BRKG House set to vote on Fannie/Freddie/ homeowner bailout TOMMORROW!!!

[Tweakette]

They're going to vote on this tommorrow. The cost for bailing out Fannie, Freddie, and fools who got into mortgages they couldn't afford is going to be on OUR BACKS. Paulson, Dodd and others (tools of the investment banks) are trying to shove this through ASAP.

If this passes it will probably tank the bond market and the dollar, drive up interest rates as our debt becomes unpalatable to the rest of the world, and load even more debt on an already bankrupt country.

Please, people - call/write/email and fax your designated Congress critters and ask them to vote no (or at least vote to delay and talk about the unintended side effects of this) on this bill!!!!!

Tweak

Links: www.financialpetition.org
NO TAX DOLLARS FOR BANKS & WALLSTREET! DO SOMETHING NOW! http://www.FedUpUSA.org


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US House To Proceed With GSE Help, Housing Legislation


(Updated to include outcome of House Rules Committee meeting, comments from Reps. Frank and Bachus)

By Michael R. Crittenden

Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. House of Representatives will vote Wednesday on a massive package of housing legislation that includes foreclosure relief and a proposed federal backstop for Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE).

The House Rules Committee on Tuesday evening approved a rule allowing debate on the bill in the House. Lawmakers will debate the bill on Wednesday for two hours, with no amendments to be considered. Despite the objections of Republicans on the committee, House Rules Chairman Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., said Tuesday that "to allow amendments on the bill would kill the bill."

The legislation has been the source of constant negotiations in recent weeks between House and Senate lawmakers, the Treasury Department, and other federal financial regulators. When asked whether the two lead Senate negotiators - Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. - had agreed on the legislation the House will vote on, Frank said they had.

"Yes, an official sign-off," Frank said.

Dodd and Shelby, however, refused to endorse the version Frank was bringing before the House in a joint statement issued late Tuesday evening.

"We have been working diligently for months on legislation to address the housing crisis. Last week we sent legislation to the House. Since then, we have been engaged in extensive and largely fruitful discussions with our counterparts in the House of Representatives, as well as Administration officials," the statement said. "We remain optimistic about the prospects for this legislation."

The legislation the House will vote on includes a regulatory overhaul for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, changes to the Federal Housing Administration, and a $300 billion program to offer federal insurance on refinanced mortgages.

It will also include a dramatic proposal by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to provide a temporary federal backstop for Fannie and Freddie in the wake of concerns within the capital markets about the firms' solvency.

Frank, Dodd, Shelby, Paulson and their staff have been meeting and in contact almost constantly in recent days to iron out the details of the legislation. Frank told reporters a handful of details about the legislation the House will vote on, including the idea that any help for Fannie and Freddie would be counted against the federal debt limit.

Additionally, Frank said it will allow the firms' regulator to approve authority over Fannie and Freddie's executive pay packages, and would set the size of loans Fannie and Freddie can purchase - also known as the conforming loan limit - at $625,000. Frank said lawmakers are talking about including a 115% "escalator" clause for certain metropolitan areas that would allow the firms to buy loans above the median home price in those cities.

Regarding the temporary federal backstop for Fannie and Freddie, Frank said lawmakers won't mandate, but will give the Treasury Secretary the discretion, to delay their dividends among other emergency authorities. He also said lawmakers won't require that any Treasury stake in the firms be in the form of senior preferred shares.

"We will give the Secretary authority but not mandate because we're playing games here with the capital markets and we don't want (Fannie and Freddie) to say 'Well I couldn't raise capital so you have to buy the stock.' We'd rather have (the private market) buy the stock," Frank said.

He said lawmakers may also raise the federal debt limit, which currently sits at $9.8 trillion, to $10.6 trillion as part of the legislation, Frank said.

"I believe it will be raised in this bill," Frank said.

Earlier Tuesday, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the proposed backstop for Fannie and Freddie could cost federal taxpayers $25 billion, though it set the chances the program will ever be used at less than 50%.

It is unclear whether the White House would veto the bill, despite public threats to do so. The top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., said Tuesday that the Bush administration has "given every indication they will sign the legislation."

Frank also expressed doubt that the White House would veto the bill.

"For people who say they are going to veto the bill, they spend an awful lot of time negotiating details," Frank said.

Bachus himself did not say on Tuesday whether he would support the bill, but criticized the backstop provision for Fannie and Freddie.

