frazzledgear
Senior Member
- Mar 17, 2008
- 1,479
- 544
- 48
For those who still suffer under the incredibly bizarre delusion that government is an all knowing, all wise magical entity and we should all bow down and gladly hand it more and more of our power and our control and most of all, more of OUR money because you are convinced people still aren't paying enough taxes to this wonderful institution that cares more about us than even we care about ourselves - let's consider just a few of the people who end up wielding that power in government. And then maybe we can discuss the advisability of allowing ourselves to be played like the useful idiots and suckers we surely are.
The left in particular has made an occupation of demonizing our financial system that was in fact hand-crafted by our own government to be banks that are now "too big to fail" and put taxpayers on the hook to foot the bill for mismanagement, unethical practices and outright corrupt relationships between politicians and these institutions -and it was our own government in cahoots with officials at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that engineered the banking and housing crisis. You know, the one where taxpayers ended up footing the bill for it to the tune of billions. At a time our system is on the fast track to financial collapse due to unsustainable debt.
If you don't understand what role the government and government regulators played in turning our financial industry into pretty much a government granted monopoly for four banks -do your research. If you don't understand the relationship between our government and the black holes of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -REALLY do the research. There is no way to explain in detail the depths of corruption in all this -which taxpayers ALWAYS gets hosed for and a simplistic explanation just doesn't give you the true picture of the real decay. But we can try and grasp the outcome from it and who the winners were. The losers are the same ones that are always the losers -taxpayers.
Keeping in mind that in exchange for government controlling and using these corrupt institutions for their little social engineering projects that CAUSED the housing and financial crisis in the first place -power also attracts the very people you wouldn't dream of giving any power over YOU. We now have such a corrupt system, the worst of the corrupt are rewarded with...........MORE MONEY and MORE POWER. Over YOU -always the sucker to be played and left ever more helpless and of course with less money in your own pocket. While they make sure to end up wallowing in wealth.
While discussing just a few of the most corrupt in the rape of this country -keep in mind THESE were people our politicians should have been protecting us FROM but instead, politicians are actually joined at the hip to these people and undoubtedly permanent permanent damage done to it has been their deliberate, cooperative joint effort. Do NOT doubt that for a second -and these are people that want government to be even larger and MORE powerful. Always. But unlike wealth, power is something that exists in finite quantities. In order for government to have even MORE power -means stripping it from YOU. And sadly, we have been breeding people to sell off their rights, liberties, freedoms and power for whatever cheap trinket government dangles in front of them with promises that whatever they want, government will provide and because it is government, it is bound to be BETTER on top of being "free".
These are some of the people who worked hand in hand with politicians to bring about the banking and housing crisis -so let's see how they were punished for something that has cost the American taxpayer TRILLIONS and the final bill has yet to be paid for that. (Again, if you don't understand what politicians working hand in hand with the government controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -do your research. Too long to do it here.
Franklin Raines was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. A lot of people don't know this, but Raines served under Carter as associate director for economics and government in the Office of Management and Budget, then went to Fannie Mae as Vice Chairman. Then he left Fannie Mae to become the White House Budget Director for Bill Clinton. Then he returned to Fannie Mae where he earned a mere pittance -in 2003 he only made $20 million.
Raines, while Chairman, began a program to issue bank loans to people who actually couldn't afford the loan and lacked the means to make regular payments or otherwise comply with typical requirements for a bank loan. So they just waived the requirements that were STILL needed by those with higher incomes to get a bank loan. THIS is now considered to be THE underpinnings of the subprime mortgage crisis that guaranteed the only possible outcome and one we got. This is the guy who got the ball rolling -but keep in mind, this was with the FULL approval of the House and Senate oversight committees, headed by Democrats who urged Fannie on while deriding the naysayers as being motivated by nothing but a desire to hurt poor people -or greed. Or both -typical leftwing extremist bullshit insisting that if you refuse to jump on board with Democrats ridiculous, dangerous and outright stupid social engineering causes, you can only be driven to do so by the most malignant of reasons. Can't possibly be because even a high school graduate should be able to see it has all the making of a FINANCIAL DISASTER, right? Not valid reasons to oppose them! Not when the left is always so..........noble-y and all.
