Tag Archives: Fannie Mae

The US depression torpedoes the US medically sick ‘Health Care’ System

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doctor doomToday, Wall Street broke 8,000 going the wrong way… DOWN. Tomorrow will it be 7,500 on the road to national bankruptcy? Who knows. But one thing is for sure, the already sick US Medical System is going down alongside the US stock market and companies like Fannie Mae and General Motors. Report: Economy is sickening US hospitals. Data shows decline in admissions and increase in patients who can’t pay. Don’t get sick!

And don’t get old either… since Uncle Sam will now just let you flounder if you do. The US economic depression is torpedoing the US For-Profit Medical System and so far nobody in government has much of a plan to do anything about it. How much ‘bailout’ money is there left from your taxpayer’s money?

So what are the more alert companies doing about staying afloat? Why they’re heading to Mexico! See Newsweek’s report Ultimate Outsourcing Now, Mexican medicine What a deal, right? If you or somebody in your family gets hit by a car and don’t have insurance because you don’t have a job, then take a trip Far South! If you have any savings still? A big IF????, I know.

You might want to check out the US’s Christus Hospital Chain for where to go to a hospital in Mexico? They’re a US outfit building new hospitals all over Mexico like mad, to help take in those fleeing American citizen refugees from the lack of a functioning US Medical System! That’s right! Not only are the American patients running off to Mexico, but so are the US chains of For-Profit hospitals, too! Que bueno! Y que pendejada tambien… Isn’t this all rather sick?

Who not to blame for failed bailout

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wall-street-bailout protest
COLORADO SPRINGS- We held posters that read SEIZE THE FED, JAIL NOT BAIL-OUT, FORECLOSE ON WALLSTREET, NO REWARD FOR HIGH RISK, and of course NO BUSH BAILOUT. When we got rebuttals, it went like this: “Why do you bring Bush into this? Bush doesn’t have anything to do with the bailout.” We needed to complain to Barack, apparently.

Bush supporters come in either the biggest pickup trucks or the rustiest. There’s probably no socio-economic divide between the voters who wanted Bush for a drinking buddy.

A Vectra Bank representative came outside to ask us if we could move from under their sign, so as not to give the false impression we were protesting their bank, particularly at a time when depositors might easily be spooked into a run on the bank. We moved nearer the Wachovia Bank, perhaps a better juxtaposition anyway.

We were prepared for the inevitable, can you suggest something better? From Karl Denninger at Market Ticker, who credits Janet Tavakoli:

1–Force all off-balance sheet “assets” back onto the balance sheet, and force the valuation models and identification of individual assets out of Level 3 and into 10Qs and 10Ks. Do it now. : (In other words, no more Enron-type accounting mumbo-jumbo and no more allowing the banks assign their own “values” to dodgy assets)

2–Force all OTC derivatives onto a regulated exchange similar to that used by listed options in the equity markets. This permanently defuses the derivatives time bomb. Give market participants 90 days; any that are not listed in 90 days are declared void; let the participants sue each other if they can’t prove capital adequacy. (If trading derivatives contracts can damage the “regulated” system, than that trading must take place under strict government regulations)

3–Force leverage by all institutions to no more than 12:1. The SEC intentionally dropped broker/dealer leverage limits in 2004; prior to that date 12:1 was the limit. Every firm that has failed had double or more the leverage of that former 12:1 limit. Enact this with a six month time limit and require 1/6th of the excess taken down monthly. (Ed: The collapse in the “structured finance” model is mainly due to too much leverage. For example, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had $80 of debt for every $1 dollar of capital reserves when they were taken into government conservatorship.)

Let the greedy bastards eat cake

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Class struggle posterThe tax break for the rich wasn’t enough, the GWOT siphon on the US treasury isn’t flowing fast enough, CEO bonuses aren’t enough, usury is not unregulated enough, bankruptcy laws to ruin small borrowers aren’t predatory enough, the disparity between rich and poor is not obscene enough.

It’s not enough that the parasitic rich contribute only smoke and mirrors to the economy. Now the [investment] bank robbers are dropping even that pretext to demand that US taxpayers simply fork over the money. And don’t anyone try to follow them out.

Michael Hudson on paying for the bailout AND the fallout:

It is bad enough for the government to buy $700 billion of bad bank investments at prices that no private-sector investor has been willing to approach. This itself is an undeserved giveaway to the financial institutions that caused the problem by living recklessly in the short run. But making them – and indeed, helping them – pay back this gift with the aid of favorable tax and deregulatory policies will simply shift the cost off their shoulders onto those of bank depositors, credit-card users, mortgage borrowers and hapless pension-fund contributors to the money managers who have taken most of the current income in the form of commissions, salaries and bonuses to themselves. This will sharply add to the price of doing business in the United States, and specifically to the economy’s debt overhead by the banks making even more predatory loans.

