Chris Dodd: When It's My Fault, Let's Not Point Fingers

Don Michak at the Journal Inquirer had a good article on Thursday (read the whole article) pointing out yet another Chris Dodd hypocrisy. Though many may not remember, in 1999 Dodd was the "unsung hero" (according to Fortune Magazine) in passing the Graham-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act, which repealed portions of the New Deal-era Glass-Steagall law that regulated the banking industry. It is exactly this type of deregulation that has frequently been blamed for the economic crisis we find ourselves in.

So, did this legislation Dodd had such an influential role in passing lead us to where we are? Some say yes, others say no, and Chris Dodd's opinion depends on the political winds:

Dodd’s public comments about Glass-Steagall have evolved over the last few years, moving away from his initial defense of its repeal and increasingly blaming regulators for failing to do their jobs.

In 2003, when Dodd, who had yet to become chairman of the Banking Committee, was asked by the Journal Inquirer if the move was a good idea given a scandal in which top Wall Street firms were seeking to claim tax deductions for multimillion-dollar fines, the senator said he still thought it was...

Five years later, soon after Dodd took the helm of the banking panel, the senator acknowledged in another JI interview that he might have had second thoughts about brokering the repeal...

Dodd hewed to a similar line last month in his interview with Fortune.

“I regret we didn’t pay more attention to this at the time,” he said, referring to the regulatory framework. “We’re not going to go back and rewrite that. We want to be able to have those kinds of efficiencies in the system. But clearly the division between commerce and banking — that needs to be a bright line.”

Asked last week if he was saying the repeal was a mistake, Dodd ducked while admitting some regret.

“If I could have written the bill myself, I would have done it differently,” he said. “In fact, I along with almost every Democrat in the Senate opposed the bill when it went through the Senate at first. The language was changed through negotiations and compromise which improved on the original Republican bill, and we trusted that the regulators would do their jobs and make the system work.

“Unfortunately, that did not happen, which is partly why we’re in the situation we’re in today,” he added. “However, we are in a national crisis, and the time has come to put aside finger pointing. Now is the time to look ahead and develop comprehensive solutions to these problems.”

To recap: Dodd worked hard to pass this law, still supported it a few years later, it (possibly) leads to a financial collapse and all of the sudden it was a bad Republican plan on which he did all he could to water down. Then, after pointing fingers at the Republicans and regulators, he urges us not to point fingers at him because "the time has come to put aside finger pointing."

The man has no shame.

Off The Wire: Another Rought Stretch For Dodd

Another (or perhaps just the same, nearly year-long) run of not-so-hot coverage for Connecticut's senior senator this week, with a few selected articles/posts below for your review:

• Kevin Rennie at the Hartford Courant keeps swinging, with no signs of ever letting up, at what is left of Chris Dodd.
• The Connecticut Post editorial staff encourages Roger Pearson to jump into a Democratic primary against Dodd.
• Some Dodd advisor thought a good theme for his come-back attempt would be "Banking on Change." Brian Faughnan at RedState thinks otherwise.
• Megan McCardle at The Atlantic looks at this Op-Ed from the Augusta (GA) Chronicle and decides on what bothers her most about Chris Dodd.

Also, Lagomorph at The Next Right has a summary of a recent conference call with Republican candidate Rob Simmons.

Chris Dodd And What's For Dinner

I wrote about Chris Dodd's short-sighted, politically motivated last-minute inclusion of executive compensation limitations into the TARP bill here last month, but check out American Thinker for a post on yesterdays article in Fortune magazine. An excerpt:

Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd, beneficiary of nepotism (his father was a beloved Senator from Connecticut), sweetheart mortgage deals, and the number one beneficiary of Wall Street donations - at least until Barack Obama came along - turnds around and bites the hands that have fed him so well over the years.

All for political gain. Yet his moves to punish, and treat in a child-like way, higih quality performers in the financial world will backfire and cause untild losses to our economy.

And another, quoting from the Fortune article:

Senator Dodd's attempt to turn masters of the universe into bureaucrats even extends to where they dine. Instead of using the Zagat guide, TARP recipients may be expected to work from a list of restaurants "identified by the Secretary" of the Treasury, since by law he must now specify which entertainment expenditures are "excessive." Thus, a Washington civil servant could end up judging whether a Manhattan banker can take good customers to dinner at Per Se, or whether TGIF might be elegant enough to close a deal. Your tax dollars at work.

