One Guy's Opinion on the Political Scene By: Jim Herndon
The recent storm in financial markets, the stock market palpitations, corporate bankruptcy, and crash of Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac is an example of what happens when government bureaucrats get their greedy little paws on private business.
Years ago Democrat bureaucrats formed Fannie and Freddie to provide a smooth flow of mortgage loans – a good idea except that the bureaucrats insured that they had some control, as they always do when large sums of money are involved. The politicians placed their own people into the organizations as managers, and, naturally, the organizations became corrupt. They made piles of money for themselves and for Fanny and Freddie since they felt encouraged to make as many loans as possible without worry of default since the government would bail them out. Some scandals surfaced when managers were caught cooking the books, but certain Democrat Senators kept the wolves from the door by fighting off all attempts to conduct a formal investigation. Two high-level managers, Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines, were forced out and both now work for the Obama campaign. Raines made $90 million in six years with Fanny. Eight years ago, President Bush warned of mismanagement problems with Fanny and Freddie. Five years ago, John McCain authored a bill to form an oversight group and to conduct a formal investigation; Senators Chris Dodd and Barney Frank refused to allow the bill to go to the full Senate for a vote and said there were no problems with these organizations. You remember Chris Dodd; he is Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee – the fox we left in charge of the chicken house. The insufferably biased New York Times parroted the claim and said that Republicans were just trying to scare the public. Dodd, Frank, Charles Shumer, Hillary Clinton and other left-headed Senators have repeatedly fought off attempts to clean up this mess. Fannie Mae has made Chris Dodd the number one recipient of their political contributions; number two recipient, after only two years in the Senate, is Barack Hussein Obama. Make no mistake, the Democrat politicians caused today’s financial problems. In addition to greed for campaign funds, the driving force was their Socialist view and insistence that bad loans be made because “affordable housing should be available to everyone.”