It gets worse. In order for the existing junk mortgages to be “made good,” real estate prices must be raised further above the ability to pay for this year’s five million homeowners in arrears and facing default. Is this a good thing? Is it good to raise access prices for housing even more, forcing new homebuyers to go further into debt than ever before to gain access to housing? Mr. Paulson has directed the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA (Federal Housing Authority) to re-inflate the real estate market. They are to pump nearly a trillion dollars into the mortgage market.

Fiscal policy is also to be brought to bear to turn the real estate market around by pressuring cities and states to “help homeowners pay their mortgage debts” by cutting property taxes. The idea is to leave more revenue available for property owners to pay mortgage bankers. Unfortunately, this will oblige cities to make up these cuts by taxing labor and sales, running deeper into debt than they already are, or cutting back their spending on basic infrastructure, education and public services and continue shortchanging their pension funds. This is the price to be exacted to “protect the taxpayer’s interest” by bailing out irresponsible banks. The solution is to let them make even more money by acting in a yet more predatory way.

And:

The most egregious pretense is that the problem is only temporary, not structural. We are merely “freeing up” the market for new loans. This is precisely the opposite of what the classical economists meant by “free markets.” What America has is a bad debt problem, not a “liquidity” problem. There is no “illiquidity” when people refuse to buy a junk mortgage on a property worth only a fraction of the mortgage’s face value. Many of these bad mortgage loans are fraudulent. The Treasury bailout seeks to make $700 billion of fictitious financial claims “real” – that is, way overvalued as compared to their actual worth(lessness).

US government to nationalize basic financial industry

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You know things are getting bad with the economy when the capitalist US government starts to nationalize industries! But that’s what the Bush Team is going to be doing, alongside their usual supporting cast of Democratic Party politician hacks chipping in, too. See U.S. to take control of mortgage giants: reports

They called it ‘conservatorship’ to keep from using the word ‘nationalize’, but it is one and the same thing. And for sure, the one and same people who will be behind nationalizing the debt ridden Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac con artists will be bad mouthing Hugo Chavez when he nationalizes industries in Venezuela. There is one big difference between US and Venezuelan nationalizations though, and that is that the US government will be doing it to help the super rich, whereas Venezuela will be nationalizing industries to help out the poor working classes of that country.

MC FogHorn Leghorn and the F’N MA

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Fat Fannie and Fudgebutt FredWith record high foreclosures due to predatory lenders and sham mortgages, who’s in favor of a taxpayer bailout to the Federal National Mortgage Assoc.?
Or how about public monies to save the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation? No takers? The homeowners are still screwed, but the lenders need our help. They’re shareholder owned, government sanctioned monopolies, and they need 25 billion. No sympathetic alms? Good thing both the FNMA and the FHLMC, appointed themselves the intentionally endearing nicknames Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to confuse our affections.

It reminds me of a classmate who reinvented himself on the first day of college. When professors asked our names or applicable nicknames, this skinny pocket-protector wearer told the class he went by “Bear.” And his unlikely reincarnation stuck. Thereafter “Bear” became that much less an engineering geek than his no more nerdier compatriots.

Fannie and Freddie may sound like personable natural derivatives of their acronyms, but the Appalachian appellations are official. When I was confronted about having apparently misspelled the cutesy MAE, being the purported colloquial surname of the usurious giant, I found there was indeed a formal spelling. Really? For a phonetic abbreviation? Couldn’t it just as easily be spelled with a Y? And why not Fanny with a Y, like Brice, Hackabout-Jones or the derriere? Too much impropriety for hillbillies?

Do the letters FN resolve to “Fanny” more than to the more modern and infinitely appropriate Fucking?

Where did MA become May? Why not Ma, like Ma Dalton?

And wherever do you get Freddie from FHL? I see Foghorn Leghorn for the first initials. Leaving MC for Mack as of The Knife.

The FNMA / FHLMC bonanza provides a textbook simple model of the capitalist stakeout of regulated/unregulated public finance: build a business, merge to create a monopoly, then loot funds to require a taxpayer bailout.

John Edwards Fathers Bat Boy, Mother is Space Alien!

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Nurse! Confused old man camplains, saying surge started almost a year before it did, and that it protected a man who was actually assassinated. [video]

Remember: McCain had a “love child” with a black prostitute! National Enquirer claims John Edwards has a “love child” with another woman. Considering the source, I’m surprised they didn’t claim the baby was Bat Boy, and the mother was a space alien. Oh, and never mind that the alleged mother says the story is total bullshit. Republicans love bullshit!