Good stuff. Read the whole thing.

Dodd Apologizes For Nationalization Comments

After seeing the resulting damage and recovering from his inexplicable shock at the reaction they elicited, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee Chris Dodd apologized yesterday for his foolish and ill-timed comments suggesting that U.S. banks may be nationalized.

From the L.A. Times:

Sen. Chris Dodd is apologizing today for his comments Friday suggesting that it might be necessary to nationalize banks for a short time.

The Connecticut Democrat, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, told reporters in Washington that he was surprised by the market's reaction.

Dodd said his statement Friday "should have been better thought-out at the time. I didn't realize it was going to have the reaction it did," according to Bloomberg News.

I am still perplexed by Dodd's story that he was caught off guard by the market reaction. I suppose the truth is that he was not surprised at all, but figured that was a better excuse than "I screwed up." Since he went ahead and apologized anyway, he would have been better off falling on the sword to begin with rather than pleading ignorance of basic economic cause-and-effect.

Senator Sinks Stocks With Statement, Seems Stunned

Yesterday, when asked about the nationalization of banks in an interview with Bloomberg, Senator Chris Dodd said that he is "concerned that we may end up having to do that, at least for a short time." The foolishness of Dodd, the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, talking publicly about nationalizing the banks while the industry is teetering on the brink is readily apparent to all but Dodd himself, and the responses of the industry and the stock market demonstrate it nicely.

"We believe that the whole discussion about nationalization is impairing the financial sector and making the credit situation worse," Edward Yingling, president and chief executive officer of the American Bankers Association, a Washington-based industry group, said in a statement.

Citigroup tumbled 22 percent, to $1.95, the lowest since Jan. 29, 1991. Bank of America, the biggest bank by assets with $883 billion in deposits, plunged as much as 36 percent before recouping most of the drop after Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis said the bank can survive the recession "on our own."

This to me seems like Economics 101. Why would investors hold the stock of a bank that they believe is about to be taken over by the government? When I told my wife about Dodd's comments and asked her what she thought happened next, she said the bank's stock would take a hit. Of all the wonderful things my wife is, an economist she is not, but she figured it out.

Yet somehow Chris Dodd, our senior senator and Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, was blown away.

"I'm sort of stunned in a way that some people are reacting the way they are about all of this," Dodd said. "At a time like this, everyone needs to be pulling in the same direction."

First, the fact that he was stunned by the reaction to his statement is frightening. If it was the market reaction that stunned him, he should be removed from his position immediately for incompetence. If he was stunned that people don't want the U.S. banking system to be nationalized, perhaps he would be better suited for a seat in the Cuban legislature. We are not a socialist country yet, Senator.

As to the fact that we should all be pulling in the same direction, I agree completely. So start pulling with everyone else! Dodd obviously wasn't pulling with the Obama administration:

The Obama administration turned aside questions about a U.S. takeover of banks, saying a "privately held banking system is the correct way to go, ensuring that they are regulated sufficiently by this government," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said today at a briefing. "That's been our belief for quite some time, and we continue to have that."

Nor was he pulling the same direction as his somewhat more flamboyant House counterpart, Barney Frank:

Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who heads the panel that crafts banking legislation, said he didn't see the likelihood of U.S. banks being nationalized, and Geithner's bank bailout plan unveiled this month should be given time to take effect.

As bad as the economy is right now, with someone like Chris Dodd manning the helm of our country's financial ship, it is nothing short of a miracle that it hasn't been completely decimated by the rocky shoals his leadership has driven us into.

Additional coverage at the Hartford Courant, ABC, CNN, WSJ's MarketWatch, and Reuters.

Off The Wire: More Reasons To Vote Dodd Out

I've been pretty sick with the flu (guess that flu shot wasn't all it's cracked up to be) since Wednesday, but I am trying to keep on top of things. Who would have known when I started this blog the day after the election that Dodd would provide so much material?

