy and the current Administration did nothing to stop it. Its the Presidents job to see these things coming and he didnt, he enjoyed the fruits and bragged of home ownership but has taken no responsibility.

Bush has almost destoyed America.

I hope we can save it.

 

[jreeves]

Whats your point, Candidates need money for their campaigns. I know the majority of the people at these companies are not evil, just some of the top executives made some greedy decisions. The numbers you showed are low, a little over $300k in contributions. That barely buys a 30 second spot on comedy central.

PS Real Estate and Financial companies are completely different animals. While I am busting my hump in the office 12 hours a day you are showing houses and bugging loan officers to get your loans funded. Being a real estate agent doesnt make you have one clue of went on in one of these large companies.

I work for Multi-housing real estate and have helped secured loans in excess of 15 million dollars. So yes I do know how they operate... While you answer phones at the office...

He receives more of his campaign funding from the financial sector than he does any other business sector.

 

[jreeves]

Bush has almost destoyed America.

I hope we can save it.

Great contribution to the subject at hand...

 

[Chris]

Great contribution to the subject at hand...

Rising unemployment, rising gas prices, record foreclosures, record trade deficit, the Big Three on the verge of bankrupcy, $700 billion dollars wasted on Iraq, a $500 billion dollar budget deficit, and a stock market crash.

Let's end this madness.

Vote for Obama/Biden on November 4th.

 

[jreeves]

Rising unemployment, rising gas prices, record foreclosures, record trade deficit, the Big Three on the verge of bankrupcy, $700 billion dollars wasted on Iraq, a $500 billion dollar budget deficit, and a stock market crash.

Let's end this madness.

Vote for Obama/Biden on November 4th.

More mindless drivel that is completely off topic....

 

[jschuck12001]

I work for Multi-housing real estate and have helped secured loans in excess of 15 million dollars. So yes I do know how they operate... While you answer phones at the office...

He receives more of his campaign funding from the financial sector than he does any other business sector.

Sorry, I dont answer phones, I did that when I was a kid, I ran a P&L for a branch that had 32 employees and we did about 15 million a month in business(13-17 million consistently). Do you mean you secured 15 million in your entire career, Wow. Like I said, you have no idea

 

[jreeves]

Sorry, I dont answer phones, I did that when I was a kid, I ran a P&L for a branch that had 32 employees and we did about 15 million a month in business(13-17 million consistently). Do you mean you secured 15 million in your entire career, Wow. Like I said, you have no idea

That was a single loan...point is I know how the financial sector works.

 

[editec]

Blaming the businesses which obeyed the laws in place, but not the government that allowed those foolish laws to be in place makes little sense to me.

To the extent that those corporations lobbied the government to pass those laws, however, is entirely a different kettle of fish.

They are not going to fix this problem, folks, because they cannot fix this problem.

The price of real estate is going to drift down till the value of real estate has SOMETHING to do with the incomes of the people who buy it.

The relationship between how much money people make and how much their houses cost is so far out of line, that nothing but a continued decline in the value of real estate is going to fix it.

And while the price of real estate is collapsing, the banks that hold assets based on the value of real estate will continue to fold, the economy will be in the crapper, and the the people who actually have to work for a living will suffer.

So if the average family income is $50? the average home in the USA can't be worth much more than $100K. $75K would actually be even better, to be honest.

And that's my rosey picture of what will happen, folks.

My worst case scenario is just too gruesome to even pen.

I do tire of bumming some of you out, I really do.

 

[rayboyusmc]

What does it feel like to be in total denial for a party?

After 7 years of Bush and his ignorant crony picks, we are screwed, but of course it'st the lefts fault.

NEWS: Years before Phil Gramm was a McCain campaign adviser and a lobbyist for a Swiss bank at the center of the housing credit crisis, he pulled a sly maneuver in the Senate that helped create today's subprime meltdown.

AND DESPITED THE DENIALS, THIS MAN IS STILL MCCAIN'S CHIEF FINANCIAL ADVISOR.





