Loan Titans Paid McCain Adviser Nearly $2 Million
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and CHARLES DUHIGG

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

Mr. McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has recently begun campaigning as a critic of the two companies and the lobbying army that helped them evade greater regulation as they began buying riskier mortgages with implicit federal backing. He and his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, have donors and advisers who are tied to the companies.

But last week the McCain campaign stepped up a running battle of guilt by association when it began broadcasting commercials trying to link Mr. Obama directly to the government bailout of the mortgage giants this month by charging that he takes advice from Fannie Mae’s former chief executive, Franklin Raines, an assertion both Mr. Raines and the Obama campaign dispute.

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.

“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis “didn’t really do anything,” Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.

Mr. Davis’s role with the group has bubbled up as an issue in the campaign, but the extent of his compensation and the details of his role have not been reported previously.

Mr. McCain was never a leading critic or defender of the mortgage giants, although several former executives of the companies said Mr. Davis did draw Mr. McCain to a 2004 awards banquet that the companies’ Homeownership Alliance held in a Senate office building. The organization printed a photograph of Mr. McCain at the event in its 2004 annual report, bolstering its clout and credibility. The event honored several other elected officials, including at least two Democrats, Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania and Representative Artur Davis of Alabama.

In an interview Sunday night with CNBC and The New York Times, Mr. McCain noted that Mr. Davis was no longer working on behalf of the mortgage giants. He said Mr. Davis “has had nothing to do with it since, and I’ll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it.”

Asked about the reports of Mr. Davis’s role, a spokesman for Mr. McCain said that during the time when Mr. Davis ran the Homeownership Alliance, the senator had backed legislation to increase oversight of the mortgage companies’ accounting and executive compensation. The legislation, however, did not seek to change their anomalous structure as private companies with federal support.

The spokesman, Tucker Bounds, also noted that the Homeownership Alliance included nonprofit organizations like Habitat for Humanity and the Urban League. “It’s not controversial to promote homeownership and minority homeownership,” Mr. Bounds said. More than a half-dozen current and former executives, however, said the Homeownership Alliance was set up mainly to defend Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by promoting their role in the housing market, and the two companies paid almost the entire cost of the group’s operations.

“They were financed largely, possibly exclusively, by Fannie and Freddie,” said William R. Maloni, a Democrat who is a former head of industry relations for Fannie Mae. “We thought it would be helpful to have someone who was a broadly recognized Republican to be the face of the organization, and that person became Rick Davis.” Mr. Maloni added, “Rick, for that purpose, turned out to be quite good.” (Several executives said Mr. Davis’s compensation was not unusual for the companies’ well-connected consultants.)

The federal bailout of the two mortgage giants has become an emblem of what critics say is the outdated or inadequate regulatory system that allowed the financial system to slide into crisis this summer.

At the time that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recruited Mr. Davis to run the Homeownership Alliance in 2000, they were under new pressure from private industry rivals and deregulation-minded Republicans who argued that the two companies’ federal sponsorship gave them an unfair advantage and put taxpayers at risk. Critics of the companies had formed their own Washington-based advocacy group, FM Watch. They were pushing for regulations that would deter the companies from expanding into new areas, including riskier and more profitable mortgages.

Mr. Davis had recently returned to his lobbying firm from running Mr. McCain’s unexpectedly strong 2000 Republican primary campaign, which elevated Mr. McCain’s profile as a legislator and Mr. Davis’s as a lobbyist.

“You can say what you want about free-market distortions, but people like the system because it gets them into houses cheap,” Mr. Davis said to Institutional Investor magazine in 2000, adding that he would run the advocacy group out of his Alexandria, Va., lobbying firm.

The organization also hired Public Strategies, a communications firm that included former Bush adviser Mark McKinnon. Mr. Davis wrote letters and gave speeches for the group. In April 2001, he sent out a press release headlined, “It’s Tax Day — Do You Know Where Your Deductions Are? For Most Americans, They’re in Your Home.”

But by the end of 2005, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were recovering from accounting problems and re-examining costs, former executives said. The companies decided the Homeownership Alliance had outlived its usefulness, and it disappeared.

John Harwood contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/u...k0A&oref=slogin

Dennis Kucinich is awesome! He's seems to be one of the few politicians who actually seems to care about us


EQUITY, NOT "CASH FOR TRASH" IN BAILOUT

Kucinich Announces Plan for Ownership Society

Washington, Sep 22 -

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement announcing a plan for a new Ownership Society:

“The Wall Street financial disaster is an opportunity to create a genuine ownership society. If Congress invests $700 billion in the market, then the American people must get something of real value for their investment.