Anyway, a few items that caught my interest in the few minutes I was conscious over the past two days:

- Schiff's money-bomb is off and running today. As of 2:55 EST, they stand at $9,348, rapidly approaching their goal of $10k. The Courant has an article about Schiff today, and he answers a question some have asked, namely whether Schiff would run as a Republican, Libertarian or Independent.

If he were to run for Senate, Schiff said he would run as a Republican. "If I wanted to and put int the effort, I could probably get the Republican nomination, but I don't know if I want to," he said.

But what would be the point? "I don't need the power, the fame ... or the money," Schiff said. "I don't need those things. If I really thought I could make a difference, might I be willing to change careers? I might ... but there needs to be a bigger movement, there needs to be more candidates."

Seems a little presumptuous to just assume he would win the Republican nomination, especially if Simmons is in. We'll see.

- The Wall Street Journal takes a few shots at AG Blumenthal for his slobbering support of Dodd and statement that Dodd has done nothing wrong. As the piece points out:

It's interesting that the state's top lawyer can pronounce that there's no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Dodd, especially since Mr. Blumenthal told us this week that he has never investigated Dodd's Countrywide deals.

[snip]

Mr. Blumenthal's decision to stay out of the way of federal law enforcers contrasts with his approach when Republican Governor John Rowland and others were successfully prosecuted on federal corruption charges. In that case, Mr. Blumenthal was so zealous that in 2004 a state court judge temporarily blocked his civil suit after federal prosecutors claimed he was making it more difficult to prosecute the federal case.

It's not exactly comparing apples to apples, but the contrast is striking. Of course, Blumenthal had nothing to gain from backing Rowland, while he would need Dodd's support in 2012 were he to challenge Lieberman for his seat. The Everyday Republican's take can be found here.

- Chris Dodd has gotten to someone at the Kansas City Tribune (where's this level of outrage in the CT media?) with his accepting huge campaign contributions from the banking industry and then giving them a 258,000% return on their donations. A taste:

In my weeks of research into understanding how America went from economic lynchpin to a wayward ship drifting on a sea of economic trouble, I find myself baffled and appalled by statements from Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT), Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

His anger seems real enough. But the stench of hypocrisy reeks up the room every time he forgets to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars he received in 2008 as campaign donations from these same banks, their management and employees - currently not under receivership of the U.S. taxpayer.

Read the whole thing.

- Finally, I never posted on Time's list of the 25 people to blame for the financial crisis (and I won't link to it, since it is a joke for not including Dodd and Frank; find it yourself). But Jack Dunphy, a frequent guest-contributer at Patterico's Pontifications, has. Read that post, and while you are there, bookmark the site. Good stuff on a regular basis.

Dodd and Dems Cannot Even Convince Their Own On "Bad Bank"

One of Chris Dodd's more recent bright ideas is to set up a government bank to buy up all the toxic mortgages that he helped create with his "home-ownership is a God-given right" schtick. Apparently, not everyone thinks that is a good idea. Not even lefty investor George Soros:

That leaves the second issue: what to do with the toxic assets currently held by financial institutions. The idea d'jour that has been floated around is the creation of a "bad bank" that would own all of the bad mortgages and securities. But that's not necessary. There have always been mechanisms within easy reach, via either the temporary suspension of certain regulations or very simple Congressional legislation, which could take care of both the existing bad assets and the recapitalization of banks -- relying not on the federal government, but on the private sector. From Soros:

For these reasons it would be a mistake to take the "bad bank" route, especially when there is a way to adequately recapitalize the banks with currently available resources. The trick is not to remove the toxic assets from the banks' balance sheets but instead put them into a "side pocket," as hedge funds are doing with their illiquid assets. The appropriate amount of capital -- equity and unsecured debentures -- would be sequestered in the side pocket.

This would cleanse bank balance sheets and transform them into good banks but leave them undercapitalized. The same $1 trillion that is now destined to fund the bad bank could then be used to infuse capital into the good banks.

Although the amount needed to recapitalize the banks would be more than $1 trillion, it would be possible to mobilize a significant portion of the required total amount from the private sector. In the current environment, a good bank would enjoy exceptionally good margins. Margins would narrow as a result of competition, but by then the banking system would be revitalized and nationalization avoided.

