The Financial Crisis & Who Caused It

Well folks it took me a long time to find out about this because the real cause of this started years ago but in 2005 there were 4 Senators in Washington who saw it coming and tried to get legislation in place to prevent it but the legislation never saw the light of day because it was apparently killed in the Banking Committee. I pulled up the legislation to see what it said and I also pulled out some testimony from a Senator who literally outlined exactly what has happened today but said it in 2005. Coincidentally he is also one of the people running for President this year and his name is John McCain. This bill was actually sponsored by Chuck Hagel (R) and cosponsored by Elizabeth Dole (R), John McCain (R), and John Sununu (R). The name of this bill was the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S . 190. Now to be fair there was also a bill the Senator Barack Obama did cosponsor and it was named the Development Bank Reform and Authorization Act of 2005 S.1129. Here is a short description of that bill and a link to the actual bill in case you want to take a closer look at it. This bill had nothing to do with the Federal Housing issue but instead dealt with the World Bank which tells us a lot about where the priorities of Senator Obama and his colleagues were.

S . 1129
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Development Bank Reform and Authorization Act of 2005''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) The United States has strong national security and humanitarian interests in alleviating poverty and promoting development around the world.
(2) The World Bank, the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Inter-American Development Bank leverage the resources that the United States and other donors can devote to such goals.
(3) Contributions from the United States and other donors to the multilateral development banks must be well managed so that the mission of such banks is fully realized and not undermined by corruption. Bribes can influence important bank decisions on projects and contractors and misuse of funds can inflate project costs, cause projects to fail, and undermine development effectiveness. (4) Officials of the World Bank have identified corruption as the single greatest obstacle to economic and social development. Corruption undermines development by distorting the rule of law and weakening the institutional foundation on which economic growth depends.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:2:./temp/~c109gjuwHR:b74417:

Here is the bill and statement in which Senator McCain supported, apparently it was killed in committee because there are no recorded votes on it.

FEDERAL HOUSING ENTERPRISE REGULATORY REFORM ACT OF 2005 -- (Senate - May 25, 2006)[Page: S5217] GPO's PDF
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Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae's regulator reported that the company's quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were ``illusions deliberately and systematically created'' by the company's senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae's former chief executive officer, OFHEO's report shows that over half of Mr. Raines' compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.
The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator's examination of the company's accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.
For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs--and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO's report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO's report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.
I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S . 190 , to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.

The two top reciepients of money from Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac are Christopher Dodd the chairman of the Banking Committee and Barack Obama. John McCain also recieved a token amount from them but not near the amount the others took.

Also note that the then CEO of Fannie Mae is now the chief economic advisor for the Obama campaign. You will have to decide for yourself whether this is relevant or not.

It looks like the hatred the Dems have for the Repubs has just cost you a ton of money and probably a lot of you your homes and jobs. This is just one more illustration of how important it is for us to take our right to vote seriously and get our heads out of our collective posterior anal cavities and PAY ATTENTION! You wanna know who is at fault? Well then go look in the mirror because we are the ones who didn’t pay attention and elected these guys to high office so they could steal our money and our lives. If you look at the 4 folks who have their names on this bill you will see John McCain and a bunch of Republicans but I don’t think you will find a Democrat within 50 miles of this bill because they need you to be dependent on them for survival. Below you will find links to the actual bill, the Banking Committee that was in place during that Congress and a link to the responsibilities of that committee. I have also provided a link to the actual votes taken during that congress and there is no mention of this bill ever coming up for any kind of a vote. Yo will have to decide whether John McCain or Barack Obama are really looking out for you or are just saying what they think you want to hear so you will vote for them.

Here is a link to the actual bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.190:

This link is to the Congressional votes for that period: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_109_2.htm

Here is a link to the Banking Committee: These were the guys on the banking committee: http://banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Information.Membership Note that Chuck Hagel was on that committee and saw the impending disaster and subsequently saught assistance in drafting a bill to try and prevent it.

Here is a link to what the Banking Committee is responsible for: http://banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Information.Jurisdiction


You Democrats out there that vote straight party line have no one to blame but yourself because you are to busy to do your own thinking so you let these political hacks do it for you. You Republicans that let your anger at the Republican party so you sat the election out have no one but yourself to blame because you let the Democrats take over the House and Senate, you cut off your nose to spite your face. You Independents don't get off either because you either did the same as the Republicans or you cast your vote for a third party csandidate and called it a protest vote. Well now we all have to pay a sever price because we and no one else set up the scenario where this could happen. You folks that are losing your homes, you don't get off either because you knew when you signed that cantract that there was no way you could pay for a 200K dollar home when you were only making 25K or 30K a year and the payments were like 1500 or 2K dollars a month and your car payment was like $500.00 a month and that was before you figured in food, gas, insurance, etc. but you had a government guarantee so you figured they would step in and pay off your house and you would still have it. Well, welcome to the real world because that isn't how it works. If you don't make the payments then you lose it.

The greedy folks in those government agencies were at fault, the politicians in Congress were at fault for not doing their jobs because most of them were on the take, we the voters were at fault for putting these crooks in office, and those of us who signed contracts for houses we knew we couldn't afford were at fault so there is more than enough blame to go around. Maybe next time we will try to live in the real world instead of the fantasy one the politicians want us to live in.

If we weren't so caught up in the political hatred of this country we might have been able to avoid this. Maybe it is time to think for ourselves instead of letting others do it for us. When you become homeless because you were to bored to pay attention you won't be bored any longer.

Here are the links to a report on this issue, I hope it helps clear the air a bit. However, you will need to put your political bias aside in order to understand the report because the Democrats in Washington and Barack Obama are right in the middle of this. For those of you who prefer to justify anything the Democrats do and demonize anything the Republicans do you will simply ignore the report as if it was done by a political organization instead of some of the most trusted economic minds in our country. However, you will really have to be a dedicated Democrat and be drinking a lot of the Obama cool aide to refute the verifiable historical evidence contained in this report.

Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0g0mtZyZB4
Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqw9UzUtxbg
Part Three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qVuG7-fsWM
Part Four: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Part Five: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Part Six: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2nHqJZazucPart