Frank Darabont - World-of-Newave.info http://answers.world-of-newave.info/frank-darabont.htm Latest news and articles about Frank Darabont en-us Copyright (c)2004-2008.ยง/Newave SARL. All rights reserved. webmaster@world-of-newave.com (Webmaster) Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:06:10 GMT Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:06:10 GMT Newave Lisa XML Engine v1.0 - http://www.world-of-newave.info/about.htm 60 http://www.world-of-newave.info/images/wi8831.gif World-of-Newave.info - Knowledge and Informational Database http://www.world-of-newave.info/ 88 31 {NORTH AMERICA > REAL ESTATE} - Medical / Professional Commercial Condo for Lease (rohnert pk / cotati) $1500 1sqft http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/north-america/united-states/california/metro-areas/san-francisco-bay-area/business-and-economy/real-estate/medical-professional-commercial-condo-for-lease-2008106669.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/north-america/united-states/california/metro-areas/san-francisco-bay-area/business-and-economy/real-estate/medical-professional-commercial-condo-for-lease-2008106669.htm Sun, 12 Oct 2008 05:48:32 GMT Mike Stollmeyer | Frank Howard Allen | 707-544-4909 50 Arlen Drive, Rohnert Park, CA Opportunity to lease a Medical Condominium in Rohnert Park Retail/Commercial $1,500/month Sq Footage 1,260 Parking Unspecified DESCRIPTION This property includes a waiting room, 4 treatment rooms, private office, and a reception room. Excellent location, next to an established dentist. Ideal for professional practices. Call Mike at 707.544.4909 to schedule an appointment to view the interior. see additional photos below LEASE TERMS Negotiable ADDITIONAL PHOTOS Renter contact info: Mike Stollmeyer Frank Howard Allen 707-544-4909 Equal Opportunity Housing Posted: Sep 12, 2008, 7:45am PDT Sfbay.Craigslist.Org Medical / Professional Commercial Condo for Lease (rohnert pk / cotati) $1500 1sqft {new window}   Sfbay.Craigslist.Org - Mike Stollmeyer | Frank Howard Allen | 707-544-4909 50 Arlen Drive, Rohnert Park, CA Opportunity to lease a Medical Condominium in Rohnert Park Retail/Commercial $1,500/month Sq Footage 1,260 Parking Unspecified DESCRIPTION This property includes a waiting room, 4 treatment rooms, private office, and a reception room. Excellent location, next to an established dentist. Ideal for professional practices. Call Mike at 707.544.4909 to schedule an appointment to view the interior. see additional photos below LEASE TERMS Negotiable ADDITIONAL PHOTOS Renter contact info: Mike Stollmeyer Frank Howard Allen 707-544-4909 Equal Opportunity Housing Posted: Sep 12, 2008, 7:45am PDT
Medical / Professional Commercial Condo for Lease {...}
Published: October 12, 2008, 5:48 am - Indexed: October 12, 2008, 9:59 am - Page Size: 13KB
Category: Regional > North America > United States > California > Metro Areas > San Francisco Bay Area > Business and Economy > Real Estate

]]> Regional > North America > United States > California > Metro Areas > San Francisco Bay Area > Business and Economy > Real Estate {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - Myths and falsehoods about the purported link between affordable housing initiatives and the financial crisis http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/myths-and-falsehoods-about-the-purported-link-between-20081098812.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/myths-and-falsehoods-about-the-purported-link-between-20081098812.htm Sat, 11 Oct 2008 03:24:14 GMT Conservative and other media figures, echoing a reported strategy on the part of Republicans, have attempted to deflect blame for the financial crisis onto proponents of the expansion of affordable housing and legislation and institutions created to effect that expansion. Newsweek senior editor Daniel Gross wrote in an October 7 Slate commentary: On the Republican side of Congress, in the right-wing financial media (which is to say the financial media), and in certain parts of the op-ed-o-sphere, there's a consensus emerging that the whole mess should be laid at the feet of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the failed mortgage giants, and the Community Reinvestment Act, a law passed during the Carter administration. The CRA, which was amended in the 1990s and this decade, requires banks -- which had a long, distinguished history of not making loans to minorities -- to make more efforts to do so. Recent attacks have turned personal, with conservative media -- along with congressional Republicans and Sen. John McCain -- targeting Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) directly as a purported culprit in the financial crisis, falsely representing his decades-long advocacy of increased affordable housing as advocacy of lax oversight over Fannie and Freddie. The attacks are premised on several myths and falsehoods and, in the case of CRA and attacks on minority lending, have taken on a racial tinge. MYTH: The 1977 Community Reinvestment Act forced lenders into irresponsible lending In a September 28 Boston Globe column, Jeff Jacoby asserted: The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and "redlining" because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites. The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to 'meet the credit needs' of 'low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods.' Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans." Jacoby is not alone in his reference to "minority" lending. On the September 18 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto asked Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), "[W]hen you and many of your colleagues were pushing for more minority lending and more expanded lending to folks who heretofore couldn't get mortgages, when you were pushing homeownership ... Are you totally without culpability here?" Cavuto later said, "I'm just saying, I don't remember a clarion call that said, 'Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster.' " But the suggestion that the financial crisis was caused by banks lending irresponsibly to comply with the CRA is widely discredited. According to housing experts, a large number of subprime loans were not made under the CRA, which applies only to depository institutions. A study released earlier this year by a law firm specializing in CRA compliance estimated that in the 15 most populous metropolitan areas, 84.3 percent of subprime loans in 2006 were made by financial institutions not governed by the CRA. Moreover, Janet Yellen, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, stated in a March 2008 speech that "studies have shown that the CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households" [emphasis added]. In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr stated: Despite the fact that CRA appears to have increased bank and thrift lending in low- and moderate-income communities, such institutions are not the only ones operating in these areas. In fact, with new and lower-cost sources of funding available from the secondary market through securitization, and with advances in financial technology, subprime lending exploded in the late 1990s, reaching over $600 billion and 20% of all originations by 2005. More than half of subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies not subject to comprehensive federal supervision; another 30 percent of such originations were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts, which are not subject to routine examination or supervision, and the remaining 20 percent were made by banks and thrifts. Although reasonable people can disagree about how to interpret the evidence, my own judgment is that the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight. The housing crisis we face today, driven by serious problems in the subprime lending, suggests that our system of home mortgage regulation, including CRA, is seriously deficient. We need to fill what my friend, the late Federal Reserve Board Governor Ned Gramlich aptly termed, "the giant hole in the supervisory safety net." Banks and thrifts are subject to comprehensive federal regulation and supervision; their affiliates far less so; and independent mortgage companies, not at all. Moreover, many market-based systems designed to ensure sound practices in this sector-broker reputational risk, lender oversight of brokers, investor oversight of lenders, rating agency oversight of securitizations, and so on -- simply did not work. Conflicts of interest, lax regulation, and "boom times" covered up the extent of the abuses -- at least for a while, at least for those not directly affected by abusive practices. But no more. Others who have advanced this or similar claims include guest Jonathan Hoenig during the September 25 edition of The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, radio host Laura Ingraham during the September 25 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, and a September 25 Investor's Business Daily editorial claiming that the CRA "forced banks to make many more subprime loans." MYTH: Excessive lending to undocumented immigrants is responsible for the financial crisis On the October 9 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, San Diego radio host Roger Hedgecock claimed that "[w]e have a situation where today HUD [the Department of Housing and Urban Development] was talking about 5 million illegal alien home mortgage loans that have gone bad." Radio host Joe Madison responded, "You see, this really angers me, because I'm sitting here ... and wondering, how is it that people who are illegal get loans when people in my community who are legal have a difficulty getting loans, and if they do get them, they're often from predators?" Neither Hedgecock nor Madison cited a source for the purported HUD statistic. On October 9, the Drudge Report linked to an article on the Phoenix radio station KFYI website under the headline, "HUD: Five Million Fraudulent Mortgages Held by Illegals..." However, according to an October 9 Phoenix Business Journal article posted at 3:15 pm MT (more than an hour before Lou Dobbs Tonight aired), HUD "says there is no basis to news reports that more than 5 million bad mortgages are held by illegal immigrants" and "a HUD spokesman said ... his agency has no data showing the number of illegal immigrants holding foreclosed or bad mortgages." Other media figures advancing the claim that lending to undocumented immigrants is responsible for the mortgage crisis include syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin, who wrote in her September 24 column that "there's one giant paternal elephant in the room that has slipped notice: How illegal immigration, crime-enabling banks, and open-borders Bush policies fueled the mortgage crisis. MYTH: Congressional Democrats, led by Barney Frank, opposed strengthening oversight over Fannie and Freddie In a September 18 column, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly falsely claimed that Frank "sat by as mortgage brokers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made bad loans" and asserted that "[i]nstead of demanding responsible business practices from Fannie and Freddie, Frank continued to pound the table to extend even more credit to 'low income' families." In fact, Frank did not "s[i]t by." Frank's efforts to enhance regulatory oversight on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac include: In 2005, Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, worked with committee chairman Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH) on the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005, which would have established the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to replace the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) as overseer of the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After voting for the bill in committee, Frank voted against final passage of the bill on the House floor, stating that he was doing so because an amendment to the bill on the House floor imposed restrictions on the kinds of nonprofit organizations that could receive funding under the bill. In early 2007, as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank sponsored H.R. 1427, a bill to create the FHFA, granting that agency "general supervisory and regulatory authority over" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and directing it to reform the companies' business practices and regulate their exposure to credit and market risk. Among other things, Frank's legislation, titled the "Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007," directed the FHFA director to "ensure" that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "operate[] in a safe and sound manner, including maintenance of adequate capital and internal controls" and to establish standards for "management of credit and counterparty risk" and "management of market risk." The FHFA was eventually created after Congress incorporated provisions that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said were "similar" to those of H.R. 1427 into the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which the president signed into law on July 30. Some in the conservative media have taken the charge further, suggesting that in the 1990s, Frank allowed his relationship with Fannie Mae executive Herb Moses to affect his responsibility as a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee to conduct oversight over Fannie Mae. For example, in an October 3 article, Fox News deputy