Raines is also the guy who bragged about how much money they made by bundling these bad mortgages government and foisting them off on private banks -he was practically giddy at how easy it was to dump them and leave other institutions holding the bag for them. Other banks were doing this too -but Fannie was the government backer of these loans and Raines did it in spades dumping billions in bad loans and leaving other banks around the world holding the bag. Once other lending institutions saw what Fannie was doing, they stepped up their game too and everyone with a double digit IQ knew they were now playing Musical Chairs waiting to see who got fucked when the music stopped.
Raines is also the guy who dreamed up the accounting SCAMS amounting to BILLIONS and BILLIONS at Fannie Mae in order to hide losses so that he and other top executives would be paid millions in bonuses they weren't entitled to whatsoever. Raines PERSONALLY made $90 MILLION in fraudulent bonuses. He chose "early retirement" from Fannie Mae after the SEC started investigating. The OFHEO filed a lawsuit seeking in excess of $240 million in order to recover some of these fraudulent bonuses paid to three Fannie Mae executives. And shortly after, GOVERNMENT announced it had reached a settlement with Raines and the two other former Fannie Mae executives. Because surely government would NOW start looking out for us, right? The three agreed to jointly pay a $3 million fine -that was actually paid by a Fannie Mae insurance policy and not one dime out of their own pockets. Raines also agreed to donate $1.8 million from the proceeds of his sale of Fannie stock. And the most touching part of this settlement was when he agreed to give up his Fannie stock options -which were valued at ZERO. Raines also agree to "give up" another $5.3 million in FUTURE BONUSES. So Raines really felt the hurt for his CRIMINAL ACTIVITY and CORRUPTION, didn't he? An insurance company got stuck paying his share of the $3 million dollar fine. He donated the $1.8 million he made from the sale of his Fannie stock. He "gave up" his stock options that were valued at ZERO. And he gave up $5 million in FUTURE BONUSES after leaving Fannie Mae and no longer working there -oh, ouch that had to hurt. AFTER he had already bilked them for more than $90 million in FRAUDULENT bonuses -which he kept. In addition to the average $17-20 million he made in salary every year. And to top that cake -he walked away with another $240 million in his golden parachute. The man is nothing but a lowlife fucking CRIMINAL.
So surely this guy is like.........POISON, right? He has his millions and millions and millions but at least no longer able to abuse another position of trust and power ever again. Guess again. This guy is now the Chief Economic Adviser for the Obama campaign.
A briefer accounting of a couple more. Tim Howard -Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae -a big time player in pushing for the accounting SCAMS that made it look like Fannie Mae had a stable pattern of earnings when in fact it was in freefall and continues to require BILLIONS in taxpayer bail-outs. Howard also took "early retirement" with Raines. He was one of the three who agreed to pay the jointly shared $3 million fine -that was actually paid by an insurance policy. His golden parachute was only worth $20 million and left intact. Howard is ALSO an economic adviser for the Obama Campaign, working under Raines.
Jim Johnson was a former executive at Lehman Brothers and later forced to another "early retirement" from his position as CEO of Fannie Mae. See if this sounds familiar at all -while CEO at Fannie Mae, Johnson concocted accounting scams in order to benefit top executives, allowing them to improperly and ILLEGALLY collect bogus bonuses. Fannie Mae had actually HIDDEN from the public the bogus amount Johnson had collected, initially claiming it had been $6-7 million (a paltry amount in their rarefied corrupt world) when in fact it was $21 million. Johnson is the guy still under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while working as CEO at Fannie Mae. Turns out Johnson has been found to be one of THE key figures in manufacturing the financial crisis in late 2000 and described as "the founding father of regulation manipulation" by researchers into the roots of that financial crisis. Johnson changed the way executives at Fannie Mae are compensated -no longer based on quality, but on nothing but volume. Guaranteeing a lot of risky, bad moves with little to gain for Fannie Mae -but heavily enriching the top execs. Johnson made over $200 million at Fannie Mae.
Johnson is a major player in the Democrat Party. He worked in the Eugene McCarthy and McGovern Presidential campaigns as well as campaign manager for Walter Mondale's Presidential campaign and he chaired the vice presidential selection committee for John Kerry where, if Kerry had won, it was expected Kerry would have appointed Johnson to Chief of Staff or Secretary of Treasury. Johnson was hired as Obama's Finance Adviser in addition to having run Obama's Vice Presidential Search committee in 2008.
