Federal Bailout What we should all know

The following email is "making the rounds" and seems to agree with the majority of information I have gotten from news reports.

This is truly an amazing article by one of the most liberal
newspapers in the country. Send it to everyone you can. It is the truth.
San Francisco Chronicle
'The average American listening to all the news of bank
failures, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (who?) being taken over by the
government, and now a bail-out of large, privately owned and well known
companies, is at first bewildered, and then angry. The average American
should be furious. But with whom should Americans be furious? That seems to
be the big question as political fingers are pointing in every direction.
Was it greedy CEOs with their golden parachutes? Was it the Democrats? Was
it the Republicans? Was it Wall Street? Who, exactly IS? The simple answer
is that it is all of the above. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Jr., and
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. B ernanke were on Capital Hill taking a
verbal beating from some of the very people who should not be asking the
questions, but answering them and answering those questions under oath.
Senator Chris Dodd, (D-Conn.) and Congressman Barney Frank,
(D-Mass.) are the first two who should be grilled, not by fellow
politicians, but by an independent and hopefully very clever, angry, and
mean attorney hired by the American people. No one from the present Justice
Department need apply. Both should be asked how much money they have taken
from lobbyists hired by the CEOs of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Since that
is public record, they should then be asked what Fannie and Freddie got in
return for t hat money.
Barney Frank should be questioned about his House Bill, H.R.
3838, that is clearly designed to keep Fannie and Freddie afloat as long as
possible desp i te all the signs that there was serious trouble ahead. But all
his bill did was make the hole bigger in the side of the Titanic. Basically
all H. R. 3838 did was: To temporarily increase the portfolio caps
applicable to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, to provide the necessary financing
to curb foreclosures by facilitating the refinancing of at-risk sub-prime
borrowers into safe, affordable loans, and for other purposes.
Barney Frank and his counterpart in the Senate, Chuck Schumer,
(D-N.Y.) did everything they could to delay and cover-up the outright fraud
and book-cooking that was going on within Freddie and Fannie.
As far back as 2003, Freddie and Fannie were $9 billion
dollars in debt because of bad loans that continued to be accepted on a
daily basis. Pressure from liberals in Congress to continue giving out bad
loans was relentless and for years i t continued with CEOs, who happen to be
friends of Dodd, Frank, Schumer, and Clinton, leaving with millions in their
bank accounts as the companies they ran went under.
The truth is that this financial disaster for the American
taxpayer didnt begin under George Bush, or Bill Clinton, or George Herbert
Walker Bush, or Ronald Reagan. It started under Jimmy Carter . It started
with the passing of The Community Reinvestment Act in 1977. Basically, this
act pushed local community banks and lenders, to bend the rules a little and
give loans to low-income families. Like many liberal schemes, it seemed like
a good idea at the time. There was a provision that protected the nervous
lender in the clause that stated that loans should be given in a safe and
sound manner. This gave the bank some leeway and choice in the loans that
were given out.
Under Bil l C linton, The Community Reinvestment Act was
revised. Basically, the revision started to put pressure on lenders to take
more financial risks. It was felt that lenders were not being to minorities
and the poor who only wanted to share in the American dream of owning their
own home. Janet Reno began to outwardly threaten banks and mortgage lenders
with prosecution if home loans were not approved for those who wanted to
purchase homes that, in truth, they could not afford.
Fearing federal retribution, loans started being approved for
people who had no down-payment, no jobs, no collateral, and absolutely no
hope of ever being able to meet any mortgage payment after the grace period
of low interest ran out.
Then, the greed took over. Banks would up loans, good and bad,
and sell them to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, making all their money up front
fo r lo ans they knew would default eventually. As these loans did default, in
larger and larger numbers, even Fannie and Freddie could no longer stand up
under the hemorrhag e of money loss. Wall Street panicked and so did the
federal government.
Were there warning signs that a disaster was looming? Of
course, there were. But there was money to be made and politicians and CEOs
alike were not about to give up the gravy train of money being crammed in
their pockets. The CEO of Freddie and Fannie would hire lobbyists to slip
money into the pockets of Senator Chris Dodd, (D-Conn.), chairman of the
Senate banking committee, who was supposed to be overseeing the banking
industry, to the tune of $133,900 since 1989. Barack Obama was number two at
the trough with over $120,000 which was no small feat since he has only been
in the Senate for three years. Dodd and Obama were closely followed by the
last De mocra tic nominee, John Kerry, (D-Mass.) and then Senator Hillary
Clinton, (D-N.Y.)
What were these lobbyists buying for the millions they
sprinkled around the Senate and House of Representatives? They were buying a
blind eye. They were buying little or no oversight into the juggernaut that
has finally crashed on the heads of the American taxpayer. CEO's got rich,
politicians got rich and they got votes, being able to tell minorities and
the poor, see what we are doing for you. For years, the red flags were
stuffed under the desk and ignored.
Early in his administration, George Bush sounded an alarm over
the small amount of working capital Fannie and Freddie had on hand. He urged
them to sell more shares to increase their reserve in funding and put them
on more stable ground. He urged them to be more selective in the loans they
bought. Thi s sugg estion was declined because the current stockholders would
not make as much profit.
Franklin Raines, the Fannie Mae CEO from 1999 to 2004, decided
to retire early, taking millions with him, under a cloud of accusations that
he had cooked the books to make it appear the company was making money
instead of going head-long into debt. Another player in this financial
kabuki dance is Jamie Gorelick. That name should ring a bell with every
American. She seems to surface right at the heart of every American disaster
in the last 15 years. Ms. Gorelick was vice-chair of Fannie Mae from 1997 to
2003. Like all the others, she lef t with millions in her pocket while
declaring that Fannie Mae is among the handful of top-quality institutions.'
The next year it was found that Fannie was $9 billion dollars in the red.
Oddly, this $9 billion had been overlooked in the books Ms. Gorelick and Mr.
Raines ke pt. Let 's put Mr. Raines and Ms. Gorelick on the stand. The
American people deserve to hear how much they gave lobbyists to pass on to
their friends in Congress to keep the blinders on. That number is a
staggering $16.2 million dollars since 1997. That amount bought very large
blinders. And, it bought time. It bought time for the likes of Raines and
Gorelick to make their millions and bow out before the bottom fell out.
Republican nominee John McCain raised the alarm two years ago
but his plan for more oversight was killed in the Democrat-controlled
committee. Over 20-year span, McCain took $20,000 but this did not stop him
from voicing his concerns. The problem was that Democrats didn't want to
hear about it. President Bushs warnings were also ignored. Should Bush have
done more? Yes. Unfortunately, Bush was distracted by the 9/11 attack and
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So now, nearly every hou r Americ ans watch as a
pompous Chris Dodd or Barney Frank struts to a microphone to declare the
failed economic policies of the Bush administration are responsible for this
mess.
No, Senator, he is not. YOU and your greedy friends are
responsible. It took three decades to reach the point of no return and some
were there with their hands out nearly all of those years. The Federal
Bureau of Investigation is launching a full investigation into all of this.
This investigation will abruptly end should Barack Obama win in November.
The last thing Democrats want is the American people learning how complicit
so many of them are in the illegal practice at Fannie and Freddie that led
to the taxpayers bearing the brunt of the their unbridled greed. While
politicians want oversight over the bail-out, there has been little outcry
for an investigation into how all this evolved.
&nbs p; It's time for Americans to go to their windows and throw them
open and yell, We are mad as hell and we aren't going to take it anymore.
Then, in November, vote the lot of them out of office.'