Congress goes home to campaign

Congress Goes Home, Here’s Your Chance

(Yay Judge Margaret Sweeney; need a few more from you!)

You folks at home, lock your doors and windows, keep the children within arm’s length, and your cats and dogs in. Check your alarm systems and don’t put any fresh baked pies on the window sills. Arm yourselves.

Congress has departed DC, until after the November 8 election, and its denizens are headed home to seek your votes, having done nothing in the past two years except fight and, like chimpanzees, show their asses to one another and the world.

Most of them should be embarrassed to come back and ask your electoral help because they did so little to earn it, save harass President Obama who turned to aggressive executive action because he couldn’t get the GOP to respond or cooperate. Yes, that’s my take and I think it’s easily provable.

But, beyond that. With so many of your elected officials home and pandering, go meet them and exercise your right to tell them what you think and what you want.

They actually do want to hear from you, so give them an earful. I repeat, this is your opportunity to engage them one on one. If they are facing you, they’ll try but they can’t get by with a glib non-answer or a “keep your views in mind” letter describing events about which you didn’t ask.

You might surprise yourself about how effective an advocate you can be.

Sure, talk about the GSEs, as I lay out below this segment, but don’t stop there.

They’re going to have to work with a new President/Administration in four months and you need to tell them what you expect, depending upon who wins on Nov. 8, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, barring something dramatically unforeseen, although in this year, anything could happen.

Do you want higher taxes on the wealthy or lower; do you want a more aggressive US military/diplomatic response in the Middle East, with North Korea, and Russia, let them know.

Are you PO’d with likely Russian hacking of US political and other institutions, possibly with an eye toward corrupting our election results, tell them.

More trade deals or fewer?

Do you want more infrastructure spending, more or less environmental controls; more open borders for Middle Eastern and other immigrants or tighter rules?

They need to hear from you. It’s your chance and don’t waste it.

But make sure that you and all of your family and friends are registered to vote for whatever political party you like and then make sure you do vote.

Don’t sit it out or throw your support to one of the fringe parties. IMO, both are hollow gestures.

Maloni to Congress: Connect the Dots

It certainly was a deserving dish served/thrown red hot in the face of Jack Stumpf, the Wells Fargo CEO who took his lame, “It’s my fault and the buck stops here” to non-accepting Senators and House Members twice in the past two weeks.

Stumpf’s bank was guilty of starting thousands of phony accounts for clients/customers who never requested them, paying bounties to Wells employees who did the evil deeds.

Although Stumpf felt the predictable wrath of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), he also got stung by House Members, D’s and R’s, since he was an easy target owing to the bank’s transgressions and ripe for the beat down they delivered.

But, don’t be fooled or lulled into thinking the big banks are going to get spanked permanently. They will get shouted at--and Stumpf could lose his job and already has lost money--but few sanctions are coming because the GOP likes the big banks, as we have come to learn.

GSE supporters need to capture this moment and press the argument, “The banks are prone to break rules; it’s part of their DNA” with their representatives since pols of all stripes, for a variety of their own selfish reasons, want to grandstand and pretend they have it in for the big financial institutions.

 “Hey Senator/Congressman, do you realize these larcenous, anti-consumer behemoth banks you just excoriated are the same institutions you are setting up to inherent the nation’s primary and secondary mortgage markets when/if you support disassembling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?”

“Duh, Huh?”

I don’t think most of these Senators and Congress people connect those dots and see the big bank larceny (and it’s not just Wells, although it’s the most recent institutional miscreant) and it's potential to foul up even more.

If any of these Senators or Congressmen intellectually or politically see that link, they aren’t talking about it.

They don't seem to understand, if the GOP has its way, it’s the same banks they're now hectoring which will get control, with a ribbon tied round it, of the nation's mortgage finance system (with added federal subsidies), 

So voters/constituents make them see the point!

All House Members are up for reelection in November and all will home campaigning.

If you believe in keeping the GSEs operational and helping families finance their homeownership dreams, meet and educate them.