This seems to be an intelligent way to solve the fundamental problems currently freezing the credit and housing markets. It is also comprised of programs that the Democrats have not promoted or included in their 'stimulus' bill, which places Soros in opposition to the Democrats - an odd place for him to be.

Instead, Democrats like Harry Reid, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, and Barney Frank - with assistance from Obama Administration members Timothy Geitner at Treasury and Sheila Bair at FDIC - seem intent an nationalizing both the housing sector and the banking system.

Let's hope that Soros and the Republicans can convince them otherwise.

How do people like Chris Dodd end up running our economy?

Via American Thinker.

Dodd: If Obama Pinky-Swears He'll Be Responsible, Let's Give Him $350 Billion

So, Chris Dodd thinks the first installment of TARP funds has been "terribly mismanaged" by President Bush and his administration (forget for the moment that he was one of the lead negotiators and voted for the plan as is). As the leader of the Senate Banking Committee, he wants us to know that he is committed to making sure this terrible mismanagement doesn't continue if the Obama administration gets the rest of the $700 billion tax dollars. And this, apparently, is how he is going to go about it (from Politico, H/T TPM, emphasis mine):

Dodd said he’s prepared to draft legislation, mirroring a bill proposed by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) last week, to call for a broadening of the TARP program and for more oversight, but he said that a letter from Obama’s team – instead of additional legislation – could be sufficient to alleviate concerns in Congress.

Got that? The new plan is to make Obama promise to be more responsible than GWB, cross his heart and hope to die, stick a needle in his eye. Even HuffPo doesn't buy it.

I understand that an awful lot of people across the country drank the Obama Kool-Aid and believe that he is going to save the country from whatever George Bush did to it. But it is a little frightening to think that our senior senator has apparently done the same thing, to the point that he thinks he can just take O's word for it.

Rove Relays Rarely Reported Reality

In his editorial in the Wall Street Journal today, Karl Rove points out a few facts that should be obvious. Unfortunately, the liberal spin machine that is the MSM has largely refused to acknowledge them.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were under-regulated, and that did contribute to their recent problems. But the lack of proper oversight was not the fault of the Bush Administration or John McCain, regardless of how many times you have been told that it was.

No, the responsibility lies in large part at the feet of Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and their friends in the Democratic caucus. Because they were blinded by their desire, rooted in good intentions, no doubt, but pursued at any cost, to get minorities and poor people into homes regardless of whether or not they could afford them, Democrats cried racism and charged Republicans as being elitist. They refused to allow anything that might slow the flood of unqualified new homeowners.

When Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama, then chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, pushed for comprehensive GSE reform in 2005, Democrat Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut successfully threatened a filibuster. Later, after Fannie and Freddie collapsed, Mr. Dodd asked, "Why weren't we doing more?" He then voted for the Bush reforms that he once called "ill-advised."

But Mr. Dodd wasn't the only Democrat to heap abuse on the Bush reforms. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts defended Fannie and Freddie as "fundamentally sound" and labeled the president's proposals as "inane." He later voted for the reforms. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York dismissed Mr. Bush's "safety and soundness concerns" as "a straw man." "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," was the helpful advice of both Sen. Thomas Carper of Delaware and Rep. Maxine Waters of California. Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York berated a Bush official at a hearing, saying, "I am just pissed off" at the administration for raising the issue.

But when things started to fall apart, the tunes changed quickly. Suddenly, it was Bush's watch that this happened on, and John McCain was the great deregulator. Free markets had failed, was the cry, regardless of the fact that everything was set in motion by massive market intervention. Nary a word was whispered by the media about the CRA, for example, or about the threats Congress made towards banks who threatened to only lend to, you know, people who could pay their mortgages.

It is nice to read the facts in a newspaper. Too bad there are so few reporters who can be troubled to write them.

Dodd on the Web: Annoying, Pompous and Unpopular

Right Wing News has its annual list of most anoying liberals, and Chris Dodd makes the list at number 20.

20) Chris Dodd: Dodd, who ran a perfectly awful campaign for President, was one of the few candidates who didn't get an invitation to join Barack Obama's cabinet. Was it because he's so tragically boring? No, it's because not only was he, like Barney Frank, an enabler for the whole financial crisis that has currently engulfed the U.S. economy -- he also got a sweetheart deal from Countrywide and then turned around and helped funnel billions of dollars their way during the bailout. Of course, Dodd claimed that he had no idea he was getting such a great deal because he is a U.S. Senator. He simply thought they were rewarding him for being such a good customer!