So while the left rants and rails at the greed on Wall Street, their time would be better spent to focus on our own government which is in reality the real roots of it -instead of demanding we strip ourselves of even more power, control and money and turn it over to government. THESE are the very people who ARE our government. The same people who insist the "cure" for all this is to give government even MORE power, and MORE control and MORE of our money. Because hey, our government is really looking out for us, right? ROFL. Except THESE are the people who ARE our government! Do you also believe the fox when he says the cure for foxes having raided the hen house is to hire even more foxes to put in the chicken coop? Because that is exactly what these people are really after -MORE power and MORE control and MORE of YOUR money in THEIR wallets! The real cure is to LIMIT their power, limit their control -and most of all LIMIT their ability to confiscate our money and SPEND IT. Our government is not just politicians who periodically run for election. They are just the current face on it. THESE are the unseen people who really ARE our government, the real movers and shakers in our government -and the same people who created and fostered one of the most corrupt relationships even while their bought and paid for politicians give empty lip service about how government is looking out for us and why government needs more power to regulate in order to protect us from people like this. When in fact THESE are the people who really ARE our government and they are playing taxpayers for the useful idiots, morons and total suckers we have allowed ourselves to become. It is a shell game played by both parties but let's give credit where credit is due -Democrats have always known how to play this one better. THIS is why I fully support TERM LIMITS. Career politicians have done more harm to this country than ANY other single group in our history. If the founders were alive today it would be the one thing I guarantee they would go back and immediately change because people who made a career out of bilking the system, making a living sucking up at the public trough while seeking power and money for power and money's sake is NOT what they wanted to create. The founders understood the nature of the beast and the corrupting influence of the intoxicating mixture of power and money and tried to limit the ability of those seeking it for their own use from even getting it. Not such a problem for them anymore though, is it? They managed to get around or ignore the intent of the Constitution by appointing people to act as willing accomplices and THIS is what corruption looks like and the increasing abuse of power always follows like Tuesday follows Monday. And again -it is those who are actually paying for this corruption who are intended to get fucked the most by it -and will.
When it comes to politicians -Watch what they DO, not what they SAY! Because they are frequently doing the exact opposite of what they say.
The left in particular has made an occupation of demonizing our financial system that was in fact hand-crafted by our own government to be banks that are now "too big to fail" and put taxpayers on the hook to foot the bill for mismanagement, unethical practices and outright corrupt relationships between politicians and these institutions -and it was our own government in cahoots with officials at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that engineered the banking and housing crisis. You know, the one where taxpayers ended up footing the bill for it to the tune of billions. At a time our system is on the fast track to financial collapse due to unsustainable debt.
If you don't understand what role the government and government regulators played in turning our financial industry into pretty much a government granted monopoly for four banks -do your research. If you don't understand the relationship between our government and the black holes of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -REALLY do the research. There is no way to explain in detail the depths of corruption in all this -which taxpayers ALWAYS gets hosed for and a simplistic explanation just doesn't give you the true picture of the real decay. But we can try and grasp the outcome from it and who the winners were. The losers are the same ones that are always the losers -taxpayers.
Keeping in mind that in exchange for government controlling and using these corrupt institutions for their little social engineering projects that CAUSED the housing and financial crisis in the first place -power also attracts the very people you wouldn't dream of giving any power over YOU. We now have such a corrupt system, the worst of the corrupt are rewarded with...........MORE MONEY and MORE POWER. Over YOU -always the sucker to be played and left ever more helpless and of course with less money in your own pocket. While they make sure to end up wallowing in wealth.
While discussing just a few of the most corrupt in the rape of this country -keep in mind THESE were people our politicians should have been protecting us FROM but instead, politicians are actually joined at the hip to these people and undoubtedly permanent permanent damage done to it has been their deliberate, cooperative joint effort. Do NOT doubt that for a second -and these are people that want government to be even larger and MORE powerful. Always. But unlike wealth, power is something that exists in finite quantities. In order for government to have even MORE power -means stripping it from YOU. And sadly, we have been breeding people to sell off their rights, liberties, freedoms and power for whatever cheap trinket government dangles in front of them with promises that whatever they want, government will provide and because it is government, it is bound to be BETTER on top of being "free".