Washington Managing editor Bill Sammon asserted, in a charge he later echoed on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, "Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank's efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s. So did Frank's partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency's push to relax lending restrictions." In his article, however, Sammon cited only two sources: an anonymous Republican congressional staffer and Dan Gainor, who, Sammon did not note, is an employee of the conservative Media Research Center. Moreover, Sammon misrepresented Frank's record by reporting in his article that Frank "spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations" on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Sammon did not note in his article or during an October 6 appearance on The O'Reilly Factor that in the early 1990s, while Frank's Democratic Party still held the majority in Congress, and while Moses was at Fannie Mae, Frank supported bills to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and create a government regulatory agency that would supervise and have authority over some aspects of the company: On September 30, 1991, Frank voted for a bill to create a new regulatory agency to oversee Fannie and Freddie that would have "[r]equire[d] the [agency's] Director to establish by regulation a risk-based capital test for the enterprises," "[r]equire[d] the Director to establish risk-based capital levels for each enterprise according to statutory guidelines," "[e]stablishe[d] minimum capital levels, critical capital levels, and enforcement levels," and "[s]et[] forth mandatory supervisory actions for the enterprises at various capital levels, including mandatory conservatorship." In October 1992, Frank voted for the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, creating OFHEO, which was tasked with "ensur[ing] that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the enterprises) and their affiliates are adequately capitalized and operating safely." As with the bill Frank voted for in September 1991, the new law gave OFHEO authority to set, monitor, and enforce risk-based capital requirements for Fannie and Freddie. Neal Boortz also advanced this claim about Frank and his former partner during the October 8 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show. On October 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that "[a] conservative political organization will begin airing nationwide TV advertisements Wednesday that criticize congressional Democrats for their ties to mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae." MYTH: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the "current financial mess" In a September 19 Huffington Post blog post, Center for American Progress senior fellow David Abramowitz wrote: "There must be a Republican playbook circulating widely with a chapter entitled, 'What to say if asked who's to blame for the foreclosure mess.' Because an awful lot of Republican candidates are all suddenly yelling 'Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae' whenever plunging home prices and the housing crisis comes up. [...] So their plan seems to be to chant Fannie Mae often and loudly enough, and hope the public will get confused about who really caused this huge national calamity. It is always a good political story to just blame a bad guy who has something to do with the same topic. Indeed, during the September 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report, host Brit Hume said, "Many financial analysts are saying that if mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been effectively regulated years ago, the supercharged subprime mortgage meltdown that led to the current financial mess would either never have happened or would have been nowhere near as severe." But rebutting the suggestion that the subprime mortgage purchasing activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the "current financial mess," economist Dean Baker recently stated: Fannie and Freddie got into subprime junk and helped fuel the housing bubble, but they were trailing the irrational exuberance of the private sector. They lost market share in the years 2002-2007, as the volume of private issue mortgage backed securities exploded. In short, while Fannie and Freddie were completely irresponsible in their lending practices, the claim that they were responsible for the financial disaster is absurd on its face -- kind of like the claim that the earth is flat. Indeed, in a 2006 Securities and Exchange Commission filing (available here) covering its activities in 2004, Fannie Mae stated: "We did not participate in large amounts of these non-traditional mortgages in 2004 and 2005." In the report, Fannie Mae also noted the growth of subprime lending and reported, "These trends and our decision not to participate in large amounts of these non-traditional mortgages contributed to a significant loss in our share of new single-family mortgage-related securities issuances to private-label issuers during this period." Gross wrote in Slate that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were an "integral part" of a "culture of stupid, reckless lending." But, he wrote, they are not the primary culprits in the current financial crisis. He wrote: Investment banks created a demand for subprime loans because they saw it as a new asset class that they could dominate. They made subprime loans for the same reason they made other loans: They could get paid for making the loans, for turning them into securities, and for trading them-frequently using borrowed capital. As an example, he noted that the following happened during testimony by Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: At Monday's hearing, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., gamely tried to pin Lehman's demise on Fannie and Freddie. After comparing Lehman's small political contributions with Fannie and Freddie's much larger ones, Mica asked Fuld what role Fannie and Freddie's failure played in Lehman's demise. Fuld's response: "De minimis." From Fuld's testimony: MICA: And one of your big com -- well, one of the big packagers, or the competitor, so to speak, was Fannie Mae, which was deep into this. And you were -- you were dealing in some of the paper, I think, for secondary markets and other securitized mortgage paper, to basically package it and make money off it. Is that right? FULD: Yes, sir. MICA: What was Lehman Brothers' exposure to the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and what role did their collapse play in precipitating some of your financial troubles? FULD: Our -- MICA: It didn't matter or you -- FULD: Our exposure to both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was de minimis, sir. MYTH: Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has significantly more ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than does John McCain's In articles about the presidential candidates' responses to the economic crisis, the Associated Press, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Washington Post reported that the McCain campaign criticized Sen. Barack Obama for, in the words of McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, "his ties to spiraling lenders like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and their jet-set CEOs." But those articles did not note that several senior McCain campaign aides have served as lobbyists for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or both. According to a Media Matters for America search of the Senate Office of Public Records' Lobbying Disclosure Act Database, they include: Political adviser Charlie Black, who lobbied for Freddie Mac from 1999 to 2004; National finance co-chairman Wayne Berman, who lobbied for Fannie Mae from 2004 to 2008 and for Freddie Mac in 2004; Congressional liaison John Green, who lobbied for Fannie Mae from 2004 to 2007 and for Freddie Mac in 2003; Arthur Culvahouse, who reportedly headed McCain's vice-presidential search team, lobbied for Fannie Mae in 1999, 2003, and 2004; and William E. Timmons Sr., who reportedly "has been tapped by the McCain campaign to conduct a study in preparation for the presidential transition," lobbied for Freddie Mac from 2000 to 2008. Additionally, several media outlets have reported that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis previously served as president of the Homeownership Alliance, a Washington-based advocacy group whose founding members included Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which Media Matters has noted. MYTH: Democrats sought to divert funding in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act to ACORN On the September 29 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, host Lou Dobbs claimed: "ACORN [Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now] stands to reap hundreds of millions of dollars from a government bailout of Wall Street." Dobbs added later: "This is a straightforward deal for ACORN and other groups, left-wing groups, set up by the Democratic leadership of Congress. They're not interested in the bailout per se. They want to spread this out, and many people believe that this bailout in part is dear to the Democratic leadership because they want to advance a social agenda here as much as much as an economic bailout of Wall Street." Numerous other media figures also reported the false claim that Democrats were trying to steer money to ACORN. In fact, neither the draft proposal nor the final version of the bill contained any language mentioning ACORN. Those making the false claim were misrepresenting a provision -- since removed -- that would have directed 20 percent of any profits realized on troubled assets purchased under the plan into two previously established funds: the Housing Trust Fund and the Capital Magnet Fund, which, under the law authorizing them, distribute funds through state block grants and through competitive application processes, respectively. On the October 9 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund similarly made the false claim that ACORN "almost got a slush fund in the housing bailout bill a few weeks ago." MYTH: Former President Clinton has blamed Democrats for the financial crisis In a September 30 post on Time.com's Swampland blog, Washington bureau chief Jay Carney claimed that comments former President Bill Clinton made during a September 25 interview on ABC's Good Morning America that were subsequently featured in a McCain campaign ad "could undercut Democratic arguments that Bush and the Republicans are primarily responsible" for the financial crisis. During that interview, Clinton said, "I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." But in reporting on the ad, Carney failed to point out that in the very same interview, Clinton also said, "I think the biggest mistake, by the way, that contributed to the current circumstance that almost nobody talks about, is the repeal after decades of something called the uptick rule, which allowed the hedge funds, heavily leveraged, and others to just drive down the market without any kind of automatic stoppers." In a separate interview aired that day with Matt Lauer, co-host of NBC's Today, Clinton stated of the financial situation: "[T]his thing really took off when the SEC, under this administration, exercised less oversight and they got rid of something called the uptick rule, which enabled betting down on housing stocks to go crazy." The uptick rule, which was created in 1938, was a securities trading rule that regulated market short selling, the act of selling a stock that an investor does not own (but borrows from a broker or someone else) in anticipation that the stock's price will decrease. After a June 13, 2007, decision that became effective July 3, 2007, the SEC issued a final rule that repealed the uptick rule. From C-SPAN's October 6 coverage of the House Oversight Reform Committee: MICA: Again, you -- when you opened your statement, you said that Lehman Brothers -- and it was around for what, 150 years -- dealt in some pretty hard assets and some secure investments. You've been around a while. What turned the corner for you to get into some of the more speculative ventures, like subprime and some of the other, again, riskier investments? FULD: As I said in my verbal testimony, our participation in the mortgage-related businesses was clearly a natural for us, given our dominance in fixed income. That was something that went back a number of years. And even as I listened, as I say, to the panel before me, they correctly pointed out that this was a goal of the government to provide funding and mortgages to a number of people that typically would not or could not have received a mortgage. MICA: And one of your big com -- well, one of the big packagers, or the competitor, so to speak, was Fannie Mae, which was deep into this. And you were -- you were dealing in some of the paper, I think, for secondary markets and other securitized mortgage paper, to basically package it and make money off it. Is that right? FULD: Yes, sir. MICA: What was Lehman Brothers' exposure to the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and what role did their collapse play in precipitating some of your financial troubles? FULD: Our -- MICA: It didn't matter or you -- FULD: Our exposure to both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was de minimis, sir. MICA: OK, but their collapse -- did that help precipitate any problems with your firm? FULD: It certainly