Fannie, Freddie asked to relax condo loan rules:

Fannie, Freddie asked to relax condo loan rules: report

Mon Jun 22, 2009 10:48am EDT

(Reuters) – Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery, the Wall Street Journal said.

In March, Fannie Mae (FNM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)(FNM.P: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said it would no longer guarantee mortgages on condos in buildings where fewer than 70 percent of the units have been sold, up from 51 percent, the paper said. Freddie Mac (FRE.P: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)(FRE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is due to implement similar policies next month, the paper said.

In a letter to the CEO’s of both companies, Representatives Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Anthony Weiner warned that a 70 percent sales threshold “may be too onerous” and could lead condo buyers to shun new developments, according to the paper.

The legislators asked the companies to “make appropriate adjustments” to their underwriting standards for condos, the paper added.

In an interview with the paper, Weiner said the rules have “had a real chill on the ability to get these condos sold,” at a time when prices of condos have fallen enough to attract potential buyers.

In addition to the 70 percent sales threshold, Fannie Mae will also not purchase mortgages in buildings where 15 percent of owners are delinquent on condo association dues or where one owner has more than 10 percent of units, as the firm sees these as signals that a building could run into financial trouble, the paper added.

Both Fannie and Freddie are preparing a response to the lawmakers, according to the paper.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters.

(Reporting by Chakradhar Adusumilli in Bangalore; editing by Simon Jessop)

Adding Up Obama + Pelosi + Reid + Frank

By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER | Posted Thursday, October 30, 2008 4:30 PM PT

Last week I made the open-and-shut case for John McCain: In a dangerous world entering an era of uncontrolled nuclear proliferation, the choice between the most prepared foreign policy candidate in memory vs. a novice with zero experience and the wobbliest one-world instincts is not a close call.

But it’s all about economics and kitchen-table issues, we are told. OK. Start with economics.

Neither candidate has particularly deep economic knowledge or finely honed economic instincts. Neither has any clear idea exactly what to do in the current financial meltdown.

Hell, neither does anyone else, including the best economic minds in the world, from Henry Paulson to the head of the European Central Bank. Yet they have muddled through with some success.

Both McCain and Barack Obama have assembled fine economic teams that may differ on the details of their plans but have reasonable approaches to managing the crisis. So forget the hype. Neither candidate has an advantage on this issue.

On other domestic issues, McCain is just the kind of moderate conservative that the Washington/media establishment once loved — the champion of myriad conservative heresies that made him a burr in the side of congressional Republicans and George W. Bush.

But now that he is standing in the way of an audacity-of-hope Democratic restoration, erstwhile friends recoil from McCain on the pretense that he has suddenly become right wing.

Self-serving rubbish. McCain is who he always was. Generally speaking, he sees government as a Rooseveltian counterweight (Teddy with a touch of Franklin) to the various malefactors of wealth and power.

He wants government to tackle large looming liabilities such as Social Security and Medicare. He wants to free up health insurance by beginning to sever its debilitating connection to employment — a ruinous accident of history (arising from World War II wage and price controls) that increases the terror of job loss, inhibits labor mobility and saddles American industry with costs that are driving it (see: Detroit) into insolvency. And he supports lower corporate and marginal tax rates to encourage entrepreneurship and job creation.

An eclectic, moderate, generally centrist agenda in a guy almost congenitally given to bipartisanship.

Obama, on the other hand, talks less and less about bipartisanship, his calling card during his earlier messianic stage. He does not need to. If he wins, he will have large Democratic majorities in both houses. And unlike 1992, Obama is no Clinton centrist.

What will you get?

(1) Card check, meaning the abolition of the secret ballot in the certification of unions in the workplace. Large men will come to your house at night and ask you to sign a card supporting a union. You will sign.

(2) The so-called Fairness Doctrine — a project of Nancy Pelosi and leading Democratic senators — a Hugo Chavez-style travesty designed to abolish conservative talk radio.

(3) Judges who go beyond even the constitutional creativity we expect from Democratic appointees. Judges chosen according to Obama’s publicly declared criterion: “empathy” for the “poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old” — in a legal system historically predicated on the idea of justice entirely blind to one’s station in life.

(4) An unprecedented expansion of government power. Yes, I know. It has already happened. A conservative government has already partially nationalized the mortgage industry, the insurance industry and nine of the largest U.S. banks.

