Fannie Mae And Friends: Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner begin
Reckless Endangerment with a cast of characters, in four categories. The
first is "Fannie Mae and Friends". (One of the categories, "Doubters and
Those who Pushed Back", is a list of white hats. The other two,
"Subprime Lenders and Their Enablers" and "Feckless Regulators", list
people with some responsibility for the 2008 financial breakdown. I hope
to get to all four categories, in time.),, Here's the first group, with
links to their Wikipedia articles, where they exist:,[D] James A.
Johnson,[D] Franklin Delano Raines,[D] David O. Maxwell,[D] William
Jefferson Clinton,[D] Barney Frank,[R] Robert Zoellick,[D] Thomas
Donilon,[D] Larry Summers,[D] Robert Rubin,[D] Richard Holbrooke,[D]
Leland Brendsel,[?] Timothy Howard,[D] Thomas Nides,[D] Herb Moses,[R]
R. Glenn Hubbard,[D] Peter Orszag,[D] Bruce Vento,[R] Robert Bennett,[R]
Kit Bond,[R] Stephen Friedman,[D] Maxine Waters, Though they don't say
so, Morgenson and Rosner appear to have listed them in order of
declining culpability, with James A. Johnson the most guilty for Fannie
Mae's failure, and Maxine Waters the least.,, (David O. Maxwell was the
Fannie Mae chief executive officer from 1981 to 1991, just before James
A. Johnson. Although, according to Morgenson and Rosner, he had run the
company well, he erred by picking Johnson as his successor. Leland
Brendsel was the chief executive of Freddie Mac, 1987-2003. Timothy
Howard was the chief financial officer of Fannie Mae, 1990-2005. Herb
Moses was Barney Frank's "partner" for many years. Congressman Frank
asked Fannie Mae to give Moses a job. They did, and Frank in return gave
Fannie Mae favors — at our expense.),, In front of each name, I've given
my best guess at their party affiliation, except for Timothy Howard. I
suspect he's a Democrat, but was unable to find any direct evidence in a
quick search.,, As you can see, this is a predominantly Democratic
scandal. And I think that it is fair to say that James Johnson deserves
more of the blame than all the rest put together, so it is even more a
Democratic scandal than a simple count of the D's and R's would make you
think.,, But it is a scandal that has done little damage to most of the
people on that list. (And little damage to most of the people on the
"Subprime Lenders and Their Enablers" and "Feckless Regulators"
lists.),, Most of the Democrats on that list have Obama connections.
Obama asked Johnson to be on his vice-presidential search committee, but
dropped Johnson after "it was reported that he had received loans
directly from Angelo Mozilo, the CEO of Countrywide Financial, a company
implicated in the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis". Franklin Raines has
also advised Obama, at least informally. Clinton's wife works in the
Obama administration. Thomas Donilon is currently Obama's National
Security Advisor. Larry Summers was Obama's first head of the National
Economic Council. Robert Rubin is one of Obama's part-time economic
advisors. Richard Holbrooke served in the Obama administration as a
special envoy, until his death last December. Thomas R. Nides is
currently Obama's Deputy Secretary of State for Management and
Resources. Peter Orszag was Obama's first head of the Office of
Management and Budgeting.,, Obama chose at least 2 people on that list
to be informal advisors, and named 6 of them to official positions in
his administration. (I think it likely that he would have found a place
in his administration for Johnson and Raines, if it weren't for their
legal problems.) It is almost as if helping destroy Fannie Mae and cause
the 2008 financial crisis was a resumé-enhancer for our current
administration.,, Does Obama know that these advisors and appointees are
intimately connected with the Fannie Mae disaster? I don't know — but I
would certainly like to know the answer to that question.,, (Jamie
Gorelick, mistress of disaster, is not on the list, even though she was
vice chairman of Fannie Mae, 1997-2003. In fact, she is not even listed
in the index to Reckless Endangerment.) ,- 1:38 PM, 29
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