set the stage for an environment, as I talked about loss of confidence and credit-crisis mentality that permeated our market, clearly set the stage for investors losing confidence, counterparties asking for additional collateral, and clearly an environment that lost liquidity -- MICA: I notice you -- FULD : -- which is the lifeblood of the capital market system. Mediamatters.Org Myths and falsehoods about the purported link between affordable housing initiatives and the financial crisis {new window}   Mediamatters.Org - Conservative and other media figures, echoing a reported strategy on the part of Republicans, have attempted to deflect blame for the financial crisis onto proponents of the expansion of affordable housing and legislation and institutions created to effect that expansion. Newsweek senior editor Daniel Gross wrote in an October 7 Slate commentary: On the Republican side of Congress, in the right-wing financial media (which is to say the financial media), and in certain parts of the op-ed-o-sphere, there's a consensus emerging that the whole mess should be laid at the feet of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the failed mortgage giants, and the Community Reinvestment Act, a law passed during the Carter administration. The CRA, which was amended in the 1990s and this decade, requires banks -- which had a long, distinguished history of not making loans to minorities -- to make more efforts to do so. Recent attacks have turned personal, with conservative media -- along with congressional Republicans and Sen. John McCain -- targeting Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) directly as a purported culprit in the financial crisis, falsely representing his decades-long advocacy of increased affordable housing as advocacy of lax oversight over Fannie and Freddie. The attacks are premised on several myths and falsehoods and, in the case of CRA and attacks on minority lending, have taken on a racial tinge. MYTH: The 1977 Community Reinvestment Act forced lenders into irresponsible lending In a September 28 Boston Globe column, Jeff Jacoby asserted: The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and "redlining" because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites. The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to 'meet the credit needs' of 'low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods.' Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans." Jacoby is not alone in his reference to "minority" lending. On the September 18 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto asked Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), "[W]hen you and many of your colleagues were pushing for more minority lending and more expanded lending to folks who heretofore couldn't get mortgages, when you were pushing homeownership ... Are you totally without culpability here?" Cavuto later said, "I'm just saying, I don't remember a clarion call that said, 'Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster.' " But the suggestion that the financial crisis was caused by banks lending irresponsibly to comply with the CRA is widely discredited. According to housing experts, a large number of subprime loans were not made under the CRA, which applies only to depository institutions. A study released earlier this year by a law firm specializing in CRA compliance estimated that in the 15 most populous metropolitan areas, 84.3 percent of subprime loans in 2006 were made by financial institutions not governed by the CRA. Moreover, Janet Yellen, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, stated in a March 2008 speech that "studies have shown that the CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households" [emphasis added]. In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr stated: Despite the fact that CRA appears to have increased bank and thrift lending in low- and moderate-income communities, such institutions are not the only ones operating in these areas. In fact, with new and lower-cost sources of funding available from the secondary market through securitization, and with advances in financial technology, subprime lending exploded in the late 1990s, reaching over $600 billion and 20% of all originations by 2005. More than half of subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies not subject to comprehensive federal supervision; another 30 percent of such originations were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts, which are not subject to routine examination or supervision, and the remaining 20 percent were made by banks and thrifts. Although reasonable people can disagree about how to interpret the evidence, my own judgment is that the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight. The housing crisis we face today, driven by serious problems in the subprime lending, suggests that our system of home mortgage regulation, including CRA, is seriously deficient. We need to fill what my friend, the late Federal Reserve Board Governor Ned Gramlich aptly termed, "the giant hole in the supervisory safety net." Banks and thrifts are subject to comprehensive federal regulation and supervision; their affiliates far less so; and independent mortgage companies, not at all. Moreover, many market-based systems designed to ensure sound practices in this sector-broker reputational risk, lender oversight of brokers, investor oversight of lenders, rating agency oversight of securitizations, and so on -- simply did not work. Conflicts of interest, lax regulation, and "boom times" covered up the extent of the abuses -- at least for a while, at least for those not directly affected by abusive practices. But no more. Others who have advanced this or similar claims include guest Jonathan Hoenig during the September 25 edition of The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, radio host Laura Ingraham during the September 25 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, and a September 25 Investor's Business Daily editorial claiming that the CRA "forced banks to make many more subprime loans." MYTH: Excessive lending to undocumented immigrants is responsible for the financial crisis On the October 9 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, San Diego radio host Roger Hedgecock claimed that "[w]e have a situation where today HUD [the Department of Housing and Urban Development] was talking about 5 million illegal alien home mortgage loans that have gone bad." Radio host Joe Madison responded, "You see, this really angers me, because I'm sitting here ... and wondering, how is it that people who are illegal get loans when people in my community who are legal have a difficulty getting loans, and if they do get them, they're often from predators?" Neither Hedgecock nor Madison cited a source for the purported HUD statistic. On October 9, the Drudge Report linked to an article on the Phoenix radio station KFYI website under the headline, "HUD: Five Million Fraudulent Mortgages Held by Illegals..." However, according to an October 9 Phoenix Business Journal article posted at 3:15 pm MT (more than an hour before Lou Dobbs Tonight aired), HUD "says there is no basis to news reports that more than 5 million bad mortgages are held by illegal immigrants" and "a HUD spokesman said ... his agency has no data showing the number of illegal immigrants holding foreclosed or bad mortgages." Other media figures advancing the claim that lending to undocumented immigrants is responsible for the mortgage crisis include syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin, who wrote in her September 24 column that "there's one giant paternal elephant in the room that has slipped notice: How illegal immigration, crime-enabling banks, and open-borders Bush policies fueled the mortgage crisis. MYTH: Congressional Democrats, led by Barney Frank, opposed strengthening oversight over Fannie and Freddie In a September 18 column, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly falsely claimed that Frank "sat by as mortgage brokers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made bad loans" and asserted that "[i]nstead of demanding responsible business practices from Fannie and Freddie, Frank continued to pound the table to extend even more credit to 'low income' families." In fact, Frank did not "s[i]t by." Frank's efforts to enhance regulatory oversight on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac include: In 2005, Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, worked with committee chairman Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH) on the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005, which would have established the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to replace the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) as overseer of the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After voting for the bill in committee, Frank voted against final passage of the bill on the House floor, stating that he was doing so because an amendment to the bill on the House floor imposed restrictions on the kinds of nonprofit organizations that could receive funding under the bill. In early 2007, as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank sponsored H.R. 1427, a bill to create the FHFA, granting that agency "general supervisory and regulatory authority over" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and directing it to reform the companies' business practices and regulate their exposure to credit and market risk. Among other things, Frank's legislation, titled the "Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007," directed the FHFA director to "ensure" that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "operate[] in a safe and sound manner, including maintenance of adequate capital and internal controls" and to establish standards for "management of credit and counterparty risk" and "management of market risk." The FHFA was eventually created after Congress incorporated provisions that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said were "similar" to those of H.R. 1427 into the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which the president signed into law on July 30. Some in the conservative media have taken the charge further, suggesting that in the 1990s, Frank allowed his relationship with Fannie Mae executive Herb Moses to affect his responsibility as a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee to conduct oversight over Fannie Mae. For example, in an October 3 article, Fox News deputy Washington Managing editor Bill Sammon asserted, in a charge he later echoed on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, "Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank's efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s. So did Frank's partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency's push to relax lending restrictions." In his article, however, Sammon cited only two sources: an anonymous Republican congressional staffer and Dan Gainor, who, Sammon did not note, is an employee of the conservative Media Research Center. Moreover, Sammon misrepresented Frank's record by reporting in his article that Frank "spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations" on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Sammon did not note in his article or during an October 6 appearance on The O'Reilly Factor that in the early 1990s, while Frank's Democratic Party still held the majority in Congress, and while Moses was at Fannie Mae, Frank supported bills to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and create a government regulatory agency that would supervise and have authority over some aspects of the company: On September 30, 1991, Frank voted for a bill to create a new regulatory agency to oversee Fannie and Freddie that would have "[r]equire[d] the [agency's] Director to establish by regulation a risk-based capital test for the enterprises," "[r]equire[d] the Director to establish risk-based capital levels for each enterprise according to statutory guidelines," "[e]stablishe[d] minimum capital levels, critical capital levels, and enforcement levels," and "[s]et[] forth mandatory supervisory actions for the enterprises at various capital levels, including mandatory conservatorship." In October 1992, Frank voted for the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, creating OFHEO, which was tasked with "ensur[ing] that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the enterprises) and their affiliates are adequately capitalized and operating safely." As with the bill Frank voted for in September 1991, the new law gave OFHEO authority to set, monitor, and enforce risk-based capital requirements for Fannie and Freddie. Neal Boortz also advanced this claim about Frank and his former partner during the October 8 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show. On October 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that "[a] conservative political organization will begin airing nationwide TV advertisements Wednesday that criticize congressional Democrats for their ties to mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae." MYTH: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the "current financial mess" In a September 19 Huffington Post blog post, Center for American Progress senior fellow David Abramowitz wrote: "There must be a Republican playbook circulating widely with a chapter entitled, 'What to say if asked who's to blame for the foreclosure mess.' Because an awful lot