Lobbyists from the companies are said to have strongly influenced the 1992 legislation, particularly in the House Banking Committee, whose chairman then was Rep. Henry Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat. Critics of the companies say that Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), the current chairman of the committee, also helped put forth the companies' arguments.
Mr. Frank now is widely regarded as a strong voice for tougher regulation. "I've been a supporter of their role in housing, but I've been pushing for some time to improve the regulation," he said in a telephone interview on Monday. As for the legislation in the early 1990s, he said he doesn't recall being involved in weakening it.
Sorry, man, was at work all day....no access to a computer. FTR, I did nothing today. "Thought" about going short C at open, but was worried that Scholar Ben and Paulson would lie about the "strength of the US economy and the US banking system" and didn't need the aggravation.
Hope you did well....whatever you did.
Long cash.......short nothing........just "day-trading" here and there. Too stressful to go overnight with anything---long or short. Need inside info to have anything overnight.
Cheers
Cliches
Jim Rogers, the famed commodities investor who has repeatedly said he is short all financial stocks, thinks government-backed mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should shut their doors.
The Federal Reserve on Sunday — hours ahead of the Asian trading open — said it would back the mortgage giants, which between them hold or finance half of all U.S. home loans.
"These companies were going to go bankrupt if they hadn't stepped in to do something, and they should go bankrupt,'' Rogers told Bloomberg News.
The banks are "basically insolvent" and should be allowed to fail, Rogers said.
That's not likely to happen.
The Fed gave its New York arm the authority to lend to the banks at 2.25 percent, the rate Wall Street gets, if need be. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the government would expand credit and even invest in the companies if necessary.
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play a central role in our housing finance system and must continue to do so in their current form as shareholder-owned companies," Paulson told reporters Sunday.
"Their support for the housing market is particularly important as we work through the current housing correction."
Rogers says taxpayers will have to come up with the money to save Fannie and Freddie, which hold or finance half of the $12 trillion U.S. mortgage market.
This comes on top of $400 billion already spent to rescue private investment bank Bear Stearns, Rogers warned earlier this month.
"If the system is so fragile that the collapse of the fifth-largest investment bank in America could bring the whole thing down, what’s going to happen in a few years when the No. 2 or No. 1 banks go bad?" Rogers asked.
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