Who's to blame for the biggest financial catastrophe of our time? There are plenty of culprits, but one candidate for lead perp is former Sen. Phil Gramm. Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridors of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupted Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and advises the Republican candidate on economic matters. He's been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win. That's right: A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. Talk about a market failure.

Gramm's long been a handmaiden to Big Finance. In the 1990s, as chairman of the Senate banking committee, he routinely turned down Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt's requests for more money to police Wall Street; during this period, the sec's workload shot up 80 percent, but its staff grew only 20 percent. Gramm also opposed an sec rule that would have prohibited accounting firms from getting too close to the companies they audited—at one point, according to Levitt's memoir, he warned the sec chairman that if the commission adopted the rule, its funding would be cut. And in 1999, Gramm pushed through a historic banking deregulation bill that decimated Depression-era firewalls between commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and securities firms—setting off a wave of merger mania.

But Gramm's most cunning coup on behalf of his friends in the financial services industry—friends who gave him millions over his 24-year congressional career—came on December 15, 2000. It was an especially tense time in Washington. Only two days earlier, the Supreme Court had issued its decision on Bush v. Gore. President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress were locked in a budget showdown. It was the perfect moment for a wily senator to game the system. As Congress and the White House were hurriedly hammering out a $384-billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Written with the help of financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the chairman of the agriculture committee, the measure had been considered dead—even by Gramm. Few lawmakers had either the opportunity or inclination to read the version of the bill Gramm inserted. "Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on or what was in it," says a congressional aide familiar with the bill's history.
It's not exactly like Gramm hid his handiwork—far from it. The balding and bespectacled Texan strode onto the Senate floor to hail the act's inclusion into the must-pass budget package. But only an expert, or a lobbyist, could have followed what Gramm was saying. The act, he declared, would ensure that neither the sec nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (cftc) got into the business of regulating newfangled financial products called swaps—and would thus "protect financial institutions from overregulation" and "position our financial services industries to be world leaders into the new century."

 

[Chris]

Yes, we don't want government interferring with business.

Until they go bankrupt, and the government has to bail them out.

 

[sealybobo]

Democrats and their allies attempted to tie Wall Street's growing financial crisis to the policies advocated by John McCain's former senior adviser.

The critics are pointing to a 1999 law co-sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) and that paved the way for consolidation between commercial and investment banks.

"The system of regulation of these integrated banks has failed, and it is clear that much stronger firewalls are needed," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said of the so-called Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) picked up on that line during a scathing floor speech Tuesday morning that compared Sen. McCain's (R-Ariz.) approach to the economy with that of the Hoover administration. In his speech, Reid blasted the Republican candidate's decision to choose Gramm as a top economic adviser.

"The same Phil Gramm who, as a senator, was responsible for deregulation in the financial services industries that paved the way for much of this crisis to occur," Reid said. “It was Phil Gramm who pushed legislation through a Republican Senate that allowed firms like Enron to avoid regulation and destroy the life savings of its employees, and it was Phil Gramm’s legislation that now allows Wall Street traders to bid up the price of oil, leaving us to pay the bill."

Gramm served as McCain's chief economic adviser until July when he resigned after saying the country is in a "mental recession" and has "sort of become a nation of whiners."

TheHill.com - Dems tie Wall Street woes to Phil Gramm

This is a slam dunk! The race is OVER. No way the Republicans can ask for another 4 years. No way McCain is going to get away with calling himself a maverick or suggesting he can fix the mess we are in.

By the way, I want everyone to see how McCain was able to be a maverick for the past 8 years:

Employing a method known as "catch and release," DeLay allowed centrist or moderately conservative Republicans to take turns voting against controversial bills. If a representative said that a bill was unpopular in his district, then DeLay would ask him to vote for it only if his vote were necessary for passage; if his vote were not needed, then the representative would be able to vote against the party without reprisal.

 

[HoleInTheVoid]

Andrew Cuomo and Fannie and Freddie
How the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history gave birth to the mortgage crisis
By Wayne Barrett
The Village Voice
Tuesday, August 5th

…Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country’s current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded “kickbacks” to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. Three to four million families are now facing foreclosure, and Cuomo is one of the reasons why.

