McCain smelled the smoke in 06'
 

Quote; race42008



McCain warned of Fannie Mae “accounting scandal,” sought reform, in 2006
There’s been a lot of posturing by the Obama campaign the past couple of days over the hits to the financial industry, and questioning of whether John McCain “gets it.” He got it, all right. The following is a statement made by Sen. McCain on the floor of the Senate on May 25, 2006, regarding the need to reform the housing finance industry, and particularly to bring greater accountability to Fannie Mae.

In summary, the bill, S. 190, of which John McCain was one of only four co-authors (Sen. Obama being none of the other three), proposed to amend the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 to establish an independent Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Agency which would have authority over the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac).

Who's to blame for the biggest financial catastrophe of our time? There are plenty of culprits, but one candidate for lead perp is former Sen. Phil Gramm. Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridors of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupted Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and advises the Republican candidate on economic matters. He's been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win. That's right: A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. Talk about a market failure.

If you are interested, read this article that outlines a lot of history relating to this subject - democrats and republicans were involved - but, it appears that democrats pushed the envelope......

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Politics and the Fannie Mae Piggy Bank
Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick, and some very cooked books.

By Byron York

Editor’s note — The impending federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has shed light not only on the seriousness of current housing market conditions but also on the mismanagement and corruption that helped cripple the mortgage giants. Although political figures from both parties have profited mightily from Fannie Mae, it has been a particular favorite of former officials of Democratic administrations, as NR’s Byron York found out when he looked into the situation in the summer of 2006.



On May 23, 2006, as a jury in Houston deliberated the case against top Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, a little-known regulatory agency in Washington, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), released a study with the dryly bureaucratic title “Report of the Special Examination of Fannie Mae.” The document received far less attention than the news from Enron, but its conclusions were stunning. In meticulous detail, it outlined a culture of corruption at the Federal National Mortgage Association — better known as Fannie Mae — that rivals the most serious corporate scandals in recent years. In this case, however, the main players are Washington insiders — some of them prominent veterans of the Clinton administration — and the scandal’s effects could ripple through Congress for years.

Snip.....

Even though his salary never topped $1 million, Raines’s total compensation shot from $6.48 million in 1998 to $8.52 million in 1999, to $13.89 million in 2000, to $18.86 million in 2001, to $18.20 million in 2002, to $24.15 million in 2003, all on the strength of EPS bonuses. Investigators found that of the $90.12 million Raines was paid in that six-year period, more than $52 million came from EPS bonuses.

Gorelick’s situation was similar. OFHEO found that she took home $26.46 million in the period from 1998 to 2002 (she left in that year, so she wasn’t there for the entire period under investigation). Of that figure, nearly $15 million came from EPS bonuses.

Of course, it wasn’t legit. “Fannie Mae reported extremely smooth profit growth and hit announced targets for earnings per share precisely each quarter,” the OFHEO report says. “Those achievements were illusions deliberately and systematically created by [Fannie Mae’s] senior management with the aid of inappropriate accounting and improper earnings management.”

In other words, they cooked the books.
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http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...Dg1Y2Q=&w=MQ==

Interesting article, I would have to say that anyone involved in this corruption should be held accountable! and the best place to start is fallow the money! I don't care what party gets hurt by this, if they were involved they should pay! and that includes the lobbyist and the CEO of these corporations.

Glad to hear that Bill, now let's see what happens to C. rangel, you know!, the head of the house tax rules committee, who said 'I didn't know I had to pay the taxes'. Contempt at it's highest!.

Well I could give a litany of politicians that would fall into that category, yes, Rangel failed to pay taxes on $5000 dollars of income, and should be punished, the same way you or I would.

I'm with you on this one - actually, any corruption on either side needs to be dealt with harshly.

I'm thinking that McCain-Palin will deliver on this issue as well as lots of others when they take over Washington - the town will never be the same.

I wish I could believe that, this however, is not the John McCain I met and admired, this is someone I am not at all familiar with!