This is all generally swallowed because everyone understands that the current crisis demands extraordinary measures. The difference is that conservatives are instinctively inclined to make such measures temporary.

Whereas an Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Barney Frank administration will find irresistible the temptation to use the tools inherited — $700 billion of largely uncontrolled spending — as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to radically remake the American economy and social compact.

This is not socialism. This is not the end of the world. It would, however, be a decidedly leftward move on the order of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

The alternative is a McCain administration with a moderate conservative presiding over a divided government and generally inclined to resist a European social-democratic model of economic and social regulation featuring, for example, wealth-distributing, growth-killing marginal tax rates.

The national security choice in this election is no contest. The domestic policy choice is more equivocal because it is ideological. McCain is the quintessential center-right candidate. Yet the quintessential center-right country is poised to reject him. The hunger for anti-Republican catharsis and the blinding promise of Obamian hope are simply too strong. The reckoning comes in the morning.

© 2008 Washington Post Writers Group

Election ’08 Backgrounder

  

Financial Crisis | Iraq | Defense | Background & Character | Judges & Courts | Energy

 

FINANCIAL CRISIS

Quick Facts: Democrats created the mortgage crisis by forcing banks to give loans to people who couldn’t afford them. In 2006, McCain sponsored a bill to fix the problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Barney Frank and other Democrats successfully opposed it. Obama was one of the highest recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac donations in Congress. Related Editorials » Why The Mortgage Crisis Happened » What Caused The Loan Crisis? » Barney Frank’s Bankrupt Ideas » Pin Tail On Donkey » If Bailout Plan Is Too Socialistic, Just Wait For Obama Leviathan

IRAQ

Quick Facts: When the U.S. was on the verge of losing in Iraq, McCain chose to stand and fight.  Obama chose retreat. Even after the surge succeeded, Obama told ABC’s Terry Moran he would still oppose it if he had the chance to do it all over again. Related Editorials » Obama’s Bad Case Of Iraqnophobia » Victory In Anbar

DEFENSE

Quick Facts: Obama has promised to significantly cut defense spending, including saying “I will slow our development of future combat systems.” John McCain has vowed: “We must continue to deploy a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent, robust missile defenses and superior conventional forces that are capable of defending the United States and our allies.” Related Editorials » Obama And Frank: A Farewell To Arms » McCain Won’t Need Training Wheels Obama Video: Watch Now

BACKGROUND & CHARACTER

Quick Facts: Obama voted “present” 135 times as a state senator, and according to David Ignatius of the Washington Post, “gained a reputation for skipping tough votes.” McCain has taken stances unpopular with his own party and/or the public on controversial issues, including immigration, campaign finance reform, judicial nominations, the Iraq War and more. Related Editorials » Obama’s Fox Trot » The Audacity Of Socialism » Tough Truths About Obama’s Character » Obama Merely Changes The Subject

JUDGES & COURTS

Quick Facts: In a 2001 interview, Obama said he regretted that the Supreme Court “didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.” In the same interview, Obama criticized the Supreme Court because it “never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.” Obama has focused on empathy, rather than legal reasoning and restraint, as his basis for appointing judges, saying, “We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy…to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old.” McCain opposes judicial activism, saying, “my nominees will understand that there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power.” Related Editorials » Constitutional Crisis » Judging McCain Obama 2001 Interview: Listen Now

ENERGY

Quick Facts: McCain has proposed building 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 and is in favor of drilling in sectors of the Outer Continental Shelf. Obama has refused to take a stand, saying only “we should explore nuclear power as part of the energy mix” and he will “look at” drilling offshore. Related Editorials » McCain: The Energy Candidate » McCain On Nukes: Yes We Can » Breaking The Back Of High Oil

Great News: Barney Frank says Dems will cut defense, raise taxes, and spend lots of money

Great News: Barney Frank says Dems will cut

defense, raise taxes, and spend lots of money

Rick Moran
Well, you can’t say they didn’t warn us ahead of time:

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Democrats will push for a stimulus package after the November election, and called for a package reducing defense spending by 25 percent while saying Congress will “eventually” raise taxes.

