Heartless/Clueless HUD Secretary
The Cabinet Secretary--with the wife who strongly believes
her husband needed a new $41,000 dinette set for his office—just came out with
the Trump Administration’s stringent scheme to save HUD money and demanding low income and poor Americans to pay more for their federal shelter benefits
and food stamps they receive.
The very intelligent, but poorly cast as a “houser,” Dr. Ben
Carson—former brain surgeon, now head of the nation’s Housing and Urban Development
agency---thinks both raising rents and forcing recipients to work to get their rental
assistance will improve the lot of the poor, elderly, and mainly Black and
Brown residents—by leaving more money in the Treasury’s General Fund for other
Trump priorities (like dinette sets?).
Or, as some have observed…
While the President keeps talking about the
common man and woman, most of his economic policies, such as his tax overhaul or financial deregulation, have aimed to provide relief
to corporations, investors, and families in the upper income brackets. But it
is key to understand that his legislative actions are happening simultaneously
with his continued rhetoric -- attacks on immigrants, civil rights, gender
equality, and anyone who dares to stand up for the ideas that he likes to
deride as "political correctness" -- that secured the support of his
base to begin with.”
Julian Zelizer, history and public affairs professor at
Princeton University
Again, I am struck by this Administration which has given so much to the wealthy and well off but would pay for it by squeezing pennies
from the less fortunate.
Way back in the GSE Dark Ages, when the GSEs (including me for Fannie) and others
worked on the 1992 Housing Act and created a new independent regulator for Fannie
and Freddie in the statutorily created Office of Federal Housing Enterprises
Oversight (OFHEO), we gave HUD authority over the GSE housing mission, since we—and
the (senior) Bush Administration at the time-- assumed that most HUD
secretaries would be advocates for the low and moderate income Americans and
support homeownership and enhanced rental opportunities.
That’s not the way it is today, unfortunately, but fortunately Secretary Carson
has no real GSE role and nobody really listens to him, anyway, except for maybe dinette
salespeople.
Hits from the past…..
The
always excellent GSE legal reporting done by Peter Chapman noted this week the
federal government (“yawn, yawn, what else is new?”) has asked for an extension
in the Jacobs-Hindes case in Delaware. When the case first was filed, many of
us hoped, wrongly, for a slam dunk, given the state laws violated and the fact
that the plaintiffs were represented by Myron Steele, a former Delaware state
Supreme Court judge.
But,
alas, no “soup for us”…yet.
As
we wait, a true value for us all is the J-H “amicus brief” (friend of the
court) which Tim Howard submitted two years ago in connection with the case.
I
read Tim’s amicus brief again, just recently, and I encourage all of you to
avail yourself of it because Tim Howard wrote the most clear headed, easy to
understand, non-foggy description of who did what to the GSEs and when, which
should propel an unbiased Judge to rule for plaintiffs against the US
government.
Remember,
Tim’s entire life was forced into this matter when federal regulators in 2004, unjustly, put him (and former Fannie
CEO, Frank Raines and Fannie Treasurer LeAnne Garmon Spencer) under a huge
hostile black cloud, falsely suggesting they engaged in securities fraud.
Eight years
later,
in 2012, federal judge Richard Leon rejected the bogus allegations, formally scrubbing away this
heinous lie.
As
many know Tim then wrote a book and continued his work explaining the workings
of the GSEs, their political and industry opposition, and collaborating with
those who seek support the Fannie/Freddie mortgage model.
When
the many lawsuits emerged in the wake of Treasury’s hostile takeover and
subsequent “net worth sweep,” Howard authored AB’s in conjunction with the Perry
Capital suit and later the Jacobs-Hindes case in Delaware.
His
amicus is a must-read for GSE newbies and a “re-read and read again” for those
of us who need reminded of the many ghouls and financial berserkers (the banking
interests and their congressional friends) who long have agitated against and
seek to scuttle Fannie and Freddie.
Tim’s discussion is fabulous, educational, spiriting, and a
reminder to all GSE fans just who did what to whom and how, to create the current
unhappy GSE moment in which we find ourselves.
Just keep hoping the government is greedy for a fresh $100
Billion plus it could realize if the WH seeks to utilize its 79% plus ownership
of the GSEs and monetizes its warrants.
But Treasury Secretary Mnuchin now claims 2019 or even 2021
could be the best time to bring back a re-privatized Fannie and Freddie,
administratively, albeit with more housing finance limitations.
Although that could be just in time for new Democrat
congressional majorities to truly revive them.
(Help yourself, twice, and read Tim's newest blog post discussing low and moderate income housing needs, goals and history and how best to address them going forward. Once again, you see the ugly hands of the nation's large commercial banks trying to twist those needs to benefit themselves not the people and communities they need to serve.)
(Help yourself, twice, and read Tim's newest blog post discussing low and moderate income housing needs, goals and history and how best to address them going forward. Once again, you see the ugly hands of the nation's large commercial banks trying to twist those needs to benefit themselves not the people and communities they need to serve.)
New GSE Reform Legislation????
Fuggedabotit!
Sen.
Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex)—Senate and House Banking
Committee chairs, respectively--can talk all they want about new GSE bills to
upset the mortgage market and reshape it to their liking but it ain’t
happening, beyond mere introduction of same and some possible hearings as this
election year quickly unfolds.
Financial shrimp on the Barbie,
mates??
It
has nothing to do with national borders, a little something to do with national
banking regulation, and everything to do with a bankers’ DNA.
The
latest tales of large bank perfidy from Australia show it’s the nature of banks
to try and cheat, steal, and screw their bank clients until someone stops them.
Please
remember, when you go to the polls in the nation’s primaries and the November
general election, the GOP and the Bush White House has been chomping at the bit
to restrain or do away with remnants of the Dodd-Frank financial services
legislation and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (much as they have been
trying to gut the GSEs).
The
bank behavior provides all the justification ones needs for an active and
aggressive CFPB, which is why the banks and their R congressional protectors
abhor it!
GSE Earnings
As
I predicted two blogs ago, the GSEs had super 1Q 2018 earnings, with Freddie
generating $2.9 Billion and Fannie adding a whopping $4.6 Billion to Uncle Sam’s
General Fund.
The
naysayers can keep chanting “failed business model" and "GSEs swirling down the
drain,” as the GSEs walk to the bank, because Mike Stegman, Jim Parrot, David
Stevens and the Mortgage Bankers Association used those barbs to do their best to
screw Fannie and Freddie and are still are trying.
Ain’t
happening this year, dudes, as the GSEs payments to Treasury for the $187.5 Billion their boards were forced to accept in 2008 now has been returned with about $280
Billion in excess of that $187, since as we know those Bush and later Obama guys fixed the deal so only the GSEs
would not be able to pay off their federal financial support debt but be in
perpetual financial servitude.
Rudy Said What? Daniels and Her
Lawyer Applaud
Let’s
see Sarah “Biscuit” Sanders spin Rudy Giuliani’s statement to Fox and Hannity
that President Trump repaid Michael Cohen for something about which,
previously, the POTUS declared he knew nothing, i.e. a $130,000 hush money payment
to adult film/porn star Stormy Daniels so she wouldn’t go public that she had
an extra-marital affair with President Trump, shortly after Melania got
pregnant with Barron Trump.
Yay
Rudy!!!
Did Michael Cohen attend “the worst law school in the nation?”
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/05/04/trump-michael-cohen-lawyer-cooley-law-school-218318
Maloni, 5-6-2018
