Tag: mortgage

Christopher Dodd and the ghost of mortgages past

Poor Nancy Pelosi. Not only is she burdened with a congress full of swamp monsters, but some of them are swamp monsters who just won’t die – like Chris “Countrywide” Dodd.

Poor Nancy Pelosi. Not only is she burdened with a congress full of swamp monsters, but some of them are swamp monsters who just won’t die – like Chris “Countrywide” Dodd.

According to TheHill.com, “The Senate Ethics Committee is re-examining the participation of senators and staffers in a controversial VIP mortgage-lending program at Countrywide Financial Corp, according to a source familiar with the panel’s activities.”

chris dodd countrywide ethics
"Oh, man," Christopher Dodd said, "I am so screwed."

Apparently new information concerning the corrupt (cross out corrupt) alleged sweetheart loans was recently obtained “from Bank of America, which now owns former Countrywide”

So what about Chris Dodd? According to the article “Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) benefited from the Countrywide VIP program. The panel cleared the senators of any wrongdoing but warned them that they should have exercised better judgment and should have questioned why they were being put in the “Friends of Angelo” VIP program.

If new information is discovered about Dodd’s and Conrad’s loans, any potential ethics committee investigation would encompass the new material and also could ensnare other senators’ offices.”

One astute blogger on the Hill’s website summed up the situation with extreme accuracy:

“This is going to leave a mark in Dodd’s Shorts!” By nuffsaid

Source: TheHill.com

Obama’s no-proof-of-income mortgage scheme fails. Is anyone surprised? Anyone?

President Obama’s vaunted mortgage modification program is a colossal failure. More than a third of the 1.24 million borrowers who have enrolled in the $75 billion mortgage modification program have dropped out.

foreclosure obama program fails
No money down, no problem. No ability to pay the bank, problem.

To no one’s surprise – well, maybe Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd were surprised – President Obama’s vaunted mortgage modification program is a colossal failure.

Forbes.com has the depressing details:

More than a third of the 1.24 million borrowers who have enrolled in the $75 billion mortgage modification program have dropped out. That exceeds the number of people who have managed to have their loan payments reduced to help them keep their homes.

But analysts expect the majority will still wind up in foreclosure and that could slow the broader economic recovery.

A major reason so many have fallen out of the program is the Obama administration initially pressured banks to sign up borrowers without insisting first on proof of their income. When banks later moved to collect the information, many troubled homeowners were disqualified or dropped out.

Many borrowers complained that the banks lost their documents. The industry said borrowers weren’t sending back the necessary paperwork.

“The bank lost my paperwork.” Translation? “This bank is prejudiced. They discriminate against deadbeats like me who have neither the means nor intention to pay them back.”

Source: Forbes

Democrats won’t let Republicans investigate Washington politicians’ crooked mortgages

The democrats want to subpoena all the VIP mortgage records from Countrywide Financial. You know, the guys who gave sweetheart deals to Democrat Senators Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad.

Democrat Senators Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd, the twin poster boys for the Culture of Corruption
Democrat Senators Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd, the twin poster boys for the Culture of Corruption

Republicans have called the Democrats’ bluff on the culture of corruption. They want to subpoena all the VIP mortgage records from Countrywide Financial. You know, the guys who gave sweetheart deals to Democrat Senators Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad.

The Republicans say they’re willing to take a chance that GOP lawmakers will also be ensnared in the Countrywide mortgage scandal.

Unfortunately, House Democrats are being somewhat less than cooperative. They’ve refused to subpoena records that might reveal if any other members of Congress also got discounted loans and special treatment.

According to congressional rules, only the chairman of a committee can issue a subpoena. New York Democrat Edolphus Towns, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he’s just too darn busy stimulating the economy to find out which members of Congress are corrupt.

California Republican Darrell Issa, the senior Republican on Towns’ committee, has repeatedly tried to get Towns to subpoena Countrywide’s records. Towns has turned down each request.

A Bank of America spokesman said it will gladly submit all the documents as soon as it receives a subpoena. “They have it packed and ready to go,” Issa noted.

Do you think it has anything to do with the fact that every politician who’s been ensnared in the Countrywide scandal so far has been a Democrat? And do you think, perhaps, both parties already know exactly who will be named in those records?

Source: Associated Press via Breitbart.com

Shocking: Obama’s government spending follows same pattern as his personal spending

Conservatives often look at government spending, shake their heads and say, “They wouldn’t spend their own money like that.”

Turns out if you’re Barack Obama, you would. A new financial analysis indicates that he’s always spent far more than he made.

Here’s how The New York Daily News reports it:

In the words of Pink Floyd, "Money, money, money, money...money."
In the words of Pink Floyd, "Money, money, money, money...money."

A close examination of their finances shows that the Obamas were living off lines of credit along with other income for several years until 2005, when Obama’s book royalties came through and Michelle received her 260% pay raise at the University of Chicago. This was also the year Obama started serving in the U.S. Senate…

In April 1999, they purchased a Chicago condo and obtained a mortgage for $159,250. In May 1999, they took out a line of credit for $20,750. Then, in 2002, they refinanced the condo with a $210,000 mortgage, which means they took out about $50,000 in equity. Finally, in 2004, they took out another line of credit for $100,000 on top of the mortgage.

Tax returns for 2004 reveal $14,395 in mortgage deductions. If we assume an effective interest rate of 6%, then they owed about $240,000 on a home they purchased for about $159,250.

This means they spent perhaps $80,000 beyond their income from 1999 to 2004.