That's how it always seems to work with crooked politicians like Chris Dodd: companies funnel in money on the front end and the pols pay them back with taxpayer money by the bank vault full while shifting the blame elsewhere.

Defining quote: "It's not easy being a U.S. senator. People trick you into taking special favors you didn't even know existed. Shame on these unscrupulous people!

...Most alleged victims of Countrywide were gulled into taking loans with onerous interest rates and excessive fees. But they don't know the agony of life as a U.S. senator, when at any moment a powerful, well-heeled interest might take advantage of you with cut-rate loans." -- Rich Lowry

NECN has a story that includes an interview with Dodd. Fast forward to about 0:30 remaining to hear him explain how if only we had listened to him for the last two years, we would not have the problem with foreclosures we now face. Seriously. Watch it, but do so on an empty stomach.



Finally, the Hartford Courant says this about Chris Dodd, a political name to watch in 2009:

After nearly 28 years of consistent popularity, U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd saw his public approval ratings sag to below 50 percent in late 2008 after months of news disclosures about his cut-rate mortgages from banking giant Countrywide Financial and his long absence from duty while he was running for president earlier in the year. Now it's decision time for Dodd on whether to launch a run for a sixth Senate term in the 2010 election. Dodd has denied wrongdoing, but still refuses to release documents related to his mortgages while the Senate conducts an ethics probe.

Thirty Years of the CRA in Pictures

Via Patterico, Doug Ross has some interesting data regarding the Community Reinvestment Act that Democrats, beginning with President Carter in 1977, and strengthened by President Clinton in the mid-'90s, has done to our economy.

Of course, Chris Dodd has been in the Senate most of that time, supporting the market interventions that have driven us to the brink. For the record, I don't question the motives of these people. I am sure that they thought they were doing a good thing for people who could not afford homes.

Unfortunately, they were wrong. Very wrong. And they should have known it.

Instead of listening to the lenders who make a living out of gauging risk and determining who can afford a loan, Democrats thought they knew better and imposed their will on the lenders, forcing them to lower their standards or face consequences. Now, after thirty years of this meddling, we are all facing consequences of our own.

There are two things we have to do with this information. First, we must hold those responsible accountable. Chris Dodd is one of those responsible, and he needs to be forced to take responsibilities for the consequences of his policies. He needs to go.

Second, we must do all we can to prevent these policies like these from becoming law in the first place. Of course, that is about to get a lot more difficult with Obama in the driver's seat, but the stakes are high. The garbage we let the Democrats pass now has the potential to ruin our children's lives as they enter adulthood. As Ross notes:

The charts provide ample evidence of the tragic errors associated with attempts to "social engineer" the free market system. As citizens it is our duty to prevent government from engineering more debacles related solely to central planning. We know that central planning does not work: the Soviet Union and the Community Reinvestment Act offer stark evidence.

Well said.

The White House Finds A Set, Calls Out NYT and Dodd, Among Others

In response to this summary of DNC talking points published by the NYT under the guise of a news article, the White House released the following statements, found here and here.

In case you don't have the time, or the stomach, to read the whole article, it basically says the entire mortgage crisis is the fault of President Bush. Virtually no mention is made about the role of Congress or previous Democratic administrations in encouraging (or forcing) lenders to make loans they had no business making to people who had no business receiving them. Clearly there is plenty of blame here to go around, and there is little doubt in my mind that things could have been handled differently by the Bush administration which may have helped delay or mitigate some of the damage done. But to write an article about the causes of the mortgage crisis while ignoring Dodd, Frank and friends is just embarrassing.

The second statement from the White House goes farther than the statement, and calls out Chris Dodd, amongst others, for the part he has played.