A government of lies. One of the most deceitful rules our joke of a Congress runs by, is that members have a certain number of days when they can “revise” their testimony in the Congressional Record. So, they can lie their asses off in front of the cameras, and change their story later. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has now taken that to the extreme. While Karl Rove committed contempt of Congress by refusing to obey a subpoena to testify about his involvement in the prosecution of AL Governor Siegelman (D), Lamar has now submitted a fictitious account of Rove actually testifying, thus removing the possibility of contempt charges being filed.

This is the history the delusionists can’t wait to destroy. National Geographic issue on the wonders of Iran.

With apologies to Monty Python. Nobody ever expects the Domionist Agenda! When Dominionism started its rise to power back in the 80s, I was a fundamentalist myself. I remember an issue of Christianity Today warning there was nothing Christian about the movement, and suggesting it was actually the religion of the AntiChrist. Maybe there are prophets, after all.

Reagan worshippers revive their demand that Reagan’s face be put on the $10 bill. What more could you ask to reward the man who brought us all the concept of deregulation, which has destroyed the American economy, and made WE THE PEOPLE little more than slaves to the Corporate Elite? On the other hand, we could put his face on the penny, and then quit minting it because it isn’t worth anything anymore.

Uh oh. Israel is now losing the support of the NeoCons.

Obama quickly losing support of antiwar activists.

What’s missing from The Reich? Slavery!

Can’t get on a plane because someone with a name just 8 letters different is on the terrorist watch list? Can you get off it? Politiburo says “nyet!”

Kinky! Charles Rangel (D-NY) files ethics probe…of himself.

Congresswoman Sally Kern (R-OK) caught trying to smuggle a gun into Capitol. Maybe the gays made her do it? She blames them for everything else.

Hatemongering bigot warns House hearing of black gang raping lesbians if Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is overtuned. “Oh, and did I mention they’re black!”

Speaking of rape. Congratulations on your winning bid to buy Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I wonder which of the Bush clan is making a billion off of this bailout?

Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s notes July 24, thomasmc.com.

$6.55 an hour? Oh, whoopee…

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BonusNotice how all the big guys look out after themselves. They got themselves a ‘bailout’ of several tens of billions of dollars over at Fannie Mae’s and Freddie’s houses, and it will be paid to them from much of the work of all those who, today, will get a big boost up to $6.55 an hour! More than that would be socialism they say. Federal Minimum Wage to Increase to $6.55 on July 24

What cons these business men are, because people believe them with their idiotic nonsense justifying their own largess at others expense, too. Their looting of the National Treasury is never called socialism at all. And it’s not. It’s just pure thievery and real socialism is not thievery at all, like what the American business community practices daily. Real socialism is nothing more than helping out the less fortunate in society, instead of helping out the more fortunate in their robberies of the rest of us.

The Democrats will change things?

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Barney FrankAs the US government has used taxpayers money to bail out Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, many liberals have seen this as only yet another sign of Republican Party perfidy. But look at Barney Frank, Democrat for a second. His job is Chair of the Financial Services panel since the Democrats took the leadership of the House in 2007. What’s he been up to during this bailout sale of US Treasury dollars?

Many think that by Barney Frank being an openly Gay member of the US Congress has made him the epitome of radical liberalism, but there is a different story out there than the spoon fed media’s image for us. Check out “Equality is not good”
Barney Frank and the putrefaction of American liberalism to see the real Barney Frank story.

So here is Mr. Liberal Democrat, Barney Frank, helping bail out the big guys with the small guys’ money. Are you really that surprised at his role as Democratic Party leader in championing inequality that benefits the well-to-do? Is any of this surprising any more after all the Democrats support to the Republican agendas in Iraq, Afghanistan, and building a bigger military-industrial-security State? Then I got some property to sell you in the swamp, Dudes.

Hey! The Democratic Party/ Obama Campaign HQ has already beat me to it!

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now married to you!

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fannie.jpg Inflation went up by 9.2% over the last year, which makes it the worst 12 months of inflation since 1981. But not to worry, the Federal government has married you to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, 2 sick cousins from the Appalachian Mountains. You are now part of a triage, and ain’t that sexy? You have been made into trailer trash!

Yes, you have gotten kicked in the fannie by Uncle Sam, friend of Freddie, but not you. You’re bailing the couple out with your money! Don’t you just love it, too? Would Freddie and Fannie have helped you out? What about that asshole uncle, Sam?

Good luck, since you’re certainly going to need it. Strangely enough, 75% of Americans actually think the economy will get better in a few years. Are you that stupid? Well if not, 3 out of 4 of your neighbors sure are! They’re as irresponsible and out of it as Fannie and Freddie.

Now, let me tell you about Cousin John… He may be coming soon to stay around your house for at least 4 years? If not, Cousin Barack wants to give you a vacation in Afghanistan. He’s got a plan, too, for a big change. What more could we ask for?