Tim
Howard’s Book Out Early;
Read
it Now, Get it for a Friend
I’ve been in San Diego the past few days for family
pleasant matters and just learned upon getting home this afternoon that “The
Mortgage Wars,” ex-Fannie CFO Tim Howard’s book, has been issued about
three weeks early and is available for sale on Amazon and, I assume, elsewhere.
That’s fabulous because folks reading my blog know I believe
it will add immeasurably to the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac discussions
currently going on and be quiet revealing to those with short memories but with
mortgage policy responsibilities.
It’s the first book exclusively by a Fannie insider, who discusses
in detail the “war” between Fannie and Freddie and the large commercial banks
and other Fannie business opponents, who were joined by Bush Administration regulators,
staff, and other ideological soul mates.
Of course many on Capitol Hill and elsewhere right now
are up to their eyeballs in these matters and may not read the book, because Howard can’t reduce the
2004 catastrophe to one or two pages. (These are the same people who will
insist that Fannie and Freddie caused the 2008 financial meltdown and ignore
the $2 Trillion in worthless private label mortgage securities sold by the big banks
and Wall Street throughout the world.)
But those with an appetite to read some recent history
will gain a share of the outrage and disappointment that incompetents and
biased regulators can wreak, not just on innocent individuals like Tim Howard, Frank
Raines, and Leanne Spencer—Fannie official forced from office by slanderous
allegation of securities fraud—later quashed by a federal judge, but also the
systemic damage the same charges produced when successor Fannie officials
succumbed to the Wall Street subprime siren calls.
After you get and read your copy of “The Mortgage Wars,” feel
free to use this blog’s comment section to share your opinions. Or, you can
communicate with Tim through publisher McGraw
Hill.
Don’t pull any punches, if you think Tim’s wrong (and me
along with him), tell us!
But, if Howard (and to a far lesser extent this blogger)
have nailed it, tell that to others, too, after telling us!
Maloni,
11-12-2013
6 comments:
Pre-ordered Mortgage Wars. Thank you very much for writing this blog Mr. Maloni
Have preordered Mortgage Wars, will be delivered this week.
Waiting for the dialogue to begin on your website.
How could we get members of congress to read it?
Howard needs to throw some "bombs" on TV programs (publishers should arrange this) so that the book will not be ignored.
I pass along your advice to Mr. Howard, who very much is not a bomb thrower, which adds to his credibility and the book's.
But, quien sabe, maybe he will change??
If I were Tim, I would be more than slightly annoyed at my treatment by the press, Lockhart, and AEI, to mention just a few. If he just repeats the info in the book that you have disclosed, it would be treated by the press as a "bomb".
Remember, most journalists today have little or no historical or institutional memory.
I did a Fannie/Freddie issues conference call today for a new DC group called the "Capital Forum"--leading off with why some of us have been so outraged by the Bush Admin's Fannie "drive by shooting"-- describing the OFHEO charges of "securities fraud," owing to Fannie's implementation of the then then new (2004) derivatives accounting rule.
OFHEO and later the SEC said that Fannie (Tim and Frank Raines, as well as Comptroller Leanne Spencer) intentionally violated the rule to boost their own bonuses, blah, blah, blah.
At the time, the SEC's chief accounting said if the FASB rule were a sheet of paper, Fannie "wasn't on the page."
Three years later--and five years before a federal judge quashed those charges--the nation's auditing firms adopted the Howard methodology as the industry standard and the primary way for financial services companies to implement the FASB requirement.
Lastly, I told the people on the call that Fannie and Freddie earnings and Howard's book have made me more optimistic than I have been in a long time about the
policy makers (read Congress and media) learning the truth and what that mean to efforts to uproot the nation's mortgage finance system and turn it over the major banks, which both Corker-Warner and Hensarling would do.
IMO, for the mortgage system to work for all users, it requires some entity with "skin in the game" to act as Governor and cop.
Just finished reading "The Mortgage Wars." Wow, or maybe wwooww, or WOW! When is the movie coming out? I think it would be better than the first "Wall Street" movie, "Barbarians at the Gate" or "The Firm". Thank you Tim Howard for recapping blow by blow the events many of us could scratch our heads and wonder what really happened. Congratulations for surviving all the accusations.
As another possible solution to the mortgage wars, what is wrong with Fannie/Freddie taking the interest rate risk and letting the loan originators take the credit risk? Looks like it is working well now. If bank originates bad mortages then f/f throw the bad stuff back to the originator and collect a check.
Saw your name in the book Bill Maloni. I had been reading your blog a few years ago and forgot about it. Keep up the good work.
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