This President lies about CVD-19 available test supplies, the ease of getting a test, and a lot more. Why should you trust him?

This blog was drafted but not distributed before the President's disastrous speech last night!

 GSE and Other Things I Think About

Skeptics/Skepticism.

In addition to NAFL, “not being a “%$#@^& lawyer,” I’ve always given credence to stories about UFOs, Bigfoot, and Nessie (if for no other reason than the thousands of sightings all of which can't be imagined or phony).

That’s why I  believe stories about insufficient CVD-19 tests, medical shortages, and current bureaucratic responses to immediate and emergency situations (misplaced allocation of resources). 
Proving I am an equal opportunity doubter, I also believe that some folks, actively, are manipulating GSE and other company stock prices. It’s a variation of buy-low and sell-high. But they better be certain that which they artificially knockdown can come back. 

Whether it’s a major investor--who holds stock they expect to go higher after a near term drop or some nefarious “other”--this feeling is haunting this observer of more than 20 years of anti-GSE shenanigans, twists and turns. Coronavirus scares and POTUS’s good friends—Vlad Putin and the Saudi royal family—clashing and crushing oil prices should not have this impact on Fannie and Freddie stock prices. (BTW. let’s hope the untrustworthy Saudis cripple Vlad’s oil-based economy, since there is nothing good for the US inside Russia or among the country’s leadership, which still screws its citizens).
I also suspect that there is great joy at 400 7^th, St, SW, Washington, the address of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Mark Calabria, the GSEs’ safety and soundness Director and Conservatorship maven, where no good words get spoken.

That’s because anything which makes the GSEs look bad or weaker enhances MC’s megalomania that only he and his little DC posse of incompetents can salvage the secondary mortgage market for the nation.

I am certain—given the level of mortgage finance unsophistication in Washington-- the regular forces who seek to cast the GSEs in the worst possible light and perpetuate disdain—will spin the falling stock prices causing more “bad GSE business model” talk and speculation.

Of course, those same elements will ignore or dismiss for cause the avalanche of future Fannie and Freddie refi business that will hit GSE books for the rest of this year (longer?), owing to the Fed’s recent rate cut, to which the central bank could match in a few more weeks when it meets again. 

Early 2020 F&F business volumes will juice GSE revenue for the next few quarters, as refinancings flood the secondary mortgage market.

That failure to see the trees for the forest certainty includes the “Calabria Posse” using softening stock prices to argue publicly “this” is why FHFA/Calabria need to keep the GSEs right where they are, i.e. under tight administrative control and needing bank-like capital levels.

Of course, I am not sure this logic applies to every business and every industry suffering from massive stock market dislocation. Without doubt, the POTUS will seek to pump cash this election year into many of those suffering commercial interests. But an end to Conservatorship won’t be on that White House list, since the Fed's actions already has assured 2020 GSE business revenues.

Poor Fed Chairman Powell is regularly abused by our President because DJT not only doesn’t understand monetary policy, but U.S. history,  or the CVD-19. (Remember he assured the nation CVD-19 will disappear once warm weather is on us).

The Congress (likely the House) should be slow to aid and abet DJT’s non-medical/healthcare election-year spending bailouts for the oil industry, airlines, cruise ship companies, various insurance industry sectors, and other business groups which have gotten fat the last 18 months on DJT tax expenditures and need little help.

I hope the nation is seeing first hand that Trump’s insouciance, immense vanity, across the board ignorance, failure to attend to detail which doesn’t involve himself, and naming hacks to key government posts, reflects why our nation is so woefully unprepared to protect its citizens.

(Did everyone hear those gathered sycophants shower Trump with hollow praise. when the VP’s Task Force spoke to the nation this past week, after Trump left the podium—uttering a few “excellents” and “well dones,” plus a “greatest” or two (his go-to adjectives for anything he thinks makes him look good).

For six weeks, the President has been downplaying and pooh-poohing CVD-19 and labeling it a “Chinese” or a “foreign” virus.
I want to shout, "Way to go, Brownie."

For the good of our nation and its future, Donald John Trump needs to be voted out after November’s election.

Back to my GSE legal guesswork

The Supreme Court had its first taste of GSE matters, in a one-off manner, when it heard matters in the “Selia” case which challenges the structural constitutionality of the Consumer Finance Protection Board (CFPB).

Readers of this screed know the structural similarity between CFPB and FHFA and hope a Selia win for plaintiffs will set precedent for a similar decision for those challenging the FHFA unique leadership and GSE policies.

Here’s another instance where I hope I am wrong and that “NAFL” means I’ve missed—badly—my inclination.

But, it is Fannie and Freddie and their curse. It also is possible, a decision which could place the federal government in a position of shelling out $100 Billion plus to some GSE fans/plaintiffs.

I say the SCOTUS balks and middles the matters, finding for the government or issues a hybrid decision, which allows Treasury to skate and both agencies fixed by a simple statutory adjustment, subjecting both the head of CFPB and FHFA executives to easier be presidential dismissal.

IMO, the SCOTUS is aware how much red ink is flowing out of Treasury these days and won’t dent Uncle Sam for another $100 Billion (plus?) financial sanction, especially with more Trump deficit spending pending, owing to managing he CVD-19 epidemic.

I hope the nation is seeing first hand that Trump’s insouciance, immense vanity, across the board ignorance, failure to attend to detail which doesn’t involve himself, and naming hacks to key government posts, reflects why our nation is so woefully unprepared to protect its citizens.

For six weeks, the President has been downplaying and pooh-poohing CVD-19 and labeling it a “Chinese” or a “foreign” virus, with his best xenophobia.

For the good of our nation and its future, Donald John Trump needs to go, voted out of after November’s election.

Maloni

3-12-2020