“Simply purchasing bad debt, "cash for trash" and not receiving anything of value or giving $700 billion and not having a commensurate equity interest in Wall Street firms is unacceptable. No "cash for trash".

“Since the bailout will cost each and every American about $2,300, tomorrow I will offer legislation to create a United States Mutual Trust Fund, which will take control of $700 billion in stock assets, at market value and not higher, convert those assets to shares, and distribute $2,300 worth of shares to new individual savings accounts in the name of each and every American.”

Kucinich arrived at the $2,300 figure by dividing the cost of the bailout ($700 billion) by the US population (over 300 million).

http://kucinich.house.gov/News/Docu...cumentID=103259

quote:

Originally posted by Chryz707 There has to be more to it, Fascism starts this way when you give the power to Govt and then also remove the Courts ability to change it as well. American should be protesting this and ensure the courts retain tight control of this. We are talking about going from a 1st world country to a third world country. Wake up america! Wake up!

Here's a snippet:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008...al-to-congress/

quote:

Originally posted by Trancer-X Does anyone here know anything about the distributional effects of inflation, AKA the Cantillion effects?

Not a thing.

What do you know about it.

quote:

Originally posted by Chryz707 There has to be more to it, Fascism starts this way when you give the power to Govt and then also remove the Courts ability to change it as well. American should be protesting this and ensure the courts retain tight control of this. We are talking about going from a 1st world country to a third world country. Wake up america! Wake up!

Fascism has traditionally started with violent power grabs. Organized vigelenty mobs that enforce "right" in the name of the state.

quote:

Originally posted by Trancer-X Loan Titans Paid McCain Adviser Nearly $2 Million By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and CHARLES DUHIGG

give me a fucking break. We all know the democrats benefited gloriously from this. Obama's 2 economic advisors makde 75 and 90 million dollars from these institutions while it was goind down in flames, and Obama was the 2nd highest recipient of donations from those firms. Why aren't they taking any responsibility? Why isn't Chris Dodd? Nevermind the 12 times the bush administration tried to add oversite to Fannie and Freddie and was shot down by Dodd and his cronies... and nevermind the 2005 bill McCain tried to pass warning of the impending danger... and nevermind the 1995 bill Clinton signed into law to give loans to fucks who couldn't really afford them. Try reading this article to get the facts strait:

HOW DEMOCRATS CREATED THE FINANCIAL CRISIS:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?...id=aSKSoiNbnQY0

lol best fail picture ever..

quote:

Originally posted by Trancer-X Dennis Kucinich is awesome! He's seems to be one of the few politicians who actually seems to care about us EQUITY, NOT "CASH FOR TRASH" IN BAILOUT Kucinich Announces Plan for Ownership Society Washington, Sep 22 - Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement announcing a plan for a new Ownership Society: “The Wall Street financial disaster is an opportunity to create a genuine ownership society. If Congress invests $700 billion in the market, then the American people must get something of real value for their investment. “Simply purchasing bad debt, "cash for trash" and not receiving anything of value or giving $700 billion and not having a commensurate equity interest in Wall Street firms is unacceptable. No "cash for trash". “Since the bailout will cost each and every American about $2,300, tomorrow I will offer legislation to create a United States Mutual Trust Fund, which will take control of $700 billion in stock assets, at market value and not higher, convert those assets to shares, and distribute $2,300 worth of shares to new individual savings accounts in the name of each and every American.” Kucinich arrived at the $2,300 figure by dividing the cost of the bailout ($700 billion) by the US population (over 300 million). http://kucinich.house.gov/News/Docu...cumentID=103259

As friggin awesome as this sounds, what's the actual likelyhood?

/besides hell freezing over and all...

___________________
"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."

Bailout? More like FAILout. There is no oversight, so we're taking the word on the clowns who a year ago said they contained the situation? We're moving too fast on this issue that is not as dire as these Paulson makes it out to be. Fuck those financial institutions. They fucked us with their risk taking so they better give back most of that $73 mil/year salary. Seriously, if Republicans and Democrats alike say it's a bad fucking idea, it's a bad fucking idea.

gle.

quote:

Originally posted by Scottaculous Bailout? More like FAILout. There is no oversight, so we're taking the word on the clowns who a year ago said they contained the situation? We're moving too fast on this issue that is not as dire as these Paulson makes it out to be. Fuck those financial institutions. They fucked us with their risk taking so they better give back most of that $73 mil/year salary. Seriously, if Republicans and Democrats alike say it's a bad fucking idea, it's a bad fucking idea.

yeah - fuck the financial institutions that make it possible for every american to take out loans to buy shit they couldn't afford on their normal salary. americans don't need cars, homes, and all the other amenities that make our lives comfortable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usIfFdgJtjY

___________________
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