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