Frank told the editorial board of the SouthCoast Standard-Times that he wanted to reduce defense spending by a quarter, meaning the United States would have to withdraw from Iraq sooner.

“The people of Iraq want us out, and we want to stay over their objection,” he said. “It’s extraordinary.”

Frank also said the post-election stimulus package will focus on spending for building projects, extending unemployment benefits, and further supporting states’ healthcare costs. “We’ll have to raise taxes ultimately,” Frank said. “Not now, but eventually.” Frank told the Standard-Times that if Democrats cannot secure the votes they need in November, they will try again in January, when they will likely have stronger majorities in the House and Senate.

B-B-B-B-ut we thought Obama was going to CUT taxes for “95% of Americans?”

Suckers.

Meanwhile, that 25% cut in defense spending means, oh, about $115 billion stripped during a time of war. No word on when the Dems are going to raise the white flag and leave Afghanistan – but that is almost certainly in the cards. But don’t worry. Before long, they will run out of enemies to surrender to. Then they will have start surrendering to each other.

Love that stimulating “stimulus package,” don’t you? We’re running a half trillion deficit and the Dems want to throw more money at us. That’s in addition to our “tax cut” that will no doubt be grabbed back in about 6 months when the government begins to collapse under the weight of additional debt piled on by the liberals.

Barack Obama: Change you can drink hemlock to.

Posted at 05:07 PM | Email | Permalink |

McCain Promises to Investigate Sen. Dodd, Rep. Frank’s Role in Financial Mess

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=192423

“The fact is that the same people claiming credit for this rescue are the same ones that were willing co-conspirators in causing this problem that it is. And you know their names. And you will know more of their names. Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd are two of them.”

Opposing view: The sky is not falling

By John Shadegg

 

Every Republican who voted against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act on Monday believes that Congress must address this crisis. They take it seriously and stand ready to vote for reasonable legislation. They were unwilling to give Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson a blank check.

The sky is not falling. The market will return. Secretary Paulson is getting a lesson in civics. The world he has entered is different than the wheeling-and-dealing Goldman Sachs world where he made his fortune.

Members of Congress have a duty to protect the interests of the American people. That is precisely what they did. The vote against the measure was solidly bipartisan.

Paulson’s $700 billion dollar plan was fundamentally flawed. The bill asked for a blank check. It did not specify which assets could be purchased or the procedure by which they would be purchased.

Regrettably, Congressional Democrats inserted extraneous provisions and chose to put groups such as ACORN (a liberal housing advocacy group) and trial lawyers before the American people. After Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., courageously halted the stampede, most negotiation time was spent removing harmful Democrat language, rather than improving Paulson’s proposal.

House Republicans want to protect the American people and our nation’s financial institutions, enabling them to make the loans needed to run America’s economy. It is also critical to calm public anxiety.

To begin, “mark to market,” the accounting rule that requires mortgage-backed securities to be valued at fire-sale prices, must be suspended. For reasons that are incomprehensible, Paulson and congressional Democrats refused to include such a provision. It’s a systemic reform Congress must insist upon to reduce taxpayer exposure and prevent this crisis from reoccurring. Further, an update to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., increasing its $100,000 limit, would relieve the concern of millions of Americans for their life savings. It’s hard to imagine why anyone would oppose such a change.

Many House conservatives do not like the structure of Paulson’s proposal to have the government purchase troubled assets. But there is nothing inherent in this plan that’s inconsistent with the two reforms outlined above.

Americans need to understand that the Senate was not scheduled to vote on this bill until Wednesday evening, as a result of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah today. We have ample time to reach an acceptable compromise if all parties act in good faith. The Democratic House majority can move to reconsider its bill if Speaker Nancy Pelosi will allow an amendment to improve it by making changes, including those I have outlined.

This problem can be solved in the very near future, and the market will come back.

Rep. John Shadegg, R-Arizona, first elected in 1994, has held a number of Republican leadership positions in the House.

Nancy Pelosi’s Political Caliphate On America

http://patdollard.com/2008/09/nancy-pelosis-political-caliphate-on-america/

Why is ACORN in The Bailout?

 Why is ACORN in The Bailout?

September 26, 2008 7:57 AM
Posted By:Pam

And this deal that’s on the table now is not a very good deal. Twenty percent of the money that should go to retire debt that will be created to solve this problem winds up in a housing organization called ACORN that is an absolute ill-run enterprise, and I can’t believe we would take money away from debt retirement to put it in a housing program that doesn’t work.

