On 03/04/2011 05:55 PM, Chas. Chan wrote:

Fannie Mae is a loan guarantor. She doesn't make loans.


Man, you are the biggest moron that graduated from a California public
school.

I never graduated.

"[...]So if a politician voiced an opposition point of view, and some
did, there was a real risk of them being beat down by an opponent
financed by the financial industry. Doesn’t that kind of weaken the
ability to have a real discussion?

Absolutely. There’s a chilling effect. One of our commissioners,
Brooksley Born, she’s the classic case. Brooksley Born was appointed by
[President Bill] Clinton in 1996 to head the Commodity Futures Trading
Commission. She was one of our 10 commissioners. From 1994 to 1996 or
1997, there were a series of scandals involving the highly risky use of
the over-the-counter derivatives; these are the ones not traded on the
Chicago Board of Trade and the commodity exchanges. There was a big
scandal at Procter & Gamble with Sumitomo Bank. So Brooksley Born, as
chair of that commission, stepped forth and said, “I think we ought to
discuss whether these over-the-counter derivatives”—which ultimately
grew to this multitrillion-dollar industry by the time of the
crisis—“should be regulated.” She put out a concept paper to discuss it.

Well, she was immediately shut down by the powers that be. It was
[former Chairman of the Federal Reserve] Alan Greenspan, it was [former
Secretary of Treasury] Robert Rubin, it was [former Securities and
Exchange Commission Chairman] Arthur Levitt, it was [former Secretary of
Treasury] Larry Summers and it was the financial industry. And they
essentially put a stop, they went to Congress and said that Congress
ought to adopt a moratorium on any regulation—and then two years later,
they got a complete ban on regulation. So this is an example where
someone stood up, said the right thing and was put down for it. But this
should be a constant source of concern, because also more and more power
is concentrated in fewer and fewer banks. Between 1990 and 2005, I
believe the top 10 banks in the country, their share of assets grew from
25 percent to 55 percent. After the crisis now, we have fewer big banks,
because Lehman [Brothers] went under, Bear Sterns went under, Merrill
Lynch merged with Bank of America. The concentration of power by fewer
banks is even greater today.[...]"
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento...nt?oid=1923599