We have to admit that this information frightens us. Based on his past experience, we fear the President thinks he can pay off the nation’s skyrocketing debt by writing another best selling autobiography and getting Michelle another dubious, but highly-paid job.

Genius.

Source: New York Daily News via GatewayPundit.com

Obama’s massive borrowing looks like sub-prime loan scandal all over again

The Sub-Prime Fiasco and the Obama Spending Fiasco. Parallel tracks meeting in the distance.
The Sub-Prime Fiasco and the Obama Spending Fiasco. Parallel tracks meeting in the distance.

Have you ever noticed the strange parallels between the last year’s sub-prime loan fiasco and this year’s Obama spending fiasco?

In the subprime fiasco, people borrowed money to live far beyond their means. In the Obama spending fiasco, the government’s borrowing money to live far beyond its means.

In the subprime fiasco, everyone in charge knew the borrowers would never be able to repay their debts. In Obama’s spending fiasco, everyone in charge knows the government will never be able to repay its debts.

In the subprime fiasco, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd assured everyone that everything was ok. In Obama’s spending fiasco, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are assuring everyone that everything will be ok.

In the subprime fiasco, anyone who raised an objection was called a racist. In Obama’s deficit spending fiasco, anyone who raises an objection is called a racist.

In the end, there really is only one difference between these two fiascos. This one has a lot more zeroes.

Only in Washington does an organization get funded on Thursday after being indicted for 39 felonies on Monday

Alphonse of Capone, the patron saint of ACORN
Alphonse of Capone, the patron saint of ACORN

On Monday Nevada filed 39 felony criminal complaints against ACORN. On Thursday the House of Representatives voted to allow ACORN to receive federal funding under the “Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act.”

The vote to make ACORN eligible for funding was 245-176. All Democrats on the side, all Republicans plus four honest Democrats on the other.

“There is no excuse this outrage. The only explanation for voting to give money to this racket is that House Democrats are deep in the pocket of ACORN,” said a statement from GetLiberty.org.

As a result of the House vote, ACORN is eligible for more than $3 billion in “stimulus” money plus another $5.5 billion from the 2010 budget. The organization has already received at least $53 million from American taxpayers since 1994.

ACORN has also been investigated for voter fraud in state after state – including Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Missouri, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Michigan.

39 felony counts? What’s the big deal? Who among us hasn’t been charged with 39 felony counts at one time or another?

Source: GetLiberty.org

What happened to the congressional uproar about AIG executive bonuses?

Ssssssh! Never again mention those AIG bonuses in the hallowed halls of Congress.
Ssssssh! Never again mention those AIG bonuses in the hallowed halls of Congress.

All they could talk about in Congress a couple weeks ago was the AIG executive bonus issue.

The vigilantes in Congress were going to tax ‘em. Grab ‘em. Put ‘em back in the U.S. Treasury where they belong. And maybe tar and feather the execs while they were at it. It was the most important issue of the century.

Then it all went away, mysteriously replaced by the kind of eerie silence found only at the National Library.

Daniel Schwartz, a Hartford employment law attorney, may have an explanation for the new, quieter, more gentle tone in Washington, DC. It all revolves around the case of a Connecticut-based company called Mortgage Lenders Network that found itself in a situation remarkably similar to AIG:

The company had built a nationwide presence by making subprime loans and was in the midst of building a big new headquarters in the state. But by late 2006, it was going through some financial difficulties as credit lines came to a halt and then it allegedly failed to pay some employees commissions–at least $1.6 million total. (These were, after all, the same employees, who participated in the company’s subprime lending practices.)

Ultimately, MLN filed for bankruptcy. What did the state do then? It had an investigator from the Department of Labor look into the situation and ultimately issued an arrest warrant for the Company’s president back in March 2007 for failure to pay wages and sales commissions on time.

Schwartz concludes:

“…if the State was willing to go after an employer for failing to pay just $1.6M in wages and sales commissions, is it fair now to suggest to employers in Connecticut, like AIG, that they can now simply ignore obligations they make to their employees because they are going through financial difficulties and can’t really afford to pay them?”

Speak a word of those bonuses now and Nancy Pelosi will put her index finger before her lips and personally tell you to sssh!

Source: Connecticut Employment Law Blog via WSJ.com

Quite frankly, Barney Frank is a lying sack of @*$&!

barney frank madBarney Frank is a lying sack of excrement. Oh, we beg your pardon. Did we say that? It just slipped out by accident.

Here’s a Bloomberg News story from March 5, 2009:

“U.S. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said he wants to see people prosecuted for wrongdoing related to the financial crisis as lawmakers overhaul regulation of Wall Street.”

“Frank will call on attorneys general, bank regulators and officials from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to outline plans for prosecuting and recovering funds from those responsible for the crisis, he said today at a news conference in Washington.”

“’What are your plans to prosecute those people whose irresponsible and, in some cases, criminal actions helped bring about this crisis?’ said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat.”

He’s a hero, that Barney Frank. A man of honesty, courage, and conviction. A man who did everything possible to keep our financial system safe. Except when he’s the afore-mentioned lying sack of excrement as proven by this quote from a September, 2003 House Financial Services Committee hearing:

“I worry, frankly, that there’s a tension here. The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios…I believe there has been more alarm raised about potential unsafety and unsoundness than, in fact, exists.”

George Washington couldn’t tell a lie. Bill Clinton couldn’t tell the truth. And Barney Frank can’t tell the difference.

Source: Bloomberg, Ace of Spades

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