The New York Times completely ignores the fact that while the Administration was pushing for more transparent rules and reigning in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Congress had for years blocked attempts at stronger regulation and blocked reform of the Federal Housing Administration.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) criticized the President's warning saying: "these two entities - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - are not facing any kind of financial crisis..The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing." (citation omitted)

Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chairman Christopher Dodd also ignored the President's warnings and called on him to "immediately reconsider his ill-advised" position. (citation omitted)

The White House also points out Dodd's campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie:

The article neglects to acknowledge that political contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac overwhelmingly supported Democratic officials - in particular members of Democratic leadership:

Since 1989, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) has received $165,400 from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Does that information sound worthy of inclusion in an article purporting to explain for it's readership (whatever is left of it) the causes of the crisis? Not if your goal is to sell your political agenda, and not if you write for the New York Times.

This all raises another question in my mind, though. Why is this the first time the White House has made this case? The biggest failures of this administration have not been the controversial policy positions they have taken, but the poor marketing of them and the lack of a defense of them when they come under partisan attack. When you let your opponents and the media (redundant, I know) set the context and define the positions in any debate, you will lose every time.

Whoever the state Republicans find to run against Chris Dodd had better learn a lesson from this. We must define the debate and tackle these biased and unsupportable assertions head-on. There is no honor in letting someone blame you for something they did, no brownie points for turning the other cheek and letting the lies and distortions go unchallenged, especially when it comes to something as drastic as what has been done to our economy. There is blame to go around, but Chris Dodd is acting like he is the answer to the problems we now face as opposed to a primary cause.

Rush on Dodd and Ethics

Below is s a clip from today's Rush Limbaugh show on Chris Dodd and Congressional ethics; read more here:

RUSH: And, you know, ethics in Washington is like everything else, it's a partisan two-way street. The Democrats really are not subject to any ethics. Victor Davis Hanson has a three-pager today at National Review Online about this very interesting conundrum that exists there, and I'll just give you one example off the top. Here you have Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. Let's just take Chris Dodd. Chris Dodd actually accepted money from Countrywide, the big mortgage broker and bank. He got a preferred mortgage interest rate. He was in the VIP program, that was the purpose of it. He oversaw legislation as the chairman of the banking committee that governed the mortgage industry, including his good buddy Angelo over at Countrywide. Not only is Chris Dodd not shamed, not only did he not resign, not only did he not get embarrassed, he's now in charge of rewriting the rules again for the mortgage industry.

CALLER: Scary, isn't it?

RUSH: In the meantime, Trent Lott happened to make a joke about how much better America would be if Strom Thurmond had become governor somewhere, and he's forced out of the Senate for some words he told at a birthday party for an old man who couldn't even hear him anymore. So Republicans fall on the sword all the time, and then the Republicans demand that their own guys fall on the sword. The Republicans were the ones that forced Trent Lott out. I mean the Democrats are right in there demanding it, but the White House said, yep, I think you ought to go, you're embarrassing us. Ted Stevens, Ted, get the hell out of there, just won reelection but you're an unethical guy, get out. Democrats never fall on the sword, nobody ever demands they fall on the sword, so the answer to your question is, at our juncture in history now, Democrats are not capable, it's not possible by virtue of the definition of the word for them to be unethical. So there's no need for them to recuse themselves.

CALLER: Is there any possible way to put a provision in any of these things to keep this money from being shoveled back to the same criminals that are taking our money now?

RUSH: Well, the people that would have to write the provision are the people you're referring to here as the criminals, and I doubt they're going to ace themselves out of this.

TARP Coverage

Certainly the auto industry bailout is getting the attention, but here are a few reports about the first mess Dodd and Co. created and now our government is trying to solve.

BloggingStocks
MortgageMeltdownBlog: This one is good
WSJ

What Do They Take Us For?

The LA Times has an article describing how the National Community Reinvestment Coalition has filed a civil-rights complaint, which can be found here, against a couple of Wall Street firms that allegedly rated CRA mortgage-backed bonds too highly.

Yes, you read that correctly.

It sounds to me like they acknowledge that none of these loans should have been made in the first place. Nice of them to admit it, but it would have been nice if they hadn't been supporting the legislation and it's implementation for the last few decades. The claim might ring a little more true.

There will certainly be more posted on this travesty.

H/T: gad-fly

AP BS

The AP has abandoned any remaining claim it had to being a legitimate news organization with this nauseating "news article" on the mortgage crisis. A few gems:

The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.

