Washington DC: In a dramatic message to the nation, the Chief Executive outlines in clear terms the steps the Government will take to speed economic recovery in America. Mr. Roosevelt describes striking plans for the stabilization of currency, and for mortgage and home relief.” sound of FDR speaking Fireside Chat #4
Duration : 0:3:46
Apparently Obama’s lying is so blatant even the NY Times can’t choke it down. In a front-page story today, the Times acknowledges that
In all, Mr. Obama has released at least five commercials that have been criticized as misleading or untruthful against Mr. McCain’s positions in the past two weeks.
Now should the Times take the next step and admit that the "lies" Obama’s campaign alleges John McCain has told are no such thing?
Sen. Obama did vote to extend HIV-related sex education to kindergarten; he did vote against requiring doctors in Illinois to end the practice of allowing infants to die after surviving abortions; he did consult with Franklin Raines–disgraced former head of Fannie Mae–regarding mortgage and economic policy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/us/politics/26ads.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
It’s hard to take, that YA has those who know what’s going on. You are dead-on correct, sir, and I’d bet money there was a meeting or two of the editorial board about whether to mention it at all. Enjoy, buddy – The NYT doesn’t toy with objectivity very long. In fact it may be due to the study commissioned by the Times as to why the readership has fallen so precipitously. Their partisanship is why.
Shari and Casey Franklin have been married for 10 years. After trying unsuccessfully to conceive a child naturally, they sought the services of an ‘in vitro fertilization’ (IVF) clinic. After several attempts, the IVF procedure was successful and Shari became pregnant. Their son Corey is now two years old.
Eight embryos from the Franklins’ IVF procedure remain in cold storage. A local biotechnology company, Embryos-R-Us, has contacted the Franklins with an offer to purchase these embryos for $100,000.
The Franklins are having financial difficulties and struggle to make the mortgage payments on their home. They would like to have another child but cannot afford the procedure.
Embryos-R-Us wishes to use the embryos to develope stem cell lines, which will be used in research to develope an Alzheimer’s disease treatment. If this treatment were successful, the benefits to people with Alzheimer’s disease and the potential profits to the company would be enormous.
Shari and casey are discussing the possibility of selling the embryos. Put yourself in their situation. What would you do?
The Big Question: Would you consider an embryo a person? Meaning, should they have their own rights? If not, at what point do you think an embryo becomes a ‘person’. EX; when it becomes a zygote, at conception, and at the moment of its birth.
Embyo definition: An embryo is a cluster of Stem cells in an egg, I.E. its an unborn baby that has not even developed into a zygote. And an egg becomes a zygote 8 weeks after conception.
I think if someone is willing to go through IVF, they shouldnt have a problem with stem cell research.
People act like IVF doesnt kill embryos, but it does. A large part of the reason they create so many embryos is because the expect a certain number of them to not survive the freezing and thawing, and because they expect it to take multiple trials for the woman to get pregnant. In my opinion, killing embryos for the sake of a pregnancy when there are children in foster care without homes is FAR more selfish than using left over embryos in medical research.
If the couple never tries again, in all liklihood the embryos will be trashed anyways. A dead embryo is a dead embryo.
Do I consider embryos a person? No, I dont. They are human, yes. But they have no organ formation, no brain development, no cns and no consciousness.
I think a fetus should have rights when they have consciosness, which I think? is around 10? weeks.
I have been reading tripe from democrats and republicans alike blaming the current administration for this country’s financial woes. Allow me to set the record straight on some of it.
1977: Pres. Jimmy Carter signs the Community Reinvestment Act into Law. The law pressured financial institutions to extend home loans to those who would otherwise not qualify. The Premise: Home ownership would improve poor and crime-ridden communities and neighborhoods in terms of crime, investment, jobs, etc.
Results: Statistics bear out that it did not help.
Question: How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing market?
Answer: See below to find out who is covering up their guilt !
