Word: macs
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...Political influence is by no means a new story at the housing agencies, but nonetheless one that is currently having a material influence on the people tasked with steering them back to financial health. When Freddie Mac's CEO resigned in March, press reports pegged part of the cause to his frustration over how all major decisions had to be run past regulators and how those decisions were often dictated by policy goals and not what was best for the company. Freddie Mac executives have estimated that this year it will cost the firm $30 billion to carry...
...bonuses when their organizations lost more than $100 billion in a year," Senator Charles Grassley said in a statement. Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services committee, wrote to Lockhart: "I am writing to urge strongly that you rescind the retention bonus programs at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...
...sudden death - an apparent suicide - of Freddie Mac's acting chief financial officer David Kellermann is the latest shock to ripple through the federally backed housing agency. Since essentially being taken over by the government in September, it has been one hit after another for Freddie Mac - a private company that, with sister-agency Fannie Mae, holds or guarantees more than half of all U.S. residential mortgages and finances some 70% of new-home loans, and which the Obama Administration counts on as a cornerstone in its plans to revive the housing market...
...Never mind all that Congress and the President have asked of the agencies. Or the fact that morale at the agencies is horrible and plenty of their most-talented workers - i.e., those that can easily get hired elsewhere - are leaving. Freddie Mac doesn't have a permanent chief executive, chief operating officer, or chief financial officer. Many slots for other top positions are likewise vacant - as they are at Fannie Mae. Lockhart recently said of the agencies that "everybody is stretched very thin." That is only one of the problems...
...closer inspection suggests that Democrats deserve the most blame. Both the Bush and Clinton administrations (but especially Clinton’s) recklessly pushed to expand home ownership, fuelling the bubble in housing prices and its collapse. Former President Bush’s failure to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac permitted the crisis in subprime mortgages to build, though congressional Democrats bear the lion’s share of blame for their obstructionism: They opposed a Bush administration proposal for greater regulation, even though Fannie and Freddie’s own executives favored the change. The lack of broad oversight...