BofA, Citigroup among 17 banks in federal lawsuit Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase were among the 17 lenders sued by the Federal Housing Finance Agency for allegedly misleading Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about residential mortgage-backed securities. In lawsuits filed Friday in New York state and federal courts and in federal court in Connecticut, the agency also named as defendants Barclays PLC, Nomura Holdings Ltd., HSBC Holdings PLC, Societe General SA, Morgan Stanley, Ally Financial, Royal Bank of Scotland, Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG and First Horizon National Corp. The complaints say the banks misled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about the soundness of the underlying mortgages. The housing finance agency is seeking to have some defendants refund the investments with interest and pay other damages, including punitive damages for alleged misconduct. The agency alleges that the loans "had different and more risky characteristics than the descriptions contained in the marketing and sales materials provided to the enterprises for those securities."
It's difficult to imagine much coming of this. Weren't some of those entities beneficiaries of Obama's bailout plan (the domestic ones, of course)?
it was not obama's bailout plan, it was bush's. Bush is the one that created the plan, pushed it down the american throats, and congress. Obama was the poor sap that was left holding the bag.
That's not really how I remember it. Obama, McCain both vote “Yes” on Senate bailout bill | You Decide Politics I hated that it was passed and disagreed vehemently with Bush on this, but to say Obama didn't have any hand in it is disingenuous.
Bloomberg provides a list. Bloomberg - Business & Financial News, Breaking News Headlines I think the reasoning behind the program was credit dried up. There was complete panic. I don't blame Bush, Obama, McCain, etc for the program. Could have been better, probably, but sometimes you have to act without perfect data. Of course, how we got in this situation is another issue.
Yeah, but it's more fun to blame the guy who's in office now. Seriously though, Obama could have been less of a "sap" and stood up to those pushing that plan. I'm not an economist, but I have the opinion that borrowing for employment stimulus/job growth would have had a more beneficial long term effect on the U.S. economy than throwing money at billionaires. Call me old fashioned.
Well, those billionaires are those with the resources to finance elections, so what is *any* person to do if one aspires to elected office ?
Yes.. I agree in part anyway. We keep coming around to the U.S. election system in some of these threads started on other subjects. The thing that is in common, in the minds of many participants here, seems to be that this or that elected official has contributed to the misery of the people. So, is the prevailing wisdom, then, that U.S. voters should seek out a relatively poor individual to run for President? S/he would have to get things done among rich Congress men and women, not to mention rich Senators. That's a lot of smart not-so-rich people to have to run for office.
It may be related to the concentration of wealth, which leads to the concentration of political power. The "dialing for money" is very labor intensive, so for those seeking funds for office, it would behoove them to concentrate their efforts towards those that can supply the product. This tends for those seeking the product to tailor their message to one that would resonate with those that have product. I would conjecture there are "a lot of smart not-so-rich people" that under our current system are handicapped to the extent they lack monetary resources and are reluctant to tailor their message to obtain the said resource. My long winded response can be best summarized by the Golden Rule, those that have the gold make the rules.
No Frisco, the answer is to elect someone who actually believes in the oath they swear to take and actually follow the Constitution. If politicians actually stuck to that principle we would be much better off.
That's why you should vote for me and pledge your generous support as I am for (policy you support) and I'm against (policy you don't support), I pledge to weed out (something you think should be weeded out) and increase funding for (a institution you think deserves funding) and decrease funding for (a institution you think does not deserve funding), while I will not raise taxes for (those you don't think should be taxed more) and will encourage tax disincentives for (those you think you think taxes should be raised). Furthermore, I will interpret the Constitution as (the way you think it should be). Don't worry about any inconsistencies as I use micro marketing methods to provide the message you want to hear. You can trust me. View my latest press conference. Johnny Carson - Lie Detector Politician - YouTube * You is in the form of impersonal you, not a specific.
I think the smart, not-so-rich people who want to run for office, are smart enough to realise that they have to become rich in order to have a reasonable chance of getting elected into office. I would think that these smart, not-so-rich people who actually get into office become rich as a by product.
Back on topic. Suing the mortgage lenders now is like closing the barn door- after the horse as escaped, got onto the freeway, hit by a car, taken to the hospital, treated for his injuries, seized from you for neglect, adopted by another farm, allowed to give pony rides to handicapped children, then dies from old age, turned into glue, glue used by a child to make a school project, and after that child gets elected as president at the age of 52. Congratulations, the government managed to sue people that had nothing to do with the crisis, and probably helped fix it. I have to say, great work. All of the people that actually created this mess, is no where near the companies that are being sued. They have taken the golden parachutes and moved out of country.
I'm not following you, I interpreted that the Federal Housing Finance Agency was going to hang the horse thieves.
No they are going to hang the people that bought the house that the horse thieves used to live in. They are also going to go after the guys that saw the horse thieves, once, through a window, on a foggy day.