1992: Republican representative Jim Leach (IO) warned of the danger that Fannie and Freddie were changing from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the principals and the stockholding few.
1993: Clinton extensively rewrote Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s rules turning the quasi-private mortgage-funding firms into semi-nationalized monopolies dispensing cash and loans to large Democratic voting blocks and handing favors, jobs and contributions to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and now the collapse of Freddie and Fannie.
1994: Despite warnings, Clinton unveiled his National Home-Ownership Strategy which broadened the CRA in ways congress never intended.
1995: Congress, about to change from a Democrat majority to Republican, Clinton orders Robert Rubin’s Treasury Dept to rewrite the rules. Robt. Rubin’s Treasury reworked rules, forcing banks to satisfy quotas for sub-prime and minority loans to get a satisfactory CRA rating. The rating was key to expansion or mergers for banks. Loans began to be made on the basis of race and little else.
1997 – 1999: Clinton, bypassing Republicans, enlisted Andrew Cuomo, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, allowing Freddie and Fannie to get into the sub-prime market in a BIG way. Led by Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, congress doubled down on the risk by easing capital limits and allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments vs 10% for banks. Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks their enterprises boomed.
With incentives in place, banks poured billions in loans into poor communities, often ‘no doc’, ‘no income’, requiring no money down and no verification of income. Worse still was the cronyism: Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of work-politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. 384 politicians got big campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie. Over $200 million had been spent on lobbying and political activities. During the 1990’s Fannie and Freddie enjoyed a subsidy of as much as $182 Billion, most of it going to principals and shareholders, not poor borrowers as claimed.
Did it work? Minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners but many of those loans have gone bad and the minority home ownership rates are shrinking fast.
1999: New Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, became alarmed at Fannie and Freddie’s excesses. Congress held hearings the ensuing year but nothing was done because Fannie and Freddie had donated millions to key congressmen and radical groups, ensuring no meaningful changes would take place ‘We manage our political risk with the same intensity that we manage our credit and interest rate risks,’ Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, a former Clinton official and current Barack Obama advisor, bragged to investors in 1999.
2000: Secretary Summers sent Undersecretary Gary Gensler to Congress seeking an end to the ’special status’. Democrats raised a ruckus as did Fannie and Freddie, headed by politically connected CEO’s who knew how to reward and punish. ‘We think that the statements evidence a contempt for the nation’s housing and mortgage markets’ Freddie spokesperson Sharon McHale said. It was the last chance during the Clinton era for reform.
2001: Republicans try repeatedly to bring fiscal sanity to Fannie and Freddie but Democrats blocked any attempt at reform; especially Rep. Barney Frank and Sen Chris Dodd who now run key banking committees and were huge beneficiaries of campaign contributions from the mortgage giants.
2003: Bush proposes what the NY Times called ‘the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago’. Even after discovering a scheme by Fannie and Freddie to overstate earnings by $10.6 billion to boost their bonuses, the Democrats killed reform.
2005: Then Fed chairman Alan Greenspan warns Congress: ‘We are placing the total financial system at substantial risk’.
Sen. McCain, with two others, sponsored a Fannie/Freddie reform bill and said, ‘If congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to th
both parties are responsible the only way we are going to fix this is if we look at the whole picture it doesn’t matter who is perceived to be the most responsible for this mess because everybody made a mess of things trying to push their own agendas without looking at the whole picture now what we need is for everybody to start working togather to fix things now if our senators could stop acting like a bunch of spoiled rotten children and grow up maybe things can start to get better but if we as country cant manage to grow up and stop whining then things are only going to get worse
Here is a quick look into 3 former Fannie Mae executives who have brought down Wall Street.
Franklin Raines was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregularities in Fannie Mae’s accounting activities. At the time of his departure The Wall Street Journal noted, " Raines, who long defended the company’s accounting despite mounting evidence that it wasn’t proper, issued a statement late Tuesday conceding that "mistakes were made" and saying he would assume responsibility as he had earlier promised. News reports indicate the company was under growing pressure from regulators to shake up its management in the wake of findings that the company’s books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years." Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion.
