Your comments about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are so erroneous and misguided, and provide such misinformation that I feel need to comment. The two agencies have never been properly regulated, because they were originally government entities, created during the Great Depression, and were turned into stockholder-owned corporations in 1968. The problem started back then, because although they were private institutions, they were government sponsored and had the implicit backing of the federal government.

The problem this created back then is a simple moral hazard — even though these are private institutions that are supposed to be held accountable by the shareholders, they are so large as to require the implicit backing of the federal government (i.e. if something ever went wrong, due to the sheer size of mortgages held on their books from everywhere in the country, they have always been deemed “too big to fail”, even if it was not stated outright.

The mismanagement of Fannie and Freddie actually started under the Carter administration with his Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) designed to make loans issued by Fannie and Freddie more readily available to inner city borrowers, which just happened to be those with the worst credit ratings and highest delinquency on mortgages and other debt. This continued unfettered and mismanaged in the Reagan and Bush I administrations, until Fannie and Freddie were again pressured by Clinton’s “home for every American” decree, which eased the standards of Carter’s CRA, and allowed the agencies to give higher rates to subprime borrowers, a problem which increased their profits and made private shareholders even more money.

You are right that the Bush Administration only made this problem worse, but Glass-Stengall had little to do with the problems of these mortgage companies. Proper regulation and awareness of the red flags by the administration, which I agree did handle Fannie and Freddie poorly, could have stopped the problem. But, this is a problem that has been going on for over 30 years, due to the implicit guarantee of Fannie and Freddie by the government, and the government’s pressure of a private institution to engage in riskier and riskier activities.

The credit derivatives and other mortgage and asset backed securities were also allowed to be created due to lackluster regulation, you are right. Remember, however, that regulation is the enemy of financial markets. The stronger the regulation, the more apt to drive business elsewhere. This is a problem that has been going on for years, courtesy of cheap money and easy borrowing provided by the Fed. It also has driven much American business to London and Tokyo over the years.

Fannie and Freddie were government backed, if not sponsored, and the CEO of Fannie, Franklin Raines, was personally known to have lobbied many politicians of both parties. Barney Frank in particular was heavily lobbied, and was chairman of the House Finance committee. The number of times he defended the agencies, despite taking money from them, then turned around to blame others for their demise leaves me wondering how he still has a job. I’m an independent voter who takes both parties to task equally, but I do not know how someone who defended these two agencies who were primarily responsible for the crisis we faced, then turned around and blamed others in a huge show of hypocrisy, still has a job.

I’m a commodity options trader, who trades for a private proprietary trading firm. I personally know that regulation is not the answer, as it only creates problems. Many players in the market, speculators, hedging producers, and market makers alike, have been hurt in the crisis. The continued regulation of commodity markets by the CFTC has only A) made the decision to exit the market easy for the hurt players, B) driven commodity trading overseas, or C) made trading more illiquid and difficult for those who remain in the marketplace (myself).

Before you call me a reckless trader who caused the crisis, remember that I trade small sums of private money through exchanges, with products that are cleared via clearinghouses. All my dealings are backed and cleared, and the clearinghouse absorbs any losses that would go beyond the firm’s personally. The transactions that caused the crisis were predominately over the counter, with counterparty risk assumed by those entering into the trades. As Fannie and Freddie were in most of these transactions, and they were implicitly backed by the government, the government assumed most of the risk. The counterparties that were beneficiary to this were those who defaulted on their mortgages, which were those that were technically “bailed out” during the whole crisis.

As someone who works for Civilian Military Intelligence Group, I do not know where you got off commenting about financial matters like you know what caused the financial meltdown of last year. Though you may be well informed to military matters, don’t transpose your intelligence where it does not belong.

The Constitution calls for the GENERAL welfare of the people. That means building roads and bridges, the FDA, FBI, DEA, Etc. It means passing various laws to provide for the GENERAL welfare of the people. It means maintaining national parks perhaps, or libraries, even schools.

However, taking money from one person who earned it, and then giving it to another person who did not (EITC, Medicaid, Section 8, Cash for Clunkers, etc), and then calling it ‘Welfare’ does not make it either Consitiutional or ‘right’. That’s not providing for the GENERAL welfare.

You cannot recieve without earning unless someone else earned without recieving. Right now the people earning without recieving are going to be my not-yet born children and grandchildren because they are the ones who will be paying the debt created under 0bama.