Dodd proposal:

TRANSFER OF A PERCENTAGE OF PROFITS.

1. DEPOSITS.Not less than 20 percent of any profit realized on the sale of each troubled asset purchased under this Act shall be deposited as provided in paragraph (2).
2. USE OF DEPOSITS.Of the amount referred to in paragraph (1)
   1. 65 percent shall be deposited into the Housing Trust Fund established under section 1338 of the Federal Housing Enterprises Regulatory Reform Act of 1992 (12 U.S.C. 4568); and
   2. 35 percent shall be deposited into the Capital Magnet Fund established under section 1339 of that Act (12 U.S.C. 4569).

REMAINDER DEPOSITED IN THE TREASURY.All amounts remaining after payments under paragraph (1) shall be paid into the General Fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the HTF/ACORN/Democratic connections in July:

The housing bill signed Wednesday by President George W. Bush will provide a stream of billions of dollars for distressed homeowners and communities and the nonprofit groups that serve them.

One of the biggest likely beneficiaries, despite Republican objections: Acorn, a housing advocacy group that also helps lead ambitious voter-registration efforts benefiting Democrats. …

Partly because of the role of Acorn and other housing advocacy groups, the White House and its allies in Congress resisted Democrats’ plans to include money for a new affordable-housing trust fund and $4 billion in grants to restore housing in devastated neighborhoods. In the end, the money stayed in the bill; the White House saw little choice.

What most riles Republicans about the bill is the symbiotic relationship between the Democratic Party and the housing advocacy groups, of which Acorn is among the biggest. Groups such as the National Council of La Raza and the National Urban League also lobby to secure government-funded services for their members and seek to move them to the voting booth. Acorn has been singled out for criticism because of its reach, its endorsements of Democrats, and past flaws in its bookkeeping and voter-registration efforts that its detractors in Congress have seized upon.

Ed:

Profits? We’ll be lucky not to take a bath on the purchase of these toxic assets. If we get 70 cents on the dollar, that would be a success.

That being said, this section proves that the Democrats in Congress have learned nothing from this financial collapse.  They still want to game the market to pick winners and losers by funding programs for unqualified and marginally-qualified borrowers to buy houses they may not be able to afford — and that’s the innocent explanation for this clause.

The real purpose of section D is to send more funds to La Raza and ACORN through housing welfare, via the slush fund of the HTF.  They want to float their political efforts on behalf of Democrats with public money, which was always the purpose behind the HTF.  They did the same thing in April in the first bailout bill, setting aside $100 million in “counseling” that went in large part to ACORN and La Raza, and at least in the former case, providing taxpayer funding for a group facing criminal charges in more than a dozen states for fraud.

Obama Fights Phantom 527 Groups

Rick Moran
The main reason Barack Obama has given for eschewing public financing of his campaign was based on a lie:

“We’ve made the decision not to participate in the public financing system for the general election,” Obama says in the video, blaming it on the need to combat Republicans, saying “we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. And we’ve already seen that he’s not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.”

“Millions and millions of dollars” from GOP 527 groups? This is a lie as Obama well knows. Jonathan Martin exposes Obama:

Obama’s alarmist prophecy – a bit of typical campaign rhetoric meant to scare his own donors into reaching for their credit cards – is wildly at odds with the flatlined state of conservative third-party efforts.

The truth is that, less than five months before Election Day, there are no serious anti-Obama 527s in existence nor are there any immediate plans to create such a group.

Conversations with more than a dozen Republican strategists find near unanimity in the belief that, at some point, there will be a real third-party effort aimed at Obama.

But not one knows who will run it, who will pay for it, what shape it will eventually take or when such a group may form.

More worrisome for Republicans who believe such an outside attack apparatus is essential to defeating Obama, some key individuals and groups who were being looked to for help say they won’t be involved.

In short, there are presently no 527 groups with prospects dim for the formation of one. Obama is fully aware of this which makes his self serving statement about refusing federal financing the height of cynical lying.

This is certainly change that we can lie about.