Raines left with a "golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear. http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/ . The Government noted, "The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls, misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public. The Notice explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner." These charges were made in 2006. The Court ordered Raines to return $50 Million Dollars he received in bonuses based on the miss-stated Fannie Mae profits.
Net windfall . . . $190 million!
Tim Howard – Was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard "was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that would ensure a "stable pattern of earnings" at Fannie. In everyday English – he was cooking the books. The Government Investigation determined that, "Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae,"
On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie Mae executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied manipulating the mortgage-finance giant’s income statement to achieve management pay bonuses. Investigations by federal regulators and the company’s board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004.
Howard’s Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million!
Jim Johnson – A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, and you’ll see some interesting things about Johnson. Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson’s 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million." Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO o f Fannie Mae.
Johnson’s Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
FRANKLIN RAINES? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as Chief Economic Advisor
TIM HOWARD? Howard is also a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama
JIM JOHNSON? Johnson hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama’s Vice Presidential Search Committee
IF OBAMA PLANS ON CLEANING UP THE MESS – HIS ADVISORS HAVE THE EXPERTISE – THEY MADE THE MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Would you trust the men who tore Wall Street down to build the New Wall Street ?
Nope. I have absolutely NO confidence in Obama. Why anyone would want a man, who was only a senator for 143 days before he started running for president, to actually be our president is beyond me.
In 2004, Republicans held an oversight hearing on Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac. They warned us about this crisis back then, but Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, and other Democrats charged racism. Franklin Raines, the disgraced thief Democrat CEO of Fannie Mae, insisted the loans were "riskless."
Democrats created a climate of crisis around this mortgage mess. Their answer, as always, has been to seize power and your money.
Read RushLimbaugh.com and watch the video of Democrats fighting regulation and calling it Riskless….
The only thing more puzzling than all of these FACTS is why the mainstream media is not reporting any of this.
(Of course, that’s a rhetorical statement, we all know why they aren’t reporting it.)
The fact that Obama has associations with unrepentive terrorists like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who detonated bombs at New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, the United States Capitol building in 1971, and The Pentagon in 1972?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/902213,CST-NWS-ayers18.article
The fact that Obama has a close relationship with a radical preacher named Jeremiah Wright who teaches racism, anti-americanism and marxism?
The fact that Obama has a close friendship with a convicted slum-lord named Tony Rezko who has been convicted of wire fraud, bribery, money laundering, and attempted extortion?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/184540,122306obama.article
The fact that Obama has lobbied for corrupt political organizations like ACORN who have been charged with voter fraud in 14 states while promoting illegal immigration, a welfare state and undermining capitalism?
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27190
The fact that Obama has Fannie Mae vice-chairman Jim Johnson as his finance advisor and his VP select committee who cooked the books while walking away with 21 million dollars of taxpayer appropriated money?
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/781141/barack_obama_taps_former_fannie_mae.html
The fact that Obama also has Fannie Mae chairman Franklin Raines as his Chief Economic Advisor after Raines resigned sighting accounting irregularites while at Fannie Mae and was ordered to pay back 50 million after walking away with 240 million in benefits?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Raines#Role_in_the_subprime_mortgage_crisis
I like his carnival sideshow ears.
The fact that Obama has associations with unrepentive terrorists like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who detonated bombs at New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, the United States Capitol building in 1971, and The Pentagon in 1972?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/902213,CST-NWS-ayers18.article
The fact that Obama has a close relationship with a radical preacher named Jeremiah Wright who teaches racism, anti-americanism and marxism?
The fact that Obama has a close friendship with a convicted slum-lord named Tony Rezko who has been convicted of wire fraud, bribery, money laundering, and attempted extortion?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/184540,122306obama.article
The fact that Obama has lobbied for corrupt political organizations like ACORN who have been charged with voter fraud in 14 states while promoting illegal immigration, a welfare state and undermining capitalism?
