Sunday, October 12, 2008

Fannie, Freddie, And John McCain

John McCain wrote a letter in 2006 strongly urging that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be regulated and brought in line, and that steps were taken in the meantime to insure protection of the American taxpayer in the event they failed. Nineteen other Senators, all Republicans, signed the letter. Senator Obama did not sign it, nor did any other Democrat.

You can read the complete text of the letter here.

Following is the main gist of the letter, pretty much as I outlined above, as provided by The Anchoress-

“…vitally important that Congress take the necessary steps to ensure that [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac]…operate in a safe and sound manner.[and]..More importantly, Congress must ensure that the American taxpayer is protected in the event that either…should fail.”

So let's see, what are we to make from this? Hey, I know, let's look at it this way. McCain was warning about Fannie and Freddie's excesses two years ago and was urging action.

Senator Obama was the third largest recipient of their largesse and had former top-level officials of at least one of the companies on his campaign staff up until just recently. One of them was a former CEO now under investigation, and who might soon be indicted. He refused to do or say anything while efforts were blocked to look into the dealings of these entities. He may well have participated in blocking any such motions. Somebody certainly did. At the very least, he made no effort to join in any reform of these quasi governmental institutions, which is understandable, owing to his cozy relationship with them.

Some "Hope" and "Change"-If Obama is elected, I hope we end up with some change to spare.

6 comments:

Shadowhawk said...

You know i would give him the benefit of the doubt, EXCEPT he is on Camera caught saying he was ALL FOR ..deregulation, not once but several times.. His senility has caused him to be the worst flip flopper ever..NOW the other night at the debates he wants to take 300 billion and thats a lowball estimate and buy up ALL the bad mortgages in America..Mccains OWN economists have said that his plan is ATE THE FUCK UP, and yet they are still gonna vote for him..By Mccain buying up all these bad mortgages hes REWARDING people for poor judgement.. His Hail Mary pass made it about 2 feet. I really cant see how people in there right minds are gonna vote for this guy..!!!

SecondComingOfBast said...

Shadowhawk-

"I really cant see how people in there right minds are gonna vote for this guy..!!!"

Me personally, I would have preferred Fred Thompson or Rudy Giuliani, but the main reason I decided to stick with voting Republican in general is because they are less likely to appoint judges that will trash the constitution. Here's the difference between the two, in their own words paraphrased-

McCain-I will appoint judges who will follow and apply the law.

Obama-I will appoint judges who have empathy for the poor and working mothers, etc.

Errr, excuse the fuck out of me, but its not the place of a judge to apply "empathy" towards ANY group as a basis for a judicial ruling. Their function is to apply the law, in every case, just like McCain said.

As far as anything else goes, its inconsequential by comparison. A bad law can be repealed any time, and the damage done even by the worse of them can be eventually reversed.

A judge is appointed until he dies or resigns and their rulings are extremely difficult to overturn.

I could go into more detail about gun laws, the death penalty, cigarette taxes, and the myriads of other things Democrats want to do that they trust their judges to uphold. Or in some cases they can trust the most extreme of their judicial appointees to do their dirty work for them outright through the work of proxies, such as for example upholding lawsuits against gun manufacturers in an effort to regulate them and price them out of range of the average American. But I'm sure you get the point.

Sorry, but if it gets right down to the nitty gritty, and I have to choose between my constitutional rights and the whims of special interest groups, gays and witches can stay in the closets where they were probably not only better off but probably happier anyway, and if a woman needs an abortion, just make sure she sterilizes her bicycle spokes and she should be all right.

It's a shame it has to be that way, but don't blame me, blame the leftist judges who seem to have never seen a leftist interpretation to the constitution that didn't love.

Maybe one of these days leftist judges will catch on and realize, "hey, maybe if we stopped fucking with the Second Amendment and people's individual liberties and stopped trying to turn the United States of Amrica into the Socialist States of America, then maybe most Americans wouldn't give a big rats ass if two homosexuals got married, or if a group of self-styled or even real witches wanted to conduct rituals to Hecate, and by and large they would probably be tickled pink at the thought of leftist women pureeing their own babies in their own wombs. In fact their attitudes would probably be "the more the merrier".

I know that's pretty much the way it works with me.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

It was regulation, the "Community Reinvestment Act" that forced banks to abandon "redlining" practices and lend sub-prime to people with shitty or no credit.

Deregulation would have saved us.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

PT,

If the 2nd Amendment only applies to the National Guard, are defense spending cuts unconstitutional?

;)

SecondComingOfBast said...

Beamish-

About the CRA and regulations in general, you are right, but only to a point. Absolutely no regulations might be as bad or worse than shitty ones like the CRA.

You're right in that the CRA was a shitty regulation (to put it mildly) but it was also a lack of common-sense regulations that enabled mortgage companies to bundle these bad mortgages and bribe credit agencies to give them a higher rating than what they were actually worth. This enabled them to sell loads of them to unwary investors who assumed they were as good as their credit ratings stated.

So yeah, you do need some regulations. There are just too many fucking sharks out there feeding off the blood of the innocent, the gullible, and the outright stupid.

The trick to it is finessing it so you don't put a stranglehold on the market, and that you and help it run smoothly, like giving an engine a needed tune up. It just takes people that know what the hell they are doing and who are interested in making the engine of the economy run to its peak potential, as opposed to political hacks trying to game the system for their own purposes, which usually amount to bribery, extortion, vote-buying schemes, and other types of skulduggery.

As for that other thing, you don't want to get me going on leftist definitions of the Second Amendment. I might come across as sounding downright bitter.

SecondComingOfBast said...

By the way, Starhawk-

Check out my response to the last post (as of now) by Isaac Bonewitz on Views From The Cyberhinge. I'm declaring war on this idea that all pagans should vote leftist, and I'm taking no prisoners, and that's including pagan "leaders".

Cast spells for democracy?

Haruumph.