The fact that you are a direct reciepient of money from the government is not somehting you should be PROUD of unless you have in some way directly earned that money — ie employed by the government or maybe Social Security, though if that’s the case it’s actually the younger generation who is paying for that — you paid for your parents Social Security. If you are recieving money from the government (as in me and the rest of the taxpayers because the government doesnt have two cents to rub together unless they first took them from us) as a handout or as an “entitlement”, then you should start providing for yourself instead of making others provide for you at their expense and that of their families.

You blame Bush for TARP, but don’t mention that Obama was a Senator who voted for the bill in order to get it to Bush’s desk in the first place. Or the fact that it was lending ‘fairness’ laws enacted mostly under Democrats Carter and Clinton than ultimately caused the banking crash, and it was Democrats (Barny Frank and others) who were kicking and screaming when Republicans talked about fixing it. Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac were both run into the ground while being headed by Democrats Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelic (the one most responsible for the ‘wall of seperation’ that helped lead to 9/11), while Democrats raised hell every time further regulations or oversight were brought up. As though the Government shoud have anything at all to do with people buying homes in the first place.

Regarding “47 million without health insurance”, are you sure it’s 47 million? 0bama was giving the same number until last weeks speach where he said it was only 30 million. So which is it? Either way, what entitles someone to health care on MY dime? Our military is DEMANDED by the US Constitution. Health care is not.

The idea that someone can smoke themselves to lung cancer, screw themselves to HIV, eat themselves to diabetes, obsesity, and a heart attack, and drink themselves to cirrosis — and then bill society (myself and all other taxpayers) is absurd. Neither you, nor anybody else, is entitled to the labor of another — be it a doctor, or a lab tachnician at a drug company.

0bama is doing the same thing to our militay as Clinton did and using many of the same excuses, and like Clinton’s cuts, the consequences will be far reaching and serious.

Defence is not a budget item. You spend what you need.

No cutting the defense budget and wasting that money on social entitlements. Enough of that crap.

And no, the defense budget is not larger than it was during the Cold War or World War II when you factor in war expenditures being included in the budget, inflation, and other factors. At the minimum we should remove war expenditures from the base budget, as was the case previously.

Your figures are not correct; and I am not sure where you pulled them from — perhaps out of AM talk radio. The 47 million Americans without health insurance counts Americans and does not include illegal immigrants. Period. This figure and the subjects come out of the insurance industry itself that is fighting as hard as it can to defend its profits despite the fact that we rank 37th in health care in the world, and about 29th in infant mortality, behind even Cuba!

This was recently said on Cable news:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So what’s the problem with the public health option?

LANDRIEU: Well, many of us believe, George, that it will undermine the private insurance system.

Landrieu is a democrat who receives campaign funds from pharmaceuticals and insurance agencies. these are apparently her constituencies, not the voters in her own state who are among the worst in regards to access to healthcare.

So there’s that.

I hate to pop your bubble but Bush and his policies and cronies drove the economy into a ditch. It happened on Bushes watch, despite warnings he and his appointees ignored. Bush passed TARP and Bush gave the first slices to insurance companies and banks. Those are the facts, plain and simple and they only happened last year.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were allowed to bundle securities and sell risky unfounded financial tools because Bush administration officials failed to regulate them properly. Also, the Glass-Stengall Act, which limited the amount of money a bank can lend based on the amount of actual assets they possess was repealed some time back and that began the slow meltdown that we only saw a 14 months ago– and in the ensuing years, particularly 2000 to 2008, the banks and other lending institutions began lending up to 35 times their actual assets. This repeal was also bipartisan but largely a Republican/Lobbyist initiative.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae put more Americans in homes than any institution in history and thusly created more actual wealth than any policy in the history of the country. Only 14% or less of all the foreclosures in this country have involved Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. In fact 60% of all mortgages in the last 40 years have had Freddie or Fannie financing. Homes crate wealth, new streets, new businesses, police and fire departments, and schools. Most of this wealth is still intact.

Did they err? No doubt. Did they cook their books in the last few years? Yes. Did they single-handedly cause the melt down? Hardly.

I have been denied medicine, but now you are telling me that somehow I have not been denied medicine? I know you think this is difficult to hear that your party has been part and parcel of an epic failure in leading the country and I am giving you hell. Like Harry Truman said “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.”

BTW if you’re paying my healthcare, then please call my former insurance company and my hospital and tell them that you are paying it so I can get my prescription.

By the way, welfare has not been a problem since President Clinton did a masterful job of passing bipartisan welfare reform ( signed on mostly by Republicans ) and did away with most of the waste. So why bring it up?