These are some of the people who worked hand in hand with politicians to bring about the banking and housing crisis -so let's see how they were punished for something that has cost the American taxpayer TRILLIONS and the final bill has yet to be paid for that. (Again, if you don't understand what politicians working hand in hand with the government controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -do your research. Too long to do it here.
Franklin Raines was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. A lot of people don't know this, but Raines served under Carter as associate director for economics and government in the Office of Management and Budget, then went to Fannie Mae as Vice Chairman. Then he left Fannie Mae to become the White House Budget Director for Bill Clinton. Then he returned to Fannie Mae where he earned a mere pittance -in 2003 he only made $20 million.
Raines, while Chairman, began a program to issue bank loans to people who actually couldn't afford the loan and lacked the means to make regular payments or otherwise comply with typical requirements for a bank loan. So they just waived the requirements that were STILL needed by those with higher incomes to get a bank loan. THIS is now considered to be THE underpinnings of the subprime mortgage crisis that guaranteed the only possible outcome and one we got. This is the guy who got the ball rolling -but keep in mind, this was with the FULL approval of the House and Senate oversight committees, headed by Democrats who urged Fannie on while deriding the naysayers as being motivated by nothing but a desire to hurt poor people -or greed. Or both -typical leftwing extremist bullshit insisting that if you refuse to jump on board with Democrats ridiculous, dangerous and outright stupid social engineering causes, you can only be driven to do so by the most malignant of reasons. Can't possibly be because even a high school graduate should be able to see it has all the making of a FINANCIAL DISASTER, right? Not valid reasons to oppose them! Not when the left is always so..........noble-y and all.
Raines is also the guy who bragged about how much money they made by bundling these bad mortgages government and foisting them off on private banks -he was practically giddy at how easy it was to dump them and leave other institutions holding the bag for them. Other banks were doing this too -but Fannie was the government backer of these loans and Raines did it in spades dumping billions in bad loans and leaving other banks around the world holding the bag. Once other lending institutions saw what Fannie was doing, they stepped up their game too and everyone with a double digit IQ knew they were now playing Musical Chairs waiting to see who got fucked when the music stopped.
Raines is also the guy who dreamed up the accounting SCAMS amounting to BILLIONS and BILLIONS at Fannie Mae in order to hide losses so that he and other top executives would be paid millions in bonuses they weren't entitled to whatsoever. Raines PERSONALLY made $90 MILLION in fraudulent bonuses. He chose "early retirement" from Fannie Mae after the SEC started investigating. The OFHEO filed a lawsuit seeking in excess of $240 million in order to recover some of these fraudulent bonuses paid to three Fannie Mae executives. And shortly after, GOVERNMENT announced it had reached a settlement with Raines and the two other former Fannie Mae executives. Because surely government would NOW start looking out for us, right? The three agreed to jointly pay a $3 million fine -that was actually paid by a Fannie Mae insurance policy and not one dime out of their own pockets. Raines also agreed to donate $1.8 million from the proceeds of his sale of Fannie stock. And the most touching part of this settlement was when he agreed to give up his Fannie stock options -which were valued at ZERO. Raines also agree to "give up" another $5.3 million in FUTURE BONUSES. So Raines really felt the hurt for his CRIMINAL ACTIVITY and CORRUPTION, didn't he? An insurance company got stuck paying his share of the $3 million dollar fine. He donated the $1.8 million he made from the sale of his Fannie stock. He "gave up" his stock options that were valued at ZERO. And he gave up $5 million in FUTURE BONUSES after leaving Fannie Mae and no longer working there -oh, ouch that had to hurt. AFTER he had already bilked them for more than $90 million in FRAUDULENT bonuses -which he kept. In addition to the average $17-20 million he made in salary every year. And to top that cake -he walked away with another $240 million in his golden parachute. The man is nothing but a lowlife fucking CRIMINAL.
So surely this guy is like.........POISON, right? He has his millions and millions and millions but at least no longer able to abuse another position of trust and power ever again. Guess again. This guy is now the Chief Economic Adviser for the Obama campaign.