of Republican candidates are all suddenly yelling 'Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae' whenever plunging home prices and the housing crisis comes up. [...] So their plan seems to be to chant Fannie Mae often and loudly enough, and hope the public will get confused about who really caused this huge national calamity. It is always a good political story to just blame a bad guy who has something to do with the same topic. Indeed, during the September 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report, host Brit Hume said, "Many financial analysts are saying that if mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been effectively regulated years ago, the supercharged subprime mortgage meltdown that led to the current financial mess would either never have happened or would have been nowhere near as severe." But rebutting the suggestion that the subprime mortgage purchasing activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the "current financial mess," economist Dean Baker recently stated: Fannie and Freddie got into subprime junk and helped fuel the housing bubble, but they were trailing the irrational exuberance of the private sector. They lost market share in the years 2002-2007, as the volume of private issue mortgage backed securities exploded. In short, while Fannie and Freddie were completely irresponsible in their lending practices, the claim that they were responsible for the financial disaster is absurd on its face -- kind of like the claim that the earth is flat. Indeed, in a 2006 Securities and Exchange Commission filing (available here) covering its activities in 2004, Fannie Mae stated: "We did not participate in large amounts of these non-traditional mortgages in 2004 and 2005." In the report, Fannie Mae also noted the growth of subprime lending and reported, "These trends and our decision not to participate in large amounts of these non-traditional mortgages contributed to a significant loss in our share of new single-family mortgage-related securities issuances to private-label issuers during this period." Gross wrote in Slate that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were an "integral part" of a "culture of stupid, reckless lending." But, he wrote, they are not the primary culprits in the current financial crisis. He wrote: Investment banks created a demand for subprime loans because they saw it as a new asset class that they could dominate. They made subprime loans for the same reason they made other loans: They could get paid for making the loans, for turning them into securities, and for trading them-frequently using borrowed capital. As an example, he noted that the following happened during testimony by Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: At Monday's hearing, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., gamely tried to pin Lehman's demise on Fannie and Freddie. After comparing Lehman's small political contributions with Fannie and Freddie's much larger ones, Mica asked Fuld what role Fannie and Freddie's failure played in Lehman's demise. Fuld's response: "De minimis." From Fuld's testimony: MICA: And one of your big com -- well, one of the big packagers, or the competitor, so to speak, was Fannie Mae, which was deep into this. And you were -- you were dealing in some of the paper, I think, for secondary markets and other securitized mortgage paper, to basically package it and make money off it. Is that right? FULD: Yes, sir. MICA: What was Lehman Brothers' exposure to the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and what role did their collapse play in precipitating some of your financial troubles? FULD: Our -- MICA: It didn't matter or you -- FULD: Our exposure to both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was de minimis, sir. MYTH: Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has significantly more ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than does John McCain's In articles about the presidential candidates' responses to the economic crisis, the Associated Press, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Washington Post reported that the McCain campaign criticized Sen. Barack Obama for, in the words of McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, "his ties to spiraling lenders like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and their jet-set CEOs." But those articles did not note that several senior McCain campaign aides have served as lobbyists for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or both. According to a Media Matters for America search of the Senate Office of Public Records' Lobbying Disclosure Act Database, they include: Political adviser Charlie Black, who lobbied for Freddie Mac from 1999 to 2004; National finance co-chairman Wayne Berman, who lobbied for Fannie Mae from 2004 to 2008 and for Freddie Mac in 2004; Congressional liaison John Green, who lobbied for Fannie Mae from 2004 to 2007 and for Freddie Mac in 2003; Arthur Culvahouse, who reportedly headed McCain's vice-presidential search team, lobbied for Fannie Mae in 1999, 2003, and 2004; and William E. Timmons Sr., who reportedly "has been tapped by the McCain campaign to conduct a study in preparation for the presidential transition," lobbied for Freddie Mac from 2000 to 2008. Additionally, several media outlets have reported that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis previously served as president of the Homeownership Alliance, a Washington-based advocacy group whose founding members included Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which Media Matters has noted. MYTH: Democrats sought to divert funding in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act to ACORN On the September 29 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, host Lou Dobbs claimed: "ACORN [Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now] stands to reap hundreds of millions of dollars from a government bailout of Wall Street." Dobbs added later: "This is a straightforward deal for ACORN and other groups, left-wing groups, set up by the Democratic leadership of Congress. They're not interested in the bailout per se. They want to spread this out, and many people believe that this bailout in part is dear to the Democratic leadership because they want to advance a social agenda here as much as much as an economic bailout of Wall Street." Numerous other media figures also reported the false claim that Democrats were trying to steer money to ACORN. In fact, neither the draft proposal nor the final version of the bill contained any language mentioning ACORN. Those making the false claim were misrepresenting a provision -- since removed -- that would have directed 20 percent of any profits realized on troubled assets purchased under the plan into two previously established funds: the Housing Trust Fund and the Capital Magnet Fund, which, under the law authorizing them, distribute funds through state block grants and through competitive application processes, respectively. On the October 9 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund similarly made the false claim that ACORN "almost got a slush fund in the housing bailout bill a few weeks ago." MYTH: Former President Clinton has blamed Democrats for the financial crisis In a September 30 post on Time.com's Swampland blog, Washington bureau chief Jay Carney claimed that comments former President Bill Clinton made during a September 25 interview on ABC's Good Morning America that were subsequently featured in a McCain campaign ad "could undercut Democratic arguments that Bush and the Republicans are primarily responsible" for the financial crisis. During that interview, Clinton said, "I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." But in reporting on the ad, Carney failed to point out that in the very same interview, Clinton also said, "I think the biggest mistake, by the way, that contributed to the current circumstance that almost nobody talks about, is the repeal after decades of something called the uptick rule, which allowed the hedge funds, heavily leveraged, and others to just drive down the market without any kind of automatic stoppers." In a separate interview aired that day with Matt Lauer, co-host of NBC's Today, Clinton stated of the financial situation: "[T]his thing really took off when the SEC, under this administration, exercised less oversight and they got rid of something called the uptick rule, which enabled betting down on housing stocks to go crazy." The uptick rule, which was created in 1938, was a securities trading rule that regulated market short selling, the act of selling a stock that an investor does not own (but borrows from a broker or someone else) in anticipation that the stock's price will decrease. After a June 13, 2007, decision that became effective July 3, 2007, the SEC issued a final rule that repealed the uptick rule. From C-SPAN's October 6 coverage of the House Oversight Reform Committee: MICA: Again, you -- when you opened your statement, you said that Lehman Brothers -- and it was around for what, 150 years -- dealt in some pretty hard assets and some secure investments. You've been around a while. What turned the corner for you to get into some of the more speculative ventures, like subprime and some of the other, again, riskier investments? FULD: As I said in my verbal testimony, our participation in the mortgage-related businesses was clearly a natural for us, given our dominance in fixed income. That was something that went back a number of years. And even as I listened, as I say, to the panel before me, they correctly pointed out that this was a goal of the government to provide funding and mortgages to a number of people that typically would not or could not have received a mortgage. MICA: And one of your big com -- well, one of the big packagers, or the competitor, so to speak, was Fannie Mae, which was deep into this. And you were -- you were dealing in some of the paper, I think, for secondary markets and other securitized mortgage paper, to basically package it and make money off it. Is that right? FULD: Yes, sir. MICA: What was Lehman Brothers' exposure to the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and what role did their collapse play in precipitating some of your financial troubles? FULD: Our -- MICA: It didn't matter or you -- FULD: Our exposure to both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was de minimis, sir. MICA: OK, but their collapse -- did that help precipitate any problems with your firm? FULD: It certainly set the stage for an environment, as I talked about loss of confidence and credit-crisis mentality that permeated our market, clearly set the stage for investors losing confidence, counterparties asking for additional collateral, and clearly an environment that lost liquidity -- MICA: I notice you -- FULD : -- which is the lifeblood of the capital market system.
Media Matters - Myths and falsehoods about the purported link between affordable housing initiatives and the financial crisis {...} Conservative and other media figures -- echoing a reported strategy on the part of Republicans -- have attempted to lay blame for the financial crisis on proponents of the expansion of affordable housing. Those attacks are premised on several myths and falsehoods. {...}
Published: October 11, 2008, 3:24 am - Indexed: October 11, 2008, 10:40 am - Page Size: 46KB
Category: Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance

]]> Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - Boortz: "[I]f there is a scoundrel in this housing crisis, it would be Barney Frank ... whose lover was working with Fannie Mae, pushing out these subprime mortgages" http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/boortz-i-f-there-is-a-scoundrel-in-this-housing-crisis-20081024014.