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Financial Crisis

 

Fannie and Freddie executives hit with civil fraud charges (December 2011)

Per AP: "In a lawsuit filed in New York, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought civil fraud charges against six former executives at the two firms, including former Fannie CEO Daniel Mudd and former Freddie CEO Richard Syron." The executives concealed the extent of their subprime purchases, according to Robert Khuzami, SEC's enforcement director. Read more.

 

Kansas City Star: Hey, Occupiers! What about protesting Fannie and Freddie? (October 2011)
E. Thomas McClanahan notes that the Chief Investment Officer of JP Morgan Private Bank recently revised his 2009 account of what caused the financial crisis. He wrote: “US Agencies played a larger role in the housing crisis than we first reported. In January 2009, I wrote that the housing crisis was mostly a consequence of the private sector … However, over the last 2 years, analysts have dissected the housing crisis in greater detail. What emerges … is something quite different: government agencies now look to have guaranteed, originated or underwritten 60% of all ‘non-traditional’ mortgages, which total $4.6 trillion in June 2008. What’s more, this research asserts that housing policies instituted in the early 1990s were explicitly designed to require US Agencies to make much riskier loans, with the ultimate goal of pushing private sector banks to adopt the same standards.” Read more.

 

Christian Science Monitor: Not true that no one went to jail for lending illegalities (October 11, 2011)

Actually, there were a couple. But, in most cases illegality was not shown. "While the distinction between hubris/stupidity and illegality may not satisfy many, it’s a key component to the financial crisis." Read More

Health Insurance:

A proposal by Jon Hall,  March 26, 2007

[O]ver recent decades, the way we think about insurance has changed dramatically; we now think insurance should be for just about everything, even inevitabilities. We now have a separate category of insurance for what all insurance used to be for—catastrophic insurance. Inasmuch as the insurance industry has tried to accommodate the new thinking, we see more and more things covered by insurance. So, more and more folks are filing claims for an ever-widening array of things, which drives up the price of premiums. Nowhere is this trend seen more than in health insurance....

If America wants to preserve the private health insurance business, ALL private health insurance policies should be “catastrophic insurance.” Period. Just as in the days of old. This would mean we’d all be paying more out-of-pocket. And if America is ever going to get back to being a nation of adults, that’s your prescription.   Read more>>

 

Voter fraud

 

Jon Hall, a visitor to our Web site, maintains:

"The biggest problem in cleaning up our elections is the issue of voter registries .... Throughout America, people with the flimsiest kinds of ID are put on voter registries, allowing ineligible voters to determine our elected officials and the fate of the nation."

He has proposed a plan to improve the voter registration process by using:

"already-existing federal databases to extract data for the creation of a new file, the National Voter registry."

To read the Jon Hall plan, click here>>.  To visit his blog click here.

 

Welfare Reform: the huge success that is largely unreported

Since its enactment in 1996, welfare dependence has declined by more than 50% nationwide, reducing the current level of welfare recipients to the lowest since 1965.  Meanwhile, about 2 million children have been lifted out of poverty!  A summary of the successes, and the unfinished work to do, was released on 8/20/04 by the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources.  (Click here>>)

 

It’s Time to Create a National Identity Safeguard System 

The recently-enacted Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act calls for free annual credit reports, controls over credit card numbers, and creation of a “fraud alert” system to be used when identity theft is suspected.  Unfortunately, these positive steps will barely put a dent in the burgeoning identity theft epidemic.   Read more>>

 

Campaign finance reform:  One of the biggest jokes in years!

Remember all of the hoopla about campaign finance reform, and how it would reduce money in politics?

Well, the groups who pushed hardest for reform are now killing that reform with new "shadow" entities called 527 organizations.  A good overview of the problem is presented by Philip Gailey of the St. Petersburg Times (Click here>>).  Note:  since his article appeared, the FEC has rejected proposals that would have tightened control over the 527 organizations (posted 7/18/04).

 

 

 

 

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Date last modified December 2011