Andrew Cuomo and Fannie and Freddie - News - Village Voicepage 1 - Village Voice

Turns out McCain, like president Bush, saw the disaster coming and have tried to tighten oversight:

Senator McCain Speaks in Support of
The FEDERAL HOUSING ENTERPRISE REGULATORY REFORM ACT OF 2005
The United States Senate
May 25, 2006

Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.

The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

Of course, as oft repeated and equally ignored: Obama has accepted over $120k in his very brief tenure compared to McCain $20k over a decade.

I guess Fannie and Freddie knew who their friends were.

 

[oreo]

You may want to check out a couple of other threads on this board--that actually have FACTS--along with congressional records.

John McCain is on "congressional record" & co-sponsored a bill for reining in Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae 3 years ago in 2005. The democrat lead congress ignored his warnings, along with UPPS! Senator Barack Husien Obama, (who was probably more busy planning his Presidential run.) McCain's warnings are on record & on another thread within this site. They are FACT.

Jim Johnson--you might want to look his name up. You know the one Barack Obama DEFENDED for running Freddie Mac, while he was dolling out campaign contributions from these agencies to UPPS! # 1 money taker--democrat Criss Dodd & # 2 money taker Barack Husien Obama.

Now ask yourselves: Why is it John McCain is calling for a full investion of Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae, & the "messiah" Barack Husien Obama does not want one?

Hmm?

 

[sealybobo]

You may want to check out a couple of other threads on this board--that actually have FACTS--along with congressional records.

John McCain is on "congressional record" & co-sponsored a bill for reining in Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae 3 years ago in 2005. The democrat lead congress ignored his warnings, along with UPPS! Senator Barack Husien Obama, (who was probably more busy planning his Presidential run.) McCain's warnings are on record & on another thread within this site. They are FACT.

Jim Johnson--you might want to look his name up. You know the one Barack Obama DEFENDED for running Freddie Mac, while he was dolling out campaign contributions from these agencies to UPPS! # 1 money taker--democrat Criss Dodd & # 2 money taker Barack Husien Obama.

Now ask yourselves: Why is it John McCain is calling for a full investion of Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae, & the "messiah" Barack Husien Obama does not want one?

Hmm?

Let me guess, John McCain was unsuccessful in stopping this predatory lending, right?

Employing a method known as "catch and release," DeLay allowed centrist or moderately conservative Republicans to take turns voting against controversial bills. If a representative said that a bill was unpopular in his district, then DeLay would ask him to vote for it only if his vote were necessary for passage; if his vote were not needed, then the representative would be able to vote against the party without reprisal.

You my friend are what they call a sucker.

I don't know why they call it common sense when it isn't all that common.

 

[sealybobo]

and the ice caps are melting, and, and, and, guns are bad!!!!!!!!!!

lol

Do you know what the government is designed to do? They are supposed to protect the citizens from things like PREDATORY LENDING.

So when I go sign a mortgage, I assume that the company I'm dealing with can't take advantage of me because the government wouldn't allow them to. Just like I don't read everything they put in front of me when I sign the mortgage. The broker tells me what it says and I trust them.

But this is not true when the GOP are in charge. Industries are deregulated to the point that they can get away with unethical business practices and the consumer gets screwed in the end.

So if the banks weren't being affected by all the foreclosures, you would think all the predatory lending was hunky dorey, right? That's bullshit.

Imagine how many other things the GOP did that caused this recession. We just don't know about them yet.

 

[DiamondDave]

Do you know what the government is designed to do? They are supposed to protect the citizens from things like PREDATORY LENDING.

So when I go sign a mortgage, I assume that the company I'm dealing with can't take advantage of me because the government wouldn't allow them to. Just like I don't read everything they put in front of me when I sign the mortgage. The broker tells me what it says and I trust them.

But this is not true when the GOP are in charge. Industries are deregulated to the point that they can get away with unethical business practices and the consumer gets screwed in the end.