Raise the GSE issue and lead them through the simple thought sequence which starts with, “The GSEs operationally act as a governor on big bank mortgage behavior. Act/vote to remove Fannie and Freddie for whatever reasons, and nobody—including their federal regulators—will be able to stop banks form returning to their corner cutting, process undermining ways. It’s in their bank culture to try and cheat.”

For House R’s remind them the disdain, during the Wells hearing, Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) had for the federal regulators. They didn’t stop Wells execs or employees from creating these unwanted checking/savings/credit card accounts and they can’t/won’t stop abusive mortgage lending from similar institutions, if the banks go there, again.

Don’t forget, more than a third of the Senate will be running next month, too, so don’t spare your Senators from the same message.

GSEs are not top of any congressional mind, but chances are your GSE/bank concerns can be elevated to that position if you bring it up and remind them they are connected and the Congress might get a chance to vote on some of these matters.

Soon we’ll hear about some disposition between the Justice Department‘s engagement with Deutsche Bank, not headquartered in the US, but which does major business in our country.

Justice has sought nearly a $15 Billion fine for DB’s mortgage backed securities misdeeds. The bank wants to negotiate and pay less and we’ll know that amount soon enough. But it will be in your back home newspapers and media and make sure your federal elected officials know you’re informed about that, too.

“Call/write to your Congressman and Senator” is a mantra many of us use to encourage civic/political activism, but this time, they will be close, roaming around your neighborhoods and at local meetings pitching you on helping them.

For the next four or more weeks, those not hiding and avoiding their constituents, will be easily reachable. Turn the process around and ask them for whatever federal policy you and your family want and feel you need and deserve.

Worth noting: The Washington Post on Saturday, 10-1, reported that Donald Trump’s businesses owe millions of dollars to that same Deutsche Bank, putting this man who would be our President in a lousy position if federal agencies have to move against one of his personal lenders. (As if you needed another reason to not vote for the Donald, since when you get this blog, you’ll have read about his latest tax "issue.")

New York Clergy Speak Out for GSEs

Church leaders pushed back this week on those who would violate the GSEs?

Thirty eight minority church leaders, who support the continued operation of Fannie and Freddie, wrote to Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), a member of the SBC, both making the GSE case and nailing the large commercial banks for ignoring their neighborhoods, trying to destabilize or destroy the GSEs, seeking just to acquire F&F’s annual revenues.

Schumer (D-NY) is set to be the Senate Majority Leader if the Democrats win 51 seats or will be the Minority Leader if they don’t. The letter was copied to all the New York delegation serving on the House Banking Committee and FHFA Director Mel Watt, as well as others.

In establishing the importance of full GSE service to low and moderate income families, especially minorities, and the corresponding lack of big bank interest in serving those communities, the clergymen wrote:

Since their inception, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have acted to ensure that banks and other lenders would be able to extend mortgage credit in good times and in bad times. Their important service to our economy, from 1938 to the present, has helped lift millions of families out of economic bondage and, by supporting homeownership, provided those families with a chance to join the middle-class, increase their self-sufficiency, and improve the social and educational outcomes of their children and communities. However, as our communities of color seek to pursue those same goals today, Washington is inexplicably curtailing and threatening to eliminate the business functions performed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Conversely, the biggest banks have consistently displayed a disinterest in lending to us, and the likely effects of their feverish support for “GSE reform” should be as transparent to you as it is to us: more gentrification in our neighborhoods, more rental properties across our communities, less homeownership opportunities for our parishioners. The efforts of these big banks to mint another dollar by controlling the housing finance market will result in an increase of systemic risk, come at the expense of homeownership, reinforce the economic disparities plaguing our communities, and shut the door on our economic self-sufficiency.

Yay, Clergymen.

Their entire excellent letter can be found on GSE Links, thanks to site host “Whiteghost.”

Let’s see how the anti-GSE crowd handles this latest positive campaign, since, already, they are on the defensive owing to the majority of their GSE systemic alternatives will just make the big banks even stronger and groups like the Community Mortgage Lenders of America highlighting those uncomfortable facts.

Maybe this church leader communication could be a trend where housing-enlightened clergymen in other communities—large and small--get together and send similar letters to Congress, especially since certain Washington policy makers have trouble connecting the big bank opposition and GSE dots.

Maloni, 10-2-2016