"We are giving the executive branch pretty much carte blanche," Bachus said.

-By Michael R. Crittenden, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9273; michael.crittenden@dowjones.com

[Hiding Bear]

I've tried to follow this, but public information lacks details as to what is actually being voted on.

The $300 billion is to assist mortgage holders and not F & F. As far as I know, the amount of assistance to F & F is unlimted. Therefore Congress wants to cap the debt limit so that the Treasury couldn't, for example, give them a $1 trillion if they needed it.

Even there, if F & F used the all the Treasury's money they had, would Congress allow F & F to get money while the war in Iraq, Scoial Sceurity, went unpaid? NO, so government spending is now unlimited with this bill.

Basically, this bill gives a blank check to the Treasury to transfer the present $5 trillion debt of F & F to taxpayers.

[blueridge]

This is just the very beginning of the multi-TRILLION $$$ fix.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker...,WM,WB,WFC,BAC

[Watchingbear]

Just e-mailed my congress weasel.

Look, Paulson is the one pushing for this. He is a wall street insider.

In all the years that wall street was making hundreds of billions in profits on the housing bubble that they created, the insiders walked off with the profits. Last year alone, the executives at the top 5 wall street banks took over 35 BILLION in bonus money alone.

Now that they are taking a beating, they want the taxpayers to take the loss. We should be outraged at this.

What will be the effect? I say the dollar may crash if another couple of trillion are added to potential taxpayer liability. Government debt is YOUR debt, which you owe without your consent.

Say NO to privatizing profits and socializing losses!

[skoaldiak]

If you still believe calling/writing/faxing/etc.. makes a difference.

Go to http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml to get contact information for your representatives.

[UncurledA]

Hiding Bear

I've tried to follow this, but public information lacks details as to what is actually being voted on.

Even worse, look for some nice "Britney"-type meaningless giant news to dominate the airwaves during this time. Oops, there it is - looks like the Batman star du jour has been arrested for assault. That oughta keep us Americans transfixed for a week or so.

.

[Yours Truly]

This is such a complicated issue. The bonds F&F issue are re-packaged, in bits and pieces, and re-sold on the open market. I doubt ANY financial guru has ANY idea what the total effect of a F&F crash would be, but you can bet it would be worldwide.

[Tweakette]

Icing on the cake: It's being reported that Bush said he will sign this bill in whatever form it comes through in!!!

Yours Truly, I don't think there is a debate about the fact that Fannie/Freddie needs to be addressed. But a potential 800 billion dollar blank check to Treasury & Paulson (aka Goldman Sachs) isn't the way to do it.

But we're not being given time to discuss alternatives - the damn bill is 694 pages long and only 2 hours has been allocated to discuss it in the House today! No one has had time to read the whole thing yet, much less understand it and be able to debate intelligently!

What's worse, passage of this will MAKE THINGS WORSE. When foreigners repudiate our debt as a result of this we will have to raise interest rates on it to placate them, which will drive up all other rates INCLUDING mortgage rates, which will tank the housing market even worse!

A coherent, intelligent, and fair approach to this is needed, not the pandering blank-check version we are being force fed.

Call your people, including the White House!!

Tweak

[Huntur]

We as taxpayers need to ensure all the managerial positions and ESPECIALLY the CEO's have as much cash as they need!! A billion, half a billion, hell a Trillion or more! Give it to em. Give them MORE than what they need or ask for! Screw it, give them a Quadrillion.

[Yours Truly]

Originally Posted by Tweakette

Icing on the cake: It's being reported that Bush said he will sign this bill in whatever form it comes through in!!!

Yours Truly, I don't think there is a debate about the fact that Fannie/Freddie needs to be addressed. But a potential 800 billion dollar blank check to Treasury & Paulson (aka Goldman Sachs) isn't the way to do it.

But we're not being given time to discuss alternatives - the damn bill is 694 pages long and only 2 hours has been allocated to discuss it in the House today! No one has had time to read the whole thing yet, much less understand it and be able to debate intelligently!

What's worse, passage of this will MAKE THINGS WORSE. When foreigners repudiate our debt as a result of this we will have to raise interest rates on it to placate them, which will drive up all other rates INCLUDING mortgage rates, which will tank the housing market even worse!

A coherent, intelligent, and fair approach to this is needed, not the pandering blank-check version we are being force fed.

Call your people, including the White House!!