Hat Tip: Ed Lasky

 

Posted at 09:55 AM | Email | Permalink

Obama’s Real Mideast Problem

Obama’s Real Mideast Problem

By Amir Taheri
New York Post | 3/6/2008

IS pronouncing a man’s middle name tantamount to insulting him? In Sen. Barack Obama‘s case, the answer appears to be yes.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has already apologized because her allies used the unmentionable middle name – ostensibly without her consent. Last week, it was Sen. John McCain‘s turn to apologize, because the host of a meeting he attended was rash enough to pronounce the seven-letter word.

The word in question is “Hussein,” Obama’s middle name and the name of his Kenyan Muslim father. Obama has accepted the apologies as if using his father’s name was, indeed, an insult. Why?

Well, “Hussein” supposedly has a negative resonance with many Americans, reminding them of Saddam Hussein, the late Iraqi dictator. The fact that the name Hussein means “most benign” or “very beautiful” in Arabic isn’t enough to persuade Obama and his pr gurus to treat it more kindly. (Hussein is also one of the most popular names for Muslims, especially Shiites.)

Obama’s problems shouldn’t end there. “Barack” is also Arabic, from “barakah,” meaning “blessing.” “Obama,” meanwhile, is a word in Swahili – a language based on Arabic that serves as the lingua franca of East Africa; it refers to members of his father’s tribe who converted to Islam.

In other words, “Barack Hussein Obama” is a perfectly common identifier for someone with an ethnic East African Muslim background.

Nevertheless, Obama insists that, while his father and paternal grandfather were both Muslims, he himself was never one in any way.

In Islam, of course, anyone born of a Muslim father is automatically regarded as Muslim. But Obama is hardly obliged to abide by what Muslims may or may not think of his religious status. As a citizen of a free and democratic state, he can cross from one faith to anther or have no faith at all without losing any of his rights, including the right to stand for the highest office.

What’s troubling about Obama’s approach to the mini-storm stirred by his political enemies over his name is what may look like an attempt at obfuscation. He has behaved as if he did have a family secret, and as if the name Hussein was something to be ashamed of – or, worse still, as if a Muslim background is somehow a handicap for an American politician in ways that Christian, Jewish, Mormon or any other faith is not.

That, of course, is hurtful to Muslims – a majority of whom reject the anti-American diatribes of the radical and violent minority.

It would’ve been better for Obama to state the situation clearly at the start: I was born in Hawaii and spent part of my childhood in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country. Half of my family background is Islamic. My paternal grandfather and father were both Kenyan Muslims. My father gave me an Islamic forename and middle name. But my mother was from a Christian background, and I chose her faith.

Most Americans judge a candidate based on his politics rather than his parents’ religious background. In a country where everyone has a rich ethnic and religious background, Obama’s family story wouldn’t have sounded that exotic. Some Americans may have even regarded the Islamic part of Obama’s family story as a plus for the candidate, if only because the biggest challenge to US global leadership todayscomes from forces speaking in Islam’s name.

Obama’s efforts to distance himself from Islam contrasts with his innovative approach to US relations with its Islamist challengers.

President Bush has chosen the “iron fist” – invading Afghanistan and Iraq, quarantining the Islamic Republic in Iran, keeping Syria’s Baathist regime in check and helping a dozen Muslim states fight al Qaeda or its variants. McCain and Clinton offer variations on the same theme, albeit with twists and turns to satisfy their constituencies.

By contrast, Obama offers a policy of dialogue and accommodation. He has opposed listing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization and proposed a grand bargain with Syria’s rulers. He is even prepared to ignore two UN Security Council resolutions that require Iran to stop its uranium-enrichment program as a precondition for talks at the highest level. He has campaigned for a formal congressional move to prevent Bush from taking any military action against Tehran.

In an important symbolic move designed to signal an end of the special relationship between Israel and America, Obama has become the first major presidential candidate in 25 years not to commit himself to transferring the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Last but not least, Obama has promised to withdraw from Iraq in his first year in office – meeting a key demand of all radical Islamist forces, Sunni and Shiite.

The message is clear: Obama wants a new relationship with radical forces in the Islamic world while distancing America from its traditional regional allies. In other words, he proposes to reverse policies that have taken shape over more than six decades under 12 successive American presidents.

It’s this revolutionary idea that deserves to be examined and debated, not the origin and meaning of Obama’s middle name.