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/boortz-i-f-there-is-a-scoundrel-in-this-housing-crisis-20081024014.htm Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:25:18 GMT On the October 8 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Neal Boortz baselessly suggested that Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), whom he referred to as a "scoundrel," allowed his relationship in the 1990s with Herb Moses, a Fannie Mae official at the time, to improperly influence his conduct as a member of the House Financial Services Committee, which was responsible for oversight of Fannie Mae. Boortz claimed that Frank "was protecting Fannie Mae for about seven or eight years in the 1990s because his lover, his boyfriend was working for Fannie Mae, pushing out these subprime mortgage packages. So, Barney Frank -- Barney Frank's in the Congress of the United States protecting Fannie Mae. His boyfriend is at Fannie Mae pushing out these subprime mortgages. They get home at night, and in between boxing tonsils and swapping spit, the boyfriend said, 'Thank you, Barney, for saving my job.' " Boortz later said, "[I]f there is a scoundrel in this housing crisis, it would be Barney Frank, whose boyfriend, whose lover was working with Fannie Mae, pushing out these subprime mortgages while Barney Frank was defending Fannie Mae in the Congress of the United States." Boortz provided no evidence to support his suggestion that Frank allowed his personal ties to Moses to affect his behavior on the Financial Services Committee. In fact, Frank repeatedly took action over the years, including when Moses was at Fannie Mae, to strengthen oversight over the corporation. Boortz's attack echoed a reported strategy on the part of Republicans to try to deflect blame for the financial crisis onto Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, and proponents of the expansion of affordable housing. Newsweek senior editor Daniel Gross wrote in an October 7 Slate commentary: On the Republican side of Congress, in the right-wing financial media (which is to say the financial media), and in certain parts of the op-ed-o-sphere, there's a consensus emerging that the whole mess should be laid at the feet of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the failed mortgage giants, and the Community Reinvestment Act, a law passed during the Carter administration. The CRA, which was amended in the 1990s and this decade, requires banks -- which had a long, distinguished history of not making loans to minorities -- to make more efforts to do so. Media Matters for America has rebutted attacks on the CRA, noting that a large percentage of subprime mortgages were not made under the CRA, and noting comments made by Janet Yellen, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, in a March speech in which she said that "studies have shown that the CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households" [emphasis added]. Media Matters has also noted evidence showing that Fannie Mae was not a leader, but a follower, in the subprime lending market. But most important, undermining Boortz's baseless charge are actions Frank has taken over the years to strengthen oversight of Fannie and Freddie. In the early 1990s, when Democrats held the majority in Congress before the Republican takeover in 1995, Frank supported bills to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and create a government regulatory agency that would supervise and have authority over some aspects of the company in 1991 and 1992. Moses was employed by Fannie Mae at that time. Moreover, in 2005, when Frank was the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, he worked with committee chairman Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH) on the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005, which would have established the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to oversee the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After voting for the bill in committee, Frank voted against final passage of the bill on the House floor, stating that he was doing so because an amendment to the bill on the House floor imposed restrictions on the kinds of nonprofit organizations that could receive funding under the bill. In early 2007, as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank sponsored H.R. 1427, a bill to create the FHFA, granting that agency "general supervisory and regulatory authority over" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and directing it to reform the two companies' business practices and regulate their exposure to credit and market risk. The FHFA was eventually created after Congress incorporated provisions that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said were "similar" to those of H.R. 1427 into the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which the president signed into law on July 30. From the October 8 edition of Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show: BOORTZ: You know, now, who is one of the biggest culprits in our financial crisis today? It's Barney Frank. Barney Frank, who for 18 years or more has been working overtime to protect Fannie Mae. He was protecting Fannie Mae for about seven or eight years in the 1990s because his lover, his boyfriend was working for Fannie Mae, pushing out these subprime mortgage packages. So, Barney Frank -- Barney Frank's in the Congress of the United States protecting Fannie Mae. His boyfriend is at Fannie Mae pushing out these subprime mortgages. They get home at night, and in between boxing tonsils and swapping spit, the boyfriend said, "Thank you, Barney, for saving my job." "No problem." [...] BOORTZ: Representative Barney Frank, who has been at the middle of the problems out there -- been at the middle with the problems with the subprime mortgages and making all of these loans to people who could not afford them -- now says that Republican criticism of Democrats over the housing crisis is racially motivated. The last refuge of scoundrels. And if there is a scoundrel in this housing crisis, it would be Barney Frank, whose boyfriend, whose lover was working with Fannie Mae, pushing out these subprime mortgages while Barney Frank was defending Fannie Mae in the Congress of the United States. Barney Frank feels really vulnerable right now because he knows the American people are starting to understand his complicity. They're starting to understand. So he goes to that last refuge. "Yup, the Republicans are guilty of racism for attacking me and my Democrat friends on the nation's housing crisis because a lot of these subprime mortgages were made to black people." Isn't that nice? Mediamatters.Org Boortz: "[I]f there is a scoundrel in this housing crisis, it would be Barney Frank ... whose lover was working with Fannie Mae, pushing out these subprime mortgages" {new window}   Mediamatters.Org - On the October 8 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Neal Boortz baselessly suggested that Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), whom he referred to as a "scoundrel," allowed his relationship in the 1990s with Herb Moses, a Fannie Mae official at the time, to improperly influence his conduct as a member of the House Financial Services Committee, which was responsible for oversight of Fannie Mae. Boortz claimed that Frank "was protecting Fannie Mae for about seven or eight years in the 1990s because his lover, his boyfriend was working for Fannie Mae, pushing out these subprime mortgage packages. So, Barney Frank -- Barney Frank's in the Congress of the United States protecting Fannie Mae. His boyfriend is at Fannie Mae pushing out these subprime mortgages. They get home at night, and in between boxing tonsils and swapping spit, the boyfriend said, 'Thank you, Barney, for saving my job.' " Boortz later said, "[I]f there is a scoundrel in this housing crisis, it would be Barney Frank, whose boyfriend, whose lover was working with Fannie Mae, pushing out these subprime mortgages while Barney Frank was defending Fannie Mae in the Congress of the United States." Boortz provided no evidence to support his suggestion that Frank allowed his personal ties to Moses to affect his behavior on the Financial Services Committee. In fact, Frank repeatedly took action over the years, including when Moses was at Fannie Mae, to strengthen oversight over the corporation. Boortz's attack echoed a reported strategy on the part of Republicans to try to deflect blame for the financial crisis onto Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, and proponents of the expansion of affordable housing. Newsweek senior editor Daniel Gross wrote in an October 7 Slate commentary: On the Republican side of Congress, in the right-wing financial media (which is to say the financial media), and in certain parts of the op-ed-o-sphere, there's a consensus emerging that the whole mess should be laid at the feet of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the failed mortgage giants, and the Community Reinvestment Act, a law passed during the Carter administration. The CRA, which was amended in the 1990s and this decade, requires banks -- which had a long, distinguished history of not making loans to minorities -- to make more efforts to do so. Media Matters for America has rebutted attacks on the CRA, noting that a large percentage of subprime mortgages were not made under the CRA, and noting comments made by Janet Yellen, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, in a March speech in which she said that "studies have shown that the CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households" [emphasis added]. Media Matters has also noted evidence showing that Fannie Mae was not a leader, but a follower, in the subprime lending market. But most important, undermining Boortz's baseless charge are actions Frank has taken over the years to strengthen oversight of Fannie and Freddie. In the early 1990s, when Democrats held the majority in Congress before the Republican takeover in 1995, Frank supported bills to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and create a government regulatory agency that would supervise and have authority over some aspects of the company in 1991 and 1992. Moses was employed by Fannie Mae at that time. Moreover, in 2005, when Frank was the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, he worked with committee chairman Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH) on the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005, which would have established the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to oversee the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After voting for the bill in committee, Frank voted against final passage of the bill on the House floor, stating that he was doing so because an amendment to the bill on the House floor imposed restrictions on the kinds of nonprofit organizations that could receive funding under the bill. In early 2007, as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank sponsored H.R. 1427, a bill to create the FHFA, granting that agency "general supervisory and regulatory authority over" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and directing it to reform the two companies' business practices and regulate their exposure to credit and market risk. The FHFA was eventually created after Congress incorporated provisions that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said were "similar" to those of H.R. 1427 into the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which the president signed into law on July 30. From the October 8 edition of Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show: BOORTZ: You know, now, who is one of the biggest culprits in our financial crisis today? It's Barney Frank. Barney Frank, who for 18 years or more has been working overtime to protect Fannie Mae. He was protecting Fannie Mae for about seven or eight years in the 1990s because his lover, his boyfriend was working for Fannie Mae, pushing out these subprime mortgage packages. So, Barney Frank -- Barney Frank's in the Congress of the United States protecting Fannie Mae. His boyfriend is at Fannie Mae pushing out these subprime mortgages. They get home at night, and in between boxing tonsils and swapping spit, the boyfriend said, "Thank you, Barney, for saving my job." "No problem." [...] BOORTZ: Representative Barney Frank, who has been at the middle of the problems out there -- been at the middle with the problems with the subprime mortgages and making all of these loans to people who could not afford them -- now says that Republican criticism of Democrats over the housing crisis is racially motivated. The last refuge of scoundrels. And if there is a scoundrel in this housing crisis, it would be Barney Frank, whose boyfriend, whose lover was working with Fannie Mae, pushing out these subprime mortgages while Barney Frank was defending Fannie Mae in the Congress of the United States. Barney Frank feels really vulnerable right now because he knows the American people are starting to understand his complicity. They're starting to understand. So he goes to that last refuge. "Yup, the Republicans are guilty of racism for attacking me and my Democrat friends on the nation's housing crisis because a lot of these subprime mortgages were made to black people." Isn't that nice?
Media Matters - Boortz: "[I]f there is a scoundrel in this housing crisis, it would be Barney Frank ... whose lover was working with Fannie Mae, pushing out these subprime mortgages" {...} On his radio show, Neal Boortz baselessly suggested that Rep. Barney Frank "was protecting Fannie Mae for about seven or eight years in the 1990s because his lover, his boyfriend was working for Fannie Mae, pushing out these subprime mortgage packages." Boortz provided no evidence to support his suggestion that Frank allowed his personal relationship to affect his work in Congress. In fact, Frank repeatedly took actions over the years to strengthen oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. {...}
Published: October 10, 2008, 5:25 pm - Indexed: October 11, 2008, 10:39 am - Page Size: 24KB
Category: Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance

]]> Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - Fox News' Sammon ignores contrary evidence in suggesting that Rep. Frank allowed personal relationship to affect his oversight of Fannie Mae http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/fox-news-sammon-ignores-contrary-evidence-in-suggesting-20081085010.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/fox-news-sammon-ignores-contrary-evidence-in-suggesting-20081085010.htm Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:25:10 GMT On the October 6 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, deputy Washington managing editor Bill Sammon suggested that Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) allowed his relationship in the 1990s with Herb Moses, a Fannie Mae official at the time, to improperly influence his conduct as a member of the House Financial Services Committee, which was responsible for oversight of Fannie Mae. Sammon was echoing and amplifying claims he had made in an October 3 article on FoxNews.com, in which he asserted that "[u]nqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank's efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s. So did Frank's partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency's push to relax lending restrictions." In his article, however, Sammon cited only two sources: an anonymous Republican congressional staffer and Dan Gainor, who, Sammon did not note, is part of the conservative Media Research Center. Moreover, Sammon misrepresented Frank's record by reporting in his article that Frank "spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations" on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. While Sammon pointed to an example of Frank opposing a regulation on Frannie Mae, Sammon did not note in his article or on The O'Reilly Factor that Frank supported bills to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and create a government regulatory agency that would supervise and have authority over some aspects of the company. In his FoxNews.com article, Sammon wrote: "Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical." Sammon offered two "critics": Gainor, identified as "vice president of the Business & Media Institute" and "a T. Boone Pickens Fellow," and an unnamed "top GOP House aide" who "agreed" with Gainor. In fact, the Business and Media Institute is a division of the conservative Media Research Center, and the full name of Gainor's fellowship is the "The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow for the Media Research Center." Additionally, Sammon did not explain why he granted anonymity to a Republican aide to criticize Frank, a Democrat. Moreover, while Sammon reported that these critics were "skeptical" of Frank and Moses' statement that "they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest," Sammon did not quote either source citing any instance of alleged impropriety on Frank's part. Beyond these "critics," Sammon wrote in his article that "[a]lthough Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants." Sammon continued: "In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively." Sammon made the link more explicitly during his appearance on The O'Reilly Factor: BILL O'REILLY (host): Did Frank basically do anything wrong? Could -- is there a conflict of interest or can -- is there a trail back that says, "Barney Frank did this wrong"? [...] But did he do anything wrong? SAMMON: I don't think he did anything technically illegal. You can quarrel with his judgment in blocking people from imposing regulations on Fannie and Freddie. For example, there was one example where they wanted to put in a regulation that would tighten up mortgage rules, and Barney Frank was arguing that they ought to be loosened for, for example, two-family homes and three-family homes, which had -- However, Sammon provided no explanation for how Frank's "push[ing]" Fannie Mae to do something it was reportedly resisting demonstrated favoritism toward Fannie Mae or bore any relation to his relationship to Moses. Indeed, the November 22, 1991, Globe article that Sammon cited does not mention Moses at all. Nor did Sammon note that the Globe reported that Frank was not the only public official asking Fannie Mae to cover two- and three-family loans. In the second paragraph of the article, the Globe reported that "representatives of [then-Boston] Mayor [Raymond] Flynn and [then] Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy 2d (D-Mass.)" were involved in negotiations with Fannie over covering such loans, while mentioning Frank later in the article as also having been involved in discussions. From the Globe article (retrieved from the Nexis database): The federally chartered mortgage company Fannie Mae yesterday agreed to modify its rules restricting purchases of two-family and three-decker homes -- rules that housing advocates contend unfairly exclude low- and moderate-income families from buying homes in Boston. After a nearly three-hour meeting with members of the Home Buyers' Union, a local advocacy group, and representatives of Mayor Flynn and Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy 2d (D-Mass.), Fannie Mae officials agreed to substantially alter rules to allow what one termed "hundreds if not thousands" of buyers a chance to own two-family homes and three-deckers. The two sides failed to agree on exact percentages of debt that buyers will be allowed to carry, but Fannie Mae officials agreed to return to the bargaining table in two weeks, according to members of the union. Earlier yesterday the officials, trailed by housing advocates and representatives of elected officials, toured a two-family home on Dorchester's Downer Avenue. The multi-billion dollar Federal National Mortgage Association buys mortgages made by area banks so as to free up capital to allow banks to make more loans. But in recent years, Fannie Mae has not fully counted rental income from multi-family homes against the buyers' debt burden -- thereby refusing to purchase mortgages made to all but high-income buyers. Fannie Mae national spokesman David Jeffers said yesterday that the mortgage company restricted purchases of mortgages on multi-family homes after it saw many such mortgages go into default during the real estate slowdown. He said the default rate on mortgages on two-family homes is twice that of single-family homes, and the rate for three-deckers is five times the rate for single-family dwellings. But Jeffers said that after discussions with area homeowners, housing advocates, Kennedy and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Fannie Mae officials agreed to purchase the mortgages made under the state's "soft second" program, the primary source of mortgages for first-time homebuyers of low and moderate means. Moreover, Sammon did not mention in either his FoxNews.com article or during his O'Reilly Factor appearance that earlier in 1991, Frank voted in favor of legislation that increased government regulation and oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. On September 30, 1991, Frank voted for a bill to create a new regulatory agency to oversee Fannie and Freddie, which were government-sponsored enterprises until they were taken over by the federal government on September 8, 2008. According to the bill's Congressional Research Service summary, the bill "[r]equire[d] the [agency's] Director to establish by regulation a risk-based capital test for the enterprises," "[r]equire[d] the Director to establish risk-based capital levels for each enterprise according to statutory guidelines," "[e]stablishe[d] minimum capital levels, critical capital levels, and enforcement levels," and "[s]et[] forth mandatory supervisory actions for the enterprises at various capital levels, including mandatory conservatorship." According to an August 5, 1991, column by the Boston Globe ombudsman, Moses was already working for Fannie Mae in August 1991. In October 1992, Frank voted for the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, which created the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO). According to the Congressional Research Service summary of the bill, OFHEO was tasked with "ensur[ing] that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the enterprises) and their affiliates are adequately capitalized and operating safely." As with the bill Frank voted for in September 1991, the new law gave OFHEO authority to set, monitor, and enforce risk-based capital requirements for Fannie and Freddie. In addition, on The O'Reilly Factor, Sammon suggested that Frank hadn't "declare[d] the possibility of a conflict of interest." "That didn't happen," Sammon said. But in his FoxNews.com article, Sammon wrote that "[b]oth Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest." From the October 3 FoxNews.com article titled "Lawmaker accused of Fannie Mae Conflict of Interest": Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank's efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s. So did Frank's partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency's push to relax lending restrictions. Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie's assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie. Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical. "It's absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane? "If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have -- or at least what's not in the stock market -- that this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he's gay. It's the quintessential double standard." A top GOP House aide agreed. "C'mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?" the aide told FOX News. "No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank's political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley's wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain's wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation's housing and banking laws." [...] Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants. In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively. Three years later, President Clinton's Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to impose a new regulation on Fannie, but was thwarted by Frank. Clinton now blames such Democrats for planting the seeds of today's economic crisis. "I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Clinton said recently. From the October 6 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor: O'REILLY: Now, not only did the congressman have oversight on Fannie Mae for the past two years, but back in the 1990s, he had an affair with a guy named Herb Moses, an executive at Fannie Mae at the time Frank was on the House Banking Committee. Joining us now from D.C., Fox News Washington deputy editor Bill Sammon. So, why should we care, 10 years ago -- that's when -- and I guess it was a long-term relationship between these two men. Why should we care about that? SAMMON: Well, because that's when the seeds of today's crisis were sown, Bill. I mean, Barney Frank on your show talked about how he supported, you know, reform legislation 2007-2008. It was too late by then. I mean, by -- you know, by the time the legislation that kicked in July 30th of this year was passed, Fannie and Freddie stocks had dropped 80 percent so far this year. So, the housing market was already in a meltdown. We're talking in my story about -- and what you're referring to with Barney Frank and his relationship with Herb Moses -- that happened during the 1990s when Republicans and even some cases President Clinton was trying to put regulations on Fannie and Freddie. Barney Frank was backing off these efforts. Meanwhile, his partner was an executive in Fannie Mae, and he was charged with make-- with basically loosening mortgage regulations. O'REILLY: OK. Now, Frank at the time was on the committee but not the chair. And, you know, he had a voice, but he's a voice of many. When he gets to be the chair in 2007, he says -- Frank says, "Hey, I tried to get something done. I put this oversight thing in. It finally got passed, but it just took so long that it didn't have any effect. So, don't blame me. I didn't do anything wrong." And you say? SAMMON: Well, I say, again, a little too little, too late. And again, imagine if the shoe were on the other foot. Imagine if a Republican, say, Larry Craig, had a gay partner on the -- a federal -- on the agency that he was charged with regulating. Even if he only had a voice, even if he wasn't the chairman, wouldn't it behoove that member to recuse themselves or at least declare the possibility of a conflict of interest? This didn't happen. Barney Frank continued to have this relationship and continued to work on this committee. At the time, it was called the Banking Committee. And the press didn't raise an eyebrow. If you switch that around and put in a Republican -- even if it wasn't a gay relationship. So let's say a Republican had a mistress or a wife or a girlfriend on an agency that Republican was supposed to be regulating. The press would go ballistic. But because it's Barney Frank and because it's a Democrat and because it's the whole gay thing, they have not touched it because they consider it radioactive. O'REILLY: Did Frank basically do anything wrong? Could -- is there a conflict of interest or can -- is there a trail back that says, "Barney Frank did this wrong"? Now, I hold him accountable because he won't admit that he did a poor job in overseeing. And then, in July -- and we played this bite -- in July, he basically put a happy face on it. "Oh, I mean, it's not the best investment, but it's solid, and we're going forward" -- blah blah blah. Bull. But did he do anything wrong? SAMMON: I don't think he did anything technically illegal. You can quarrel with his judgment in blocking people from imposing regulations on Fannie and Freddie. For example, there was one example where they wanted to put in a regulation that would tighten up mortgage rules, and Barney Frank was arguing that they ought to be loosened for, for example, two-family homes and three-family homes, which had -- O'REILLY: Yeah, he wanted more money to go to poor and lower-middle-class people, so we know that was -- he admitted that. All right. Mediamatters.Org Fox News' Sammon ignores contrary evidence in suggesting that Rep. Frank allowed personal relationship to affect his oversight of Fannie Mae {new window}   Mediamatters.Org - On the October 6 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, deputy Washington managing editor Bill Sammon suggested that Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) allowed