A briefer accounting of a couple more. Tim Howard -Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae -a big time player in pushing for the accounting SCAMS that made it look like Fannie Mae had a stable pattern of earnings when in fact it was in freefall and continues to require BILLIONS in taxpayer bail-outs. Howard also took "early retirement" with Raines. He was one of the three who agreed to pay the jointly shared $3 million fine -that was actually paid by an insurance policy. His golden parachute was only worth $20 million and left intact. Howard is ALSO an economic adviser for the Obama Campaign, working under Raines.
Jim Johnson was a former executive at Lehman Brothers and later forced to another "early retirement" from his position as CEO of Fannie Mae. See if this sounds familiar at all -while CEO at Fannie Mae, Johnson concocted accounting scams in order to benefit top executives, allowing them to improperly and ILLEGALLY collect bogus bonuses. Fannie Mae had actually HIDDEN from the public the bogus amount Johnson had collected, initially claiming it had been $6-7 million (a paltry amount in their rarefied corrupt world) when in fact it was $21 million. Johnson is the guy still under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while working as CEO at Fannie Mae. Turns out Johnson has been found to be one of THE key figures in manufacturing the financial crisis in late 2000 and described as "the founding father of regulation manipulation" by researchers into the roots of that financial crisis. Johnson changed the way executives at Fannie Mae are compensated -no longer based on quality, but on nothing but volume. Guaranteeing a lot of risky, bad moves with little to gain for Fannie Mae -but heavily enriching the top execs. Johnson made over $200 million at Fannie Mae.
Johnson is a major player in the Democrat Party. He worked in the Eugene McCarthy and McGovern Presidential campaigns as well as campaign manager for Walter Mondale's Presidential campaign and he chaired the vice presidential selection committee for John Kerry where, if Kerry had won, it was expected Kerry would have appointed Johnson to Chief of Staff or Secretary of Treasury. Johnson was hired as Obama's Finance Adviser in addition to having run Obama's Vice Presidential Search committee in 2008.
So while the left rants and rails at the greed on Wall Street, their time would be better spent to focus on our own government which is in reality the real roots of it -instead of demanding we strip ourselves of even more power, control and money and turn it over to government. THESE are the very people who ARE our government. The same people who insist the "cure" for all this is to give government even MORE power, and MORE control and MORE of our money. Because hey, our government is really looking out for us, right? ROFL. Except THESE are the people who ARE our government! Do you also believe the fox when he says the cure for foxes having raided the hen house is to hire even more foxes to put in the chicken coop? Because that is exactly what these people are really after -MORE power and MORE control and MORE of YOUR money in THEIR wallets! The real cure is to LIMIT their power, limit their control -and most of all LIMIT their ability to confiscate our money and SPEND IT. Our government is not just politicians who periodically run for election. They are just the current face on it. THESE are the unseen people who really ARE our government, the real movers and shakers in our government -and the same people who created and fostered one of the most corrupt relationships even while their bought and paid for politicians give empty lip service about how government is looking out for us and why government needs more power to regulate in order to protect us from people like this. When in fact THESE are the people who really ARE our government and they are playing taxpayers for the useful idiots, morons and total suckers we have allowed ourselves to become. It is a shell game played by both parties but let's give credit where credit is due -Democrats have always known how to play this one better. THIS is why I fully support TERM LIMITS. Career politicians have done more harm to this country than ANY other single group in our history. If the founders were alive today it would be the one thing I guarantee they would go back and immediately change because people who made a career out of bilking the system, making a living sucking up at the public trough while seeking power and money for power and money's sake is NOT what they wanted to create. The founders understood the nature of the beast and the corrupting influence of the intoxicating mixture of power and money and tried to limit the ability of those seeking it for their own use from even getting it. Not such a problem for them anymore though, is it? They managed to get around or ignore the intent of the Constitution by appointing people to act as willing accomplices and THIS is what corruption looks like and the increasing abuse of power always follows like Tuesday follows Monday. And again -it is those who are actually paying for this corruption who are intended to get fucked the most by it -and will.
When it comes to politicians -Watch what they DO, not what they SAY! Because they are frequently doing the exact opposite of what they say.
Thank you. 
