Congressman Barney Frank (Democrat) from Mass., says he wants some of those responsible for our current financial meltdown to be prosecuted. That is probably the only good idea he has ever had. The first one to be prosecuted should be: Representative Barney Frank (D)-Mass.
Even by the low standards of Congress, it takes some chutzpah for someone such as Frank to suggest that he will seek prosecutions for those behind the housing and financial crisis when he, more than any other person, private or public, is to blame.
It was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), that lay behind the crisis.
After regulatory changes made to the Community Reinvestment Act by President Clinton in 1995, Fannie and Freddie went into hyper-drive, channeling literally trillions of dollars into the housing markets, using leverage and implicit taxpayers' guarantees. This continued through the Clinton years with $2.4 trillion in housing aid; the largest expansion ever.
Still, from the early 1990s on, many people both inside and outside Washington were alarmed by what they saw at Fannie and Freddie.
Not Barney Frank: Starting in the early 1990s, he (and other Democrats) blocked any effort by regulators, Congress and the White House to get the runaway housing market under control.
He opposed reform as early as 1992. And, in response to another attempt to bring Fannie-Freddie to heel in 2000, Frank said it wasn't needed because there was "no federal liability there whatsoever." Either he is an idiot or a criminally negligent (probably both).
Even after federal regulators discovered in 2003 that Fannie and Freddie executives (Franklin Raines - friend of Obama) had overstated earnings by as much as $10.6 billion in order to boost bonuses, Frank was still running interference.
President Bush warned of the impending problems and introduced reforms that, if they had passed, the housing crises likely would have never boiled over taking down the economy with it. Instead, led by Frank, Democrats stood as a bloc against any changes.
Why did Frank do all this? Hard to say. Maybe it was his close ties to the Neighborhood Assistance Corp., a powerful housing activist group in Boston. Or that he received some $40,100 in campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie from 1989 to 2008. Or, being the only openly gay Congressman, it was his romance with a one-time executive at Fannie.
Whatever the case, his conflicts are obvious and outrageous, and his repeated blocking of any reform of Fannie and Freddie contributed in large part to today's meltdown. If you are looking for a culprit in the meltdown to prosecute, no one fits the bill better than Frank!
Even by the low standards of Congress, it takes some chutzpah for someone such as Frank to suggest that he will seek prosecutions for those behind the housing and financial crisis when he, more than any other person, private or public, is to blame.
It was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), that lay behind the crisis.
After regulatory changes made to the Community Reinvestment Act by President Clinton in 1995, Fannie and Freddie went into hyper-drive, channeling literally trillions of dollars into the housing markets, using leverage and implicit taxpayers' guarantees. This continued through the Clinton years with $2.4 trillion in housing aid; the largest expansion ever.
Still, from the early 1990s on, many people both inside and outside Washington were alarmed by what they saw at Fannie and Freddie.
Not Barney Frank: Starting in the early 1990s, he (and other Democrats) blocked any effort by regulators, Congress and the White House to get the runaway housing market under control.
He opposed reform as early as 1992. And, in response to another attempt to bring Fannie-Freddie to heel in 2000, Frank said it wasn't needed because there was "no federal liability there whatsoever." Either he is an idiot or a criminally negligent (probably both).
Even after federal regulators discovered in 2003 that Fannie and Freddie executives (Franklin Raines - friend of Obama) had overstated earnings by as much as $10.6 billion in order to boost bonuses, Frank was still running interference.
President Bush warned of the impending problems and introduced reforms that, if they had passed, the housing crises likely would have never boiled over taking down the economy with it. Instead, led by Frank, Democrats stood as a bloc against any changes.
Why did Frank do all this? Hard to say. Maybe it was his close ties to the Neighborhood Assistance Corp., a powerful housing activist group in Boston. Or that he received some $40,100 in campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie from 1989 to 2008. Or, being the only openly gay Congressman, it was his romance with a one-time executive at Fannie.
Whatever the case, his conflicts are obvious and outrageous, and his repeated blocking of any reform of Fannie and Freddie contributed in large part to today's meltdown. If you are looking for a culprit in the meltdown to prosecute, no one fits the bill better than Frank!