There certainly was some buckling, but to pretend that it was all (or even primarily) on the part of the Administration is laughable. Led by Sen. Dodd, the Democrats blocked the reform being pushed for by the likes of Sen. John McCain. Of course, Dodd's opposition is understandable when you remember that over the last 20 years, he was the Senator most indebted to the very lenders he was allegedly regulating (to the tune of $165k in campaign donations and a couple of sweetheart mortgages that he refuses to disclose records of). How do you write an article about the regulations that got killed by Dems who were paid off by the banks and turn it into a Bush bash? Don't get me wrong, Bush isn't guiltless in this, but you don't even mention Dodd? Has the AP been donating to Dodd's campaign, too?

And then there's this:

The administration's blind eye to the impending crisis is emblematic of a philosophy that trusted market forces and discounted the need for government intervention in the economy.Its belief ironically has ushered in the most massive government intervention since the 1930's.

I'm sorry, but I've got to call BS on this one. This knucklehead is going to blame this on conservative economic principles? I mean, do any amount of research beyond reading the Dodd/Frank talking points. Read a Wikipedia article. Anything! But wrong-headed interventionist legislation like the Community Reinvestment Act over the past two decades has more to do with our current position than being let down by "a philosophy that trusted market forces."

More commentary on this article can be found at The Everyday Republican and Say Anything Blog.

Chris Dodd, Marksist

From an editorial in Investor's Business Daily last week:

Bruce Marks, founder of the leftist Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America, makes a good living shaking down banks for loans to deadbeat borrowers that he thinks are entitled to homes.

Last month, he and about 100 urban protesters stormed Fannie Mae's headquarters, demanding it stop foreclosures on subprime houses - the same houses his group pressured Fannie to fund.

As usual, the bullying tactics worked: Fannie Mae is now reviewing every foreclosure, while increasing the number of mortgages it restructures by lowering interest rates and extending loan terms to make payments more affordable. The government-backed firm guarantees some 30% of the nation's outstanding mortgages.

...

Congress' banking committee chiefs, Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank, are also demanding banks stop foreclosures. And guess who they've invited to testify about that? That's right: Marks, who has proposed stopping all resets on subprime adjustable mortgages and allowing late payments for up to 90 days.

Marks insists that regulators "force" lenders to restructure their loans to prevent foreclosures from going forward.

"For noncooperative lenders," he says, "the regulators can and must impose 'cease and desist' orders."

For future underwriting practices, Marks urges lenders to adopt the NACA model.

"NACA has done lending the right way," he says. "No down payment. No closing costs. No fees. No perfect credit. At a below-market fixed rate."

And no repayment or profit. Call it Marksism.

I agree that Marks should be called to Washington for a hearing, but not because anyone wants or respects his opinion. He should be called to task, along with his Democratic cohorts (including the likes of Dodd and Obama), as they are largely responsible for the mess we are in.

What Was the Problem is Now the Answer!

Here is an article from CNNMoney.com featuring the Doddger threatening to legislate that banks lend. Isn't that what got us into this mess in the first place, the government forcing banks to make loans that they would not have made without the pressure? And we are supposed to believe that the cause of the problem is now the solution?

Only an Idiot Would Pay Their Mortgage

This Washington Post article describes the FDIC's plan to save the economy, which the Doddger supports.

I don't think I could ever support a plan that makes it foolish for homeowners to pay their mortgages. Maybe Dodd feels personally responsible for all of these foreclosures, since he basically assured they would happen when the Dems forced Fannie and Freddie and others to give loans to people who had no business getting them.

Chris Dodd, Airline Pilot?

This quote from a post at a blog called Jonathan Birge made me laugh:

These corrupt traitors did much to help get us into this mess, and now we are trusting them with trillions (when all is said and done) to get us out? Having Barney Frank and Chris Dodd in charge of congressional finance committes [sic] during a crisis is like opening the cockpit door of a plummeting 747 to find, well, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. Those two lawyers have about as much training in finance as they do in flying heavy transport aircraft. And their incompetence would be tolerable were it not for their corruption and allegience [sic] to the finance industry. It’s like the fox guarding the hen house, if the fox were a dull weasel.