his relationship in the 1990s with Herb Moses, a Fannie Mae official at the time, to improperly influence his conduct as a member of the House Financial Services Committee, which was responsible for oversight of Fannie Mae. Sammon was echoing and amplifying claims he had made in an October 3 article on FoxNews.com, in which he asserted that "[u]nqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank's efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s. So did Frank's partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency's push to relax lending restrictions." In his article, however, Sammon cited only two sources: an anonymous Republican congressional staffer and Dan Gainor, who, Sammon did not note, is part of the conservative Media Research Center. Moreover, Sammon misrepresented Frank's record by reporting in his article that Frank "spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations" on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. While Sammon pointed to an example of Frank opposing a regulation on Frannie Mae, Sammon did not note in his article or on The O'Reilly Factor that Frank supported bills to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and create a government regulatory agency that would supervise and have authority over some aspects of the company. In his FoxNews.com article, Sammon wrote: "Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical." Sammon offered two "critics": Gainor, identified as "vice president of the Business & Media Institute" and "a T. Boone Pickens Fellow," and an unnamed "top GOP House aide" who "agreed" with Gainor. In fact, the Business and Media Institute is a division of the conservative Media Research Center, and the full name of Gainor's fellowship is the "The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow for the Media Research Center." Additionally, Sammon did not explain why he granted anonymity to a Republican aide to criticize Frank, a Democrat. Moreover, while Sammon reported that these critics were "skeptical" of Frank and Moses' statement that "they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest," Sammon did not quote either source citing any instance of alleged impropriety on Frank's part. Beyond these "critics," Sammon wrote in his article that "[a]lthough Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants." Sammon continued: "In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively." Sammon made the link more explicitly during his appearance on The O'Reilly Factor: BILL O'REILLY (host): Did Frank basically do anything wrong? Could -- is there a conflict of interest or can -- is there a trail back that says, "Barney Frank did this wrong"? [...] But did he do anything wrong? SAMMON: I don't think he did anything technically illegal. You can quarrel with his judgment in blocking people from imposing regulations on Fannie and Freddie. For example, there was one example where they wanted to put in a regulation that would tighten up mortgage rules, and Barney Frank was arguing that they ought to be loosened for, for example, two-family homes and three-family homes, which had -- However, Sammon provided no explanation for how Frank's "push[ing]" Fannie Mae to do something it was reportedly resisting demonstrated favoritism toward Fannie Mae or bore any relation to his relationship to Moses. Indeed, the November 22, 1991, Globe article that Sammon cited does not mention Moses at all. Nor did Sammon note that the Globe reported that Frank was not the only public official asking Fannie Mae to cover two- and three-family loans. In the second paragraph of the article, the Globe reported that "representatives of [then-Boston] Mayor [Raymond] Flynn and [then] Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy 2d (D-Mass.)" were involved in negotiations with Fannie over covering such loans, while mentioning Frank later in the article as also having been involved in discussions. From the Globe article (retrieved from the Nexis database): The federally chartered mortgage company Fannie Mae yesterday agreed to modify its rules restricting purchases of two-family and three-decker homes -- rules that housing advocates contend unfairly exclude low- and moderate-income families from buying homes in Boston. After a nearly three-hour meeting with members of the Home Buyers' Union, a local advocacy group, and representatives of Mayor Flynn and Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy 2d (D-Mass.), Fannie Mae officials agreed to substantially alter rules to allow what one termed "hundreds if not thousands" of buyers a chance to own two-family homes and three-deckers. The two sides failed to agree on exact percentages of debt that buyers will be allowed to carry, but Fannie Mae officials agreed to return to the bargaining table in two weeks, according to members of the union. Earlier yesterday the officials, trailed by housing advocates and representatives of elected officials, toured a two-family home on Dorchester's Downer Avenue. The multi-billion dollar Federal National Mortgage Association buys mortgages made by area banks so as to free up capital to allow banks to make more loans. But in recent years, Fannie Mae has not fully counted rental income from multi-family homes against the buyers' debt burden -- thereby refusing to purchase mortgages made to all but high-income buyers. Fannie Mae national spokesman David Jeffers said yesterday that the mortgage company restricted purchases of mortgages on multi-family homes after it saw many such mortgages go into default during the real estate slowdown. He said the default rate on mortgages on two-family homes is twice that of single-family homes, and the rate for three-deckers is five times the rate for single-family dwellings. But Jeffers said that after discussions with area homeowners, housing advocates, Kennedy and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Fannie Mae officials agreed to purchase the mortgages made under the state's "soft second" program, the primary source of mortgages for first-time homebuyers of low and moderate means. Moreover, Sammon did not mention in either his FoxNews.com article or during his O'Reilly Factor appearance that earlier in 1991, Frank voted in favor of legislation that increased government regulation and oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. On September 30, 1991, Frank voted for a bill to create a new regulatory agency to oversee Fannie and Freddie, which were government-sponsored enterprises until they were taken over by the federal government on September 8, 2008. According to the bill's Congressional Research Service summary, the bill "[r]equire[d] the [agency's] Director to establish by regulation a risk-based capital test for the enterprises," "[r]equire[d] the Director to establish risk-based capital levels for each enterprise according to statutory guidelines," "[e]stablishe[d] minimum capital levels, critical capital levels, and enforcement levels," and "[s]et[] forth mandatory supervisory actions for the enterprises at various capital levels, including mandatory conservatorship." According to an August 5, 1991, column by the Boston Globe ombudsman, Moses was already working for Fannie Mae in August 1991. In October 1992, Frank voted for the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, which created the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO). According to the Congressional Research Service summary of the bill, OFHEO was tasked with "ensur[ing] that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the enterprises) and their affiliates are adequately capitalized and operating safely." As with the bill Frank voted for in September 1991, the new law gave OFHEO authority to set, monitor, and enforce risk-based capital requirements for Fannie and Freddie. In addition, on The O'Reilly Factor, Sammon suggested that Frank hadn't "declare[d] the possibility of a conflict of interest." "That didn't happen," Sammon said. But in his FoxNews.com article, Sammon wrote that "[b]oth Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest." From the October 3 FoxNews.com article titled "Lawmaker accused of Fannie Mae Conflict of Interest": Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank's efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s. So did Frank's partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency's push to relax lending restrictions. Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie's assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie. Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical. "It's absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane? "If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have -- or at least what's not in the stock market -- that this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he's gay. It's the quintessential double standard." A top GOP House aide agreed. "C'mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?" the aide told FOX News. "No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank's political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley's wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain's wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation's housing and banking laws." [...] Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants. In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively. Three years later, President Clinton's Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to impose a new regulation on Fannie, but was thwarted by Frank. Clinton now blames such Democrats for planting the seeds of today's economic crisis. "I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Clinton said recently. From the October 6 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor: O'REILLY: Now, not only did the congressman have oversight on Fannie Mae for the past two years, but back in the 1990s, he had an affair with a guy named Herb Moses, an executive at Fannie Mae at the time Frank was on the House Banking Committee. Joining us now from D.C., Fox News Washington deputy editor Bill Sammon. So, why should we care, 10 years ago -- that's when -- and I guess it was a long-term relationship between these two men. Why should we care about that? SAMMON: Well, because that's when the seeds of today's crisis were sown, Bill. I mean, Barney Frank on your show talked about how he supported, you know, reform legislation 2007-2008. It was too late by then. I mean, by -- you know, by the time the legislation that kicked in July 30th of this year was passed, Fannie and Freddie stocks had dropped 80 percent so far this year. So, the housing market was already in a meltdown. We're talking in my story about -- and what you're referring to with Barney Frank and his relationship with Herb Moses -- that happened during the 1990s when Republicans and even some cases President Clinton was trying to put regulations on Fannie and Freddie. Barney Frank was backing off these efforts. Meanwhile, his partner was an executive in Fannie Mae, and he was charged with make-- with basically loosening mortgage regulations. O'REILLY: OK. Now, Frank at the time was on the committee but not the chair. And, you know, he had a voice, but he's a voice of many. When he gets to be the chair in 2007, he says -- Frank says, "Hey, I tried to get something done. I put this oversight thing in. It finally got passed, but it just took so long that it didn't have any effect. So, don't blame me. I didn't do anything wrong." And you say? SAMMON: Well, I say, again, a little too little, too late. And again, imagine if the shoe were on the other foot. Imagine if a Republican, say, Larry Craig, had a gay partner on the -- a federal -- on the agency that he was charged with regulating. Even if he only had a voice, even if he wasn't the chairman, wouldn't it behoove that member to recuse themselves or at least declare the possibility of a conflict of interest? This didn't happen. Barney Frank continued to have this relationship and continued to work on this committee. At the time, it was called the Banking Committee. And the press didn't raise an eyebrow. If you switch that around and put in a Republican -- even if it wasn't a gay relationship. So let's say a Republican had a mistress or a wife or a girlfriend on an agency that Republican was supposed to be regulating. The press would go ballistic. But because it's Barney Frank and because it's a Democrat and because it's the whole gay thing, they have not touched it because they consider it radioactive. O'REILLY: Did Frank basically do anything wrong? Could -- is there a conflict of interest or can -- is there a trail back that says, "Barney Frank did this wrong"? Now, I hold him accountable because he won't admit that he did a poor job in overseeing. And then, in July -- and we played this bite -- in July, he basically put a happy face on it. "Oh, I mean, it's not the best investment, but it's solid, and we're going forward" -- blah blah blah. Bull. But did he do anything wrong? SAMMON: I don't think he did anything technically illegal. You can quarrel with his judgment in blocking people from imposing regulations on Fannie and Freddie. For example, there was one example where they wanted to put in a regulation that would tighten up mortgage rules, and Barney Frank was arguing that they ought to be loosened for, for example, two-family homes and three-family homes, which had -- O'REILLY: Yeah, he wanted more money to go to poor and lower-middle-class people, so we know that was -- he admitted that. All right.