So if the banks weren't being affected by all the foreclosures, you would think all the predatory lending was hunky dorey, right? That's bullshit.

Imagine how many other things the GOP did that caused this recession. We just don't know about them yet.

Perhaps READ the mortgage agreement yourself... or have an adviser... or have the common sense to KNOW that if you have a 1% APR on an ARM, that it is not going to stay that way forever...

But if a mortgage lender does something illegal, via the laws of the land, then YES the government is there to enforce the law and lay down sentence if there is guilt... but the government is not supposed to be there to hold your hand like mommy and take all the responsibility from you and it is not supposed to be there as your safety net when you make a bad decision in your own life with your own finances

 

[sealybobo]

Perhaps READ the mortgage agreement yourself... or have an adviser... or have the common sense to KNOW that if you have a 1% APR on an ARM, that it is not going to stay that way forever...

But if a mortgage lender does something illegal, via the laws of the land, then YES the government is there to enforce the law and lay down sentence if there is guilt... but the government is not supposed to be there to hold your hand like mommy and take all the responsibility from you and it is not supposed to be there as your safety net when you make a bad decision in your own life with your own finances

Of course not. That's just what the Republicans say us Democrats want from the Government.

I think this financial crisis is exposing the GOP for who they really are. They deregulated too much. Reagan, Bush 1 & Bush 2 all spent more money than Clinton. Our standing with the rest of the world is falling apart under the GOP's foreign policy. Their tax breaks to the rich did not work. Maybe outsourcing all manufacturing was too aggressive? Maybe trickle down doesn't work.


Are you starting to come around Dave? Because none of you Republicans are any fun today. Seems the GOP had a bad day in the news yesterday.

Here is my email to my co-workers this morning. I forgot to mention that McCain wants to send 1 billion dollars to Georgia. We don't have 1 billion dollars Dave.

Here is what I wrote:

Mark yesterday as the day Obama won the Presidency. All of McCain’s lying. Yesterday was the first day Sarah didn’t repeat her lie about saying thanks but no thanks for the bridge to nowhere.



McCain is the king of de-regulations. Yesterday after the Lehman Brothers collapse, he said he was going to regulate the industry? That’s the biggest flip flop so far. So basically he is taking Obama’s positions. Why don’t we just go with Obama then?



McCain makes a turn to embracing regulation
A decade ago, he champion deregulation of banking, insurance




Sarah Palin also yesterday refused to meet with the lead investigator of Troopergate. She said she welcomed an investigation, all the Republicans in Alaska welcomed an investigation, but now she is flip flopping and not cooperating? Sounds very similar to what we saw with Bush/Chaney/Rove/Libby/Gonzales/Rice/Libby. They obstructed justice for 8 years. Do we want 4 more years of the same?



A McCain lawyer scrambles to block a Palin ethics inquiry.

Alaska AG: Palin subpoenas won't be honored
And five Alaska lawmakers file suit to end ‘Troopergate’ probe


McCain says he invented the Blackberry?



Move over, Al Gore: John McCain invented the BlackBerry





Oh, this just in too. We also re-nigged on the deal we had with the Sunni’s in Iraq. During the Surge, we gave them money and promised immunity if they drove Al Queda out. They did, and now the Shiite government is arresting Sunni’s who fought us before the truce. That truce was more important than the surge. So much for the gains made with the surge. You can’t even find details on this yet.



Also, McCain said the fundamentals of our economy are strong. That proves he doesn’t know jack about the economy, because the fundamentals are not strong. Do you know who else said this quote? Hoover, right before the Great Depression. Maybe McCain went to school with Hoover?



Sarah Palin’s appeal has worn off. From Saturday to yesterday, her favorable/unfavorable rating dropped 10 points.



By the way. Congratulations. I hear you all just purchased AIG for $85 billion dollars. So much for free markets. How many times do I have to tell you that Republicans only want to privatize profits? They always socialize the losses.



I hope that was a good buy, with all the home foreclosures that are coming.