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27190
The fact that Obama has Fannie Mae vice-chairman Jim Johnson as his finance advisor and his VP select committee who cooked the books while walking away with 21 million dollars of taxpayer appropriated money?
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/781141/barack_obama_taps_former_fannie_mae.html
The fact that Obama also has Fannie Mae chairman Franklin Raines as his Chief Economic Advisor after Raines resigned sighting accounting irregularites while at Fannie Mae and was ordered to pay back 50 million after walking away with 240 million in benefits?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Raines#Role_in_the_subprime_mortgage_crisis
Its a tie Aryes and ACORN.Both criminal elements that have got rewarded for bad dangerous behavior.Chicago once had Al Capone now it is the capital for New age legal criminals.These people back up Obama. If elected will Aryes be invited to the White House a preferred spot for a homeland terroist that "did not do enought’ ACORN and sub prime loans and voter fraud!Yeah their will be a change and be scared very scared.
I have two mortgages on my house with First Franklin. I got sick last year the week we bought the house. I wasnt able to work, and eventually lost my right leg. Because of this, we were late on the motrgage the first month, over 30 days. My wife took on a second job to make those payments. But we still paid those late every month. They rewrote the terms of the mortgage in July, to bring us up to current status. But the damage is done now. We have 8 -30 day late payments now showing on each acct. Is there anything that we could do to get them to remove some or all of those lates? Any positive help will be appreciated. I have had enough grief from being sick, so please, no negatives, Thanks.
First Franklin said that its my problem. I paid late. End of conversation.
I agree with Miss K – contact the mortgage company and explain the situation then ask for goodwill from them in removing the lates.
If the first person won’t work with you, move on up the ladder to the next (even if you have to go to the top)
The bad thing about putting statements on your credit reports, like one poster mentioned, is that many times when the negative info is finally removed – the statements usually remain.
Then you would still have it on your reports that you had problems and you would have to fight the CRA’s to get them to remove the statements.
And, as far as that poster stating the length of time late payments report, they do not stay on reports for only 2 years, they remain for 7 years from the date of the late.
And who would you want our economic future handled by, McCain or Obama?
Here are some facts to review:
The biggest recipients of Fannie Mae cash are DEMOCRATS…Chris Dodd tops the list, BARACK OBAMA is second, and John Kerry third.
How about Jim Johnson? He’s a former Vice-Chairman at Fannie Mae, AND Former managing director of Lehman Bros. It seems BOTH those companies have come into question recently. Barack Obama appointed him to his 3 member Vice Presidential search committee. Unfortunately, Jim had to leave abruptly when it was reported that he had receive sweetheart loans directly from Angelo Mozilo, the CEO of Countrywide…ANOTHER failed mortgage giant, implicated in the subprime mortgage crisis.
There’s also Franklin Raines of course. Much more recent CEO at Fannie Mae, who left the company $90 million richer. According to the Washington Post in April, he was an ECONOMIC advisor to…Barack Obama.
I am aware about Rick Davis and his ties…
Mr. Davis separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis — weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual — since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006.
Further, Mr. Davis has never — never — been a lobbyist for either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Mr. Davis has not served as a registered lobbyist since 2005.
The fact is Freddie and Fannie are a large part of Washington and both sides are impacted. The truth is who really broke bread with them?
Also, the credit for the meat of my post goes to Glenn Beck… on www.glennbeck.com
Having a lobbyist who worked for an organization on your staff and having
the people that ran the organization into the ground on your staff are not equivalent. When you are the chairman of the banking commitee and you received special loan rates below market from the organization we are really talking about a scandal.
Sorry, the Dems and Obama are knee deep in this one.
They know it, so they are coming out swinging.
By the way a lobbyist is someone who exercising constitution rights guaranteed in our constitution. It is not necessarily any more evil a profession. We the people have the right to lobby congress.
When congress responds unethically that is when we have big problems.