I don’t hear you complaining about the FCC, The FDA, the FAA, the national highway system, public education, the US military, farm subsidies, or Medicare and Medicaid, NASA, or black box military research. All of these are socialism in one form or another, many of them you benefit directly from and you apparently pay them without dispute.

But when it comes to a matter of common decency, health care for everyone rich or poor, you consider it a privilege and most of the rest of the country considers it a right.

I don’t know if Obama will get another term. But his policies trying to provide healthcare to all of your fellow Americans and cutting back on unfettered military spending are policies that needed to be brought to bear a long time ago.

That said, I enjoy the discussion.

Respectfully,

Daniel Russ
Civilianmilitaryintelligencegroup.com

Floyd

You say, “Most of my family has no health insurance, but article 41 of the Iraqi Constitution guarantees that the Iraqis have health care on the government”. The truth is all of your family has the same 100% health care as the Iraqi’s except it is on me and every other responsible person who has health insurance, not the government!

Perhaps you meant to say, your family doesn’t have health insurance? They along with every illegal in this country have health care just not insurance coverage!

Just like Obi told Congress, give me BS and I will call you on it.

Speaking of which, you just lost 21 million of your “fellow Americans”, since your 47 million includes those very illegals. And how many of the remaining millions are driving a Lexus without any insurance, car or health, by choice!!!!

Not sure what to say about your unemployment situation, but perhaps cutting additional funding to the giant military industrial complex will cause them to run right out and hire more people? Why don’t we have a “Bonds for Bombs” welfare giveaway at the same time and fix your SEC problem as well?

Finally, I agree with you on the administration pushing back but that’s where it ends. He is pushing everywhere, everyone, everything. He does think he is the Messiah and can solve “World Hunger”. Had he taken it a step at a time perhaps something would have come of it, but now the only thing you can count on is his departure from office in 3 more years.

Obama administration posture is to sit and watch people die and suffer and not do anyhting about it because its risky. He would be the one standing outside the world trade center taking pictures while those with courage enter in *at risk* to save lives.

If you don’t want to pay whatever it takes, then why are you not up in arms against F-35?

When the next JET report comes in it will again be clear that the program is still out of control and the unit and program prices will again be higher. If you don’t like waste look at this program objectively and say how you can support it. When is it too much? Program price has increased over 50%, unit costs now range from $80M to $100M depending on model and tehy are still going up. Nobody can say when the test program will actually be completed because progress has been so far away from the plan that every new projection has no basis.

Worst of all this is the #1 budget item and the President’s #1 priority in the DoD budget.

Respectfully, a reminder. Bush brought us here. It was not Obama’s unfettered unregulated speculative banking and “bundling securities” that led to this Depression. Also the TARP funds were passed by Bush, not Obama. Obama was left with this s*** sandwich and he has so far kept us from falling into a major 1930’s style Depression. Not that Obama is free of criticism, he has yet to show he has the stomach to go after those that gamed people’s pensions and lied to the SEC, or go after the SEC which was and apparently still is, asleep at the wheel.

That said, Obama has spent less than 20% of the TARP funds.

But I ask you this: we are already spending about 54% of every tax dollar on weaponry, so when is it ever going to be enough? Most of my family has no health insurance, but article 41 of the Iraqi Constitution guarantees that the Iraqis have health care on the government. If we can provide health care for the Iraqis on my tax dollars, then why can’t my family be covered? Frankly I am sick of the Iraqis. I am sick of the Afghanis. Let’s take care of that oppressed group called the Americans. I am skeptical of these boondoggle expeditions that ostensibly are there to fight terrorism, but end up in long, unfocused occupations of people who don’t want us there anymore, and will likely never change. (btw-Al Quaeda hasn’t been in Afghanistan in years). Iraq has been bled, and has bled us enough. We have bigger fish to fry within our own borders.

Everyday thousands Americans are losing their homes, many of them veterans. We have double digit unemployment. 47 million of our fellow Americans have no health insurance. If Iraq was a war of choice, and it was, then we could have instead insured every American instead of marching off like a Roman Legion quelling a revolt in a far off kingdom.

I am all for having a big robust military. I am just not willing to pay whatever the manufacturer says without question. The procurement process is corrupt, lined with lobbyists, bad sourcing, and black box projects that few question.

This administration is questioning the process and pushing back, and to that I say Amen.

This is a good discussion.

Respectfully,

Daniel Russ
Civilianmilitaryintelligencegroup.com

What does the AF do that requires so many people?