Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (62902)	4/10/2009 7:54:09 PM
From: jlallen	2 Recommendations Respond to of 224704

They didn't have to....

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (62902)	4/10/2009 7:56:45 PM
From: FJB	2 Recommendations Respond to of 224704

Fannie and Freddie did NOT force anybody to make bad loans but you wouldn't know it from that article. No the CRA, ACORN and congressional Democrats did that. This is Fannie and Freddies' role. -------------------------------------------------------------- Fannie, Freddie Subprime Spree May Add to Bailout (Update2) Share \| Email \| Print \| A A A By Jody Shenn Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Freddie Mac Chief Executive Officer Richard Syron stood before investors at New York's Palace Hotel in May last year lauding his company's ``cautious'' avoidance of the subprime-mortgage crisis. What Syron, who was ousted last week, didn't say was that Freddie Mac had been gorging on subprime and Alt-A debt. While it and the larger Fannie Mae bought the safest classes of the mortgage-loan pools, Freddie's purchases totaled $158 billion, or 13 percent, of all the securities created in 2006 and 2007, according to data from its regulator and Inside MBS & ABS, a Bethesda, Maryland-based newsletter used by Federal Reserve researchers. Fannie, which was also seized by the U.S. on Sept. 7, bought an additional 5 percent. The purchases by Freddie and Fannie helped fuel the boom in lending that led to frozen credit markets, more than $514 billion in bank losses and the collapse of two of the country's biggest securities firms. The subprime overhang may determine whether the $200 billion U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson earmarked for the companies will all be used to rev up mortgage lending. He may have to spend about $300 billion, William Poole, the former Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis president, said in a Bloomberg Television interview this month. `Losses Accumulate' The final sum ``is going to depend on how fast these losses accumulate,'' said Poole, 71. The deficit may grow quickly because the companies may be ``carrying some of these assets at prices above where they should be.'' Treasury spokeswoman Jennifer Zuccarelli declined to comment. The department's capital injections will keep the companies from defaulting on their almost $6 trillion of debt and mortgage-backed securities. Fannie's 5-year debt yields traded at 0.78 percentage point above 5-year U.S. Treasuries at 4 p.m. New York time, compared with 0.94 before the bailout, according to data complied by Bloomberg. Fannie Mae of Washington and McLean, Virginia-based Freddie Mac held $114 billion of subprime and $71 billion in Alt-A securities as of June 30, according to the companies. Subprime mortgages were given to people with poor credit scores. Alt-A loans, which rank between subprime and prime, were made to borrowers with better credit who provided no proof of income, bought property for investment or took out so-called option adjustable-rate mortgages. `Big Players' ``We've heard a lot of people stand up and say, `Fannie and Freddie really did not promulgate the problems; they weren't big players,''' said Joshua Rosner, an analyst with Graham Fisher & Co., an independent research firm in New York. ``Actually, they were.'' The biggest suppliers of the securities to Fannie and Freddie included Countrywide Financial Corp. of Calabasas, California, as well as Irvine-California-based New Century Financial Corp. and Ameriquest Mortgage Co., lenders that either went bankrupt or were forced to sell themselves. Fannie and Freddie were the biggest buyers of loans from Countrywide, according to the company... bloomberg.com

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (62902)	4/10/2009 7:58:52 PM
From: lorne	3 Recommendations Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 224704

Well he did attend a mosk in Turkey and bowed before the moslum king of Saudi Arabia..this is the guy in charge of mecca. Obama skips church – 11 times First family has no place of worship for Easter Sunday April 08, 2009 By Chelsea Schilling © 2009 WorldNetDaily wnd.com Despite his vow to find a new church after disassociating himself with Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fiery rhetoric, President Obama reportedly has not attended a single church service since he took office. "We probably won't make any firm decision on this until January, when we know what our lives our going to be like," Obama told reporters in May when he announced his split with Trinity United, his church of 20 years. President George W. Bush had attended numerous services at St. John's Episcopal Church by his third month in office. His father attended the same church on Inauguration Day. President Bill Clinton also attended church services within weeks of becoming president. While President Jimmy Carter taught Sunday school at the First Baptist Church in Washington, President Ronald Reagan didn't attend because he said security requirements were too burdensome for his congregation. However, after 11 Sundays in office, Obama still hasn't found a church – even with Easter just four days away. The president opted to skip services during his first three weeks in office to work out at the gym, Politico reported. "Because they have a great deal of respect for places of worship, they do not want to draw unwelcome or inappropriate attention to a church not used to the attention their attendance would draw," a transition aide said. Bill Sammon, Washington editor of Fox News, pointed out that Obama's director of religious affairs and current director of the White House office on faith-based initiatives, Joshua DuBois, told reporters just before inauguration that the Obamas "look forward to learning more about many churches in the District." "They will choose a church home at a time that is best for their family," DuBois said. In January, Obama announced that his wife Michelle would tour Washington churches to select one for the family. "It is tougher as president," Obama said. "You know, this is not just an issue of going to church, it's an issue of going anywhere. You don't want to subject your fellow church members, the rest of the congregation, to being nagged every time you go to church. And so, we're going to try to be balancing, not being disruptive to the city, but also saying we want to be part of Washington, D.C." In a May 2008 campaign flier, Obama was quoted as saying, "My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want. But I won't be fulfilling God's will unless I go out and do the Lord's work." Meanwhile, many are still questioning the president's faith. According to a new national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 35 percent of respondents said they do not know Obama's religion, either because they do not know enough about him (22 percent), or because they have heard different things about his religion (13 percent). According to the survey, an additional 11 percent of Americans still believe Obama is a Muslim, while 48 percent say he's a Christian and 6 percent refused to answer.