Media Matters - Fox News' Sammon ignores contrary evidence in suggesting that Rep. Frank allowed personal relationship to affect his oversight of Fannie Mae {...} On The O'Reilly Factor and in a FoxNews.com article, Bill Sammon suggested that Rep. Barney Frank allowed his relationship in the 1990s with Herb Moses, a Fannie Mae official at the time, to improperly influence his conduct as a member of the House Financial Services Committee. However, in his article, Sammon cited only an anonymous Republican congressional staffer and a member of the conservative Media Research Center. Sammon also misrepresented Frank's record by reporting that Frank "spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations" on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac without noting that during the period in question, Frank supported legislation to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and create a government regulatory agency that would oversee some aspects of the company. {...}
Published: October 9, 2008, 12:25 am - Indexed: October 9, 2008, 12:29 pm - Page Size: 32KB
Category: Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance

]]> Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - Discussing bailout bill, Bill Cunningham falsely claimed Barney Frank "ran a house of prostitution" http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/discussing-bailout-bill-bill-cunningham-falsely-2008107672.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/discussing-bailout-bill-bill-cunningham-falsely-2008107672.htm Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:28:33 GMT On the October 2 broadcast of his Cincinnati radio talk show, Bill Cunningham falsely claimed of Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), "[T]his guy ran a house of prostitution in Washington, D.C., for gay men. He -- 27 years he's been in the U.S. House of Representatives. He's been in charge of the committee overseeing Fannie and Freddie, and this is the guy in charge of the bailout." In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted many times, the House ethics committee -- which, at Frank's request, investigated the allegations made by Stephen Gobie that Gobie was running a prostitution ring out of Frank's house with Frank's knowledge -- determined in 1990 that Frank "did not have either prior or concomitant knowledge of prostitution activities involving third parties alleged to have taken place in his apartment." Moreover, the committee did not conclusively determine whether Gobie was even using Frank's apartment for "prostitution activities," noting in its report that purported evidence offered by Gobie that he had been engaging in prostitution from Frank's apartment collapsed under scrutiny. As Media Matters recently noted, during the September 29 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage also falsely claimed that Frank is "a man who ran a male house of prostitution in his apartment in Washington." From the October 2 broadcast of 700WLW's The Big Show with Bill Cunningham: CUNNINGHAM: You know, Brenda, your good friend Henry Paulson, the secretary of the Treasury, spent 24 years at Goldman Sachs, made $500 million, goes into government for two years, doesn't see the crisis coming, then shows up in the U.S. Capitol on behalf of your buddy, George Bush, wanting us to give him $750 billion and -- with no strings attached. CALLER: Yeah. CUNNINGHAM: What's wrong with this picture? CALLER: Well, you know what, though, Bill, the thing is, is somebody like me, an average -- just middle class -- you know, most of the stuff I have to get from -- I have to have my husband to decipher things, especially when Barney Frank talks. CUNNINGHAM: Oh. CALLER: Oh, my gosh. CUNNINGHAM: It's like Mr. Magoo. CALLER: Yeah -- I call him Gummi. CUNNINGHAM: It's unbelievable. And then this guy ran a house of prostitution in Washington, D.C., for gay men. CALLER: What's his -- CUNNINGHAM: He -- 27 years he's been in the U.S. House of Representatives. He's been in charge of the committee overseeing Fannie and Freddie, and this is the guy in charge of the bailout. CALLER: I couldn't understand a word he said hardly. Mediamatters.Org Discussing bailout bill, Bill Cunningham falsely claimed Barney Frank "ran a house of prostitution" {new window}   Mediamatters.Org - On the October 2 broadcast of his Cincinnati radio talk show, Bill Cunningham falsely claimed of Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), "[T]his guy ran a house of prostitution in Washington, D.C., for gay men. He -- 27 years he's been in the U.S. House of Representatives. He's been in charge of the committee overseeing Fannie and Freddie, and this is the guy in charge of the bailout." In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted many times, the House ethics committee -- which, at Frank's request, investigated the allegations made by Stephen Gobie that Gobie was running a prostitution ring out of Frank's house with Frank's knowledge -- determined in 1990 that Frank "did not have either prior or concomitant knowledge of prostitution activities involving third parties alleged to have taken place in his apartment." Moreover, the committee did not conclusively determine whether Gobie was even using Frank's apartment for "prostitution activities," noting in its report that purported evidence offered by Gobie that he had been engaging in prostitution from Frank's apartment collapsed under scrutiny. As Media Matters recently noted, during the September 29 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage also falsely claimed that Frank is "a man who ran a male house of prostitution in his apartment in Washington." From the October 2 broadcast of 700WLW's The Big Show with Bill Cunningham: CUNNINGHAM: You know, Brenda, your good friend Henry Paulson, the secretary of the Treasury, spent 24 years at Goldman Sachs, made $500 million, goes into government for two years, doesn't see the crisis coming, then shows up in the U.S. Capitol on behalf of your buddy, George Bush, wanting us to give him $750 billion and -- with no strings attached. CALLER: Yeah. CUNNINGHAM: What's wrong with this picture? CALLER: Well, you know what, though, Bill, the thing is, is somebody like me, an average -- just middle class -- you know, most of the stuff I have to get from -- I have to have my husband to decipher things, especially when Barney Frank talks. CUNNINGHAM: Oh. CALLER: Oh, my gosh. CUNNINGHAM: It's like Mr. Magoo. CALLER: Yeah -- I call him Gummi. CUNNINGHAM: It's unbelievable. And then this guy ran a house of prostitution in Washington, D.C., for gay men. CALLER: What's his -- CUNNINGHAM: He -- 27 years he's been in the U.S. House of Representatives. He's been in charge of the committee overseeing Fannie and Freddie, and this is the guy in charge of the bailout. CALLER: I couldn't understand a word he said hardly.
Media Matters - Discussing bailout bill, Bill Cunningham falsely claimed Barney Frank "ran a house of prostitution" {...} On his Cincinnati talk radio show, Bill Cunningham falsely claimed that Rep. Barney Frank "ran a house of prostitution in Washington, D.C., for gay men." In fact, the House Ethics Committee determined that Frank "did not have either prior or concomitant knowledge of prostitution activities involving third parties alleged to have taken place in his apartment," and it also did not conclusively determine that any "prostitution activities" took place there. {...}
Published: October 3, 2008, 10:28 pm - Indexed: October 4, 2008, 1:11 pm - Page Size: 17KB
Category: Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance

]]> Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance {NORTH AMERICA > RENTALS} - Studio cottage on the water (san rafael) $100 http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/north-america/united-states/california/metro-areas/san-francisco-bay-area/business-and-economy/real-estate/rentals/studio-cottage-on-the-water-san-rafael-100-2008105454.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/north-america/united-states/california/metro-areas/san-francisco-bay-area/business-and-economy/real-estate/rentals/studio-cottage-on-the-water-san-rafael-100-2008105454.htm Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:04:58 GMT Located between Frank lloyd Wright civic center and China Camp. Fully furnished and equipped. Private garden and deck.All utilities including internet. Everything you need for short term, or vacation. Take a ride in the canoe provided or ride a bike to china camp or the farmers market Thur and Sun, or just sit on the deck and watch the birds and the tide Sfbay.Craigslist.Org Studio cottage on the water (san rafael) $100 {new window}   Sfbay.Craigslist.Org - Located between Frank lloyd Wright civic center and China Camp. Fully furnished and equipped. Private garden and deck.All utilities including internet. Everything you need for short term, or vacation. Take a ride in the canoe provided or ride a bike to china camp or the farmers market Thur and Sun, or just sit on the deck and watch the birds and the tide
Studio cottage on the water {...}
Published: October 3, 2008, 10:04 am - Indexed: October 3, 2008, 10:53 am - Page Size: 5KB
Category: Regional > North America > United States > California > Metro Areas > San Francisco Bay Area > Business and Economy > Real Estate > Rentals

]]> Regional > North America > United States > California > Metro Areas > San Francisco Bay Area > Business and Economy > Real Estate > Rentals {EUROPE > NEWSPAPERS} - Two men charged with murder of City banker Frank McGarahan http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/europe/united-kingdom/news-and-media/newspapers/two-men-charged-with-murder-of-city-banker-frank-2008106428.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/europe/united-kingdom/news-and-media/newspapers/two-men-charged-with-murder-of-city-banker-frank-2008106428.htm Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:34:33 GMT Two men have been charged with the murder of the banker Frank McGarahan who was set upon after confronting a gang in Norwich city centre. Telegraph.Co.Uk Two men charged with murder of City banker Frank McGarahan {new window}   Www.Telegraph.Co.Uk - Two men have been charged with the murder of the banker Frank McGarahan who was set upon after confronting a gang in Norwich city centre.
Two men charged with murder of City banker Frank McGarahan - Telegraph {...}
Published: October 2, 2008, 8:34 pm - Indexed: October 3, 2008, 10:48 am - Page Size: 43KB
Category: Regional > Europe > United Kingdom > News and Media > Newspapers

]]> Regional > Europe > United Kingdom > News and Media > Newspapers {NORTH AMERICA > LODGING} - Big Sur house designed by student of Frank Lloyd Wright. (Big Sur, California) $3000 http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/north-america/united-states/california/metro-areas/san-francisco-bay-area/travel-and-tourism/lodging/big-sur-house-designed-by-student-of-frank-lloyd-2008106643.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/north-america/united-states/california/metro-areas/san-francisco-bay-area/travel-and-tourism/lodging/big-sur-house-designed-by-student-of-frank-lloyd-2008106643.htm Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:44:43 GMT www.casalauria.com Sfbay.Craigslist.Org Big Sur house designed by student of Frank Lloyd Wright. (Big Sur, California) $3000 {new window}   Sfbay.Craigslist.Org - www.casalauria.com
Big Sur house designed by student of Frank Lloyd Wright. {...}
Published: October 2, 2008, 5:44 am - Indexed: October 2, 2008, 9:57 am - Page Size: 4KB
Category: Regional > North America > United States > California > Metro Areas > San Francisco Bay Area > Travel and Tourism > Lodging

]]> Regional > North America > United States > California > Metro Areas > San Francisco Bay Area > Travel and Tourism > Lodging {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - Special Report falsely suggested Fannie and Freddie chief perpetrators of "financial mess," Rep. Frank opposed stricter oversight http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/special-report-falsely-suggested-fannie-and-freddie-2008106692.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/special-report-falsely-suggested-fannie-and-freddie-2008106692.htm Wed, 01 Oct 2008 22:48:12 GMT During the September 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report, host Brit Hume said, "Many financial analysts are saying that if mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been effectively regulated years ago, the supercharged subprime mortgage meltdown that led to the current financial mess would either never have happened or would have been nowhere near as severe." Purporting to, "examine the timeline. What were those warning signs? Who raised them? And who disputed them?" chief White House correspondent Bret Baier then falsely suggested that Rep. Barney Frank opposed stricter oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Baier aired two comments Frank made in 2003 expressing confidence in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and asserted that oversight legislation "was blocked," while omitting entirely any mention of Frank's support for a bill in 2005 and, as chair of the committee, his spearheading legislation in 2007 to strengthen oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Contrary to Hume's suggestion that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are largely responsible for the "current financial mess," economist Dean Baker recently reported that the accusation that "the financial crisis is attributable to the close government relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac" is "obviously not true." He wrote: "Fannie and Freddie got into subprime junk and helped fuel the housing bubble, but they were trailing the irrational exuberance of the private sector. They lost market share in the years 2002-2007, as the volume of private issue mortgage backed securities exploded." Indeed, in a 2006 Securities and Exchange Commission filing covering its activities in 2004, Fannie Mae stated (report available here): "We did not participate in large amounts of these non-traditional mortgages in 2004 and 2005." In the report, Fannie Mae also noted the growth of subprime lending and reported, "These trends and our decision not to participate in large amounts of these non-traditional mortgages contributed to a si