Tweak

I agree with you on addressing the issue, but they'll find a way to push this through, one way or another. Reminds me when they passed the Patriot Act - in the middle of the night, several hundred pages long. Same scenario. Thanks to the "free market / free trade" agreements the US government has engaged in, the US is slowly killing itself. I don't know what the answer is - we're in so deep.

[skoaldiak]

Originally Posted by Yours Truly

Reminds me when they passed the Patriot Act - in the middle of the night, several hundred pages long. Same scenario.

Exactly what I was thinking. It worked for them then, why not keep using it. Traitors!

[Echo 5]

Paulson, Congress, Bernanke, the Fed: they are all just common thieves. Instead of baggy pants, they wear Armani.

This must be stopped. One way or another.

Listen to Paulson. His concern is coddling the foreign markets. He says nothing about American citizens.

We are not a piggy bank.

Karl Denninger has something--it's the beginning of an organized fight against an abusive, increasingly centralized federal government. And organize we must.

(Rep. Louise Slaughter is on the floor right now--an absolute f@#$ing idiot).

[ElevenO]

Congress is debating this bill right now as I type (@ 12:15 pm) on C-Span. The vote will probably occur some time later on today. Call your congressmen at (202) 224-3121 and tell them to vote "No" to HR3221 which is the Housing Bailout Bill.

[mbo]

Originally Posted by Yours Truly

This is such a complicated issue. The bonds F&F issue are re-packaged, in bits and pieces, and re-sold on the open market. I doubt ANY financial guru has ANY idea what the total effect of a F&F crash would be, but you can bet it would be worldwide.

I asked my Congressman to vote against it.


Let that quasi-public mess fail, once and for all.



.

[Echo 5]

The biggest problem of all is this: They (Congress, the Fed, et al) aren't afraid of us (the citizen, the voter).

That needs to change. Now.

ETA: That is not a call to violence. They need to fear us politically.

[Hermittao]

It's interesting that some of the same folks who are pushing for a bailout were just as insistent, not so many years ago, that the laws regulating the mortgage industry be relaxed. Can’t have it both ways? Well, I guess you can.

By-the-way, wasn’t the president’s brother a major player in the last big (savings & loan) bailout? I seem to recall that his bank was one of the big losers, and that some of his dealings, while not technically illegal thanks to de-regulation, were questionable at best. But then, perhaps he didn’t see anything wrong with granting a risky loan to a company in return for them giving him a personal loan at a “special” rate.

[Green Co.]

Major Provisions of Housing Bill


Congress looks set to pass a housing rescue bill that will backstop Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, create tougher oversight of the mortgage finance giants and spend billions to prevent home foreclosures.

The sweeping legislation is moving with uncommon speed and could be in place by next week.

President Bush and key lawmakers have said they hope the legislation will help restore confidence in a U.S. housing finance system battered by a wave of failing loans.

Following are some key provisions of the legislation:

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac which each have a $2.25 billion line of credit with the Treasury, would see their current government loan limit raised until January 2009.

—If the companies' financial condition were to reach a crisis, Treasury could take an equity stake in either company. That power, too, would expire in January 2009.

—There is a better-than-even chance that the emergency measures will not be needed, meaning there will be no cost to taxpayers. If the lifeline is required, the Congressional Budget Office said, there is a 5 percent chance that the companies may need $100 billion but more likely would need $25 billion.


—A new regulator would be created with broad powers to set capital levels for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with the Fed's consultation.

—The Federal Housing Administration would be authorized to refinance up to $300 billion in failing mortgages with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac covering billions in expected losses.

—Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA would be be permitted to purchase loans as large as $625,500 in high-cost areas -- a big increase from the $417,000 cap typically in place.

—Local communities that are burdened with maintenance of abandoned properties would have access to nearly $4 billion in federal grants to buy and repair those homes.

—Many first-time home buyers would be eligible for a tax break worth up to $7,500, and $200 million would be offered to foreclosure-prevention programs + Local governments would have authority to issue an additional $11 billion of tax-exempt bonds to refinance shaky loans.

—The bill would increase the federal debt limit by $800 billion to $10.6 trillion.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/25819215

[Double_A]

Title is a bit confusing as yesterday's tommorrow in now today!

Guess that's why I rant about putting dates in the titles when appropriate just helps keep my simple mind straight.

although a moderator merging threads and adding a date to the title would be just super.