Chris Dodd Begs for His Political Life

Posted by Ray on October 27, 2009 under Main | Be the First to Comment

In his efforts to make people forget about the AIG bonuses, Friends of Angelo’s mortgages, Freddie and Fannie and the fact the Senator Dodd has never held a real job outside of politics he is attempting to bribe the public with an $8,000 tax credit. I am referring to the first time home buyer tax credit, which is likely to be expanded to everyone through July of 2010 at an estimated $16.7B, which is up to its eyeballs in fraud I might add, but to hell with it, he needs to get reelected!

Clearly, Senator Dodd, who is garnering praise from Barney Frank, does that indicate how much he fears losing the 2010 election, worked very hard to keep the heroin in the housing market. However, what he is really doing, and why he needs to go, is keeping hardworking Americans from getting good deals on homes, he hates Americans! I jest of course, he merely just does not understand the real world. The housing market is still overvalued, according to Schiller, of the famed Case-Schiller Index, where he said certain areas look like bubbles, again.

There are others including Dave Rosenberg, Bill Gross, Whitney Tilson and me who say housing is overvalued by some 20% or more. This means more pain on the way down, but Washington through their programs to pump up failed credit bubbles refuses to let the bubble fully pop. By not letting the bubble pop this means they are letting people over pay for homes that should be much lower in price. So, now we are getting a fresh new wave of first time homeowners who will be underwater in a couple of years and what is worse is the US government, through the FHA, is underwriting the mortgages.

Not only are we losing money on the $8,000 tax credit, but we will ultimately lose money by having to bailout the FHA itself. Yet, here I am doing the right thing by looking and buying a home I knew I could afford in good times and bad, I should have known the government would hook me up, what was I thinking. Einstein, I believe it was, once said the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing expecting a different result, or something like that, but here we are doing exactly that. Except this time we are doing it bigger and better with all of our money, not just private investors, but public funds, it worked out so well the first time this time has to be different, right?

Ladies and gentlemen, this government is insane. It is totally out of control and needs to be brought to its senses. How in the world can we say that trying to repeat 2002-2005 is a good idea? Well, that is exactly what we are doing now, but bigger. All for what, so some political figure can look better or a few jobs could be created, that was what we spent a trillion dollars for, remember? I have no problem with extending unemployment insurance, which makes sense and the people deserve it, but a tax credit for a new house that someone probably can’t afford anyhow? No way. The cost just does not make sense and clearly Senator Dodd is trying to save his backside, but he should have thought of that before he signed that Friends of Angelo contract.

More Dumb Politicians

Posted by Ray on October 24, 2009 under Main | Be the First to Comment

The “Friends of Angelo” strikes again and the self righteous do-gooder Democrats still maintain that this V.I.P. program from Countrywide was no big deal. Look, the Republicans are no better and bear as much responsibility as anyone else for this mess, but at least they are not pretending that they did nothing wrong, well to the degree that the Democrats are. So far the Friends of Angelo program has caught up Senator Chris Dodd, Senator Kent Conrad and now, apparently, Representative Edolphus Towns all who got mortgages through Countrywide all with the special code identifying them as being part of the Friends of Angelo program.

Now, to assume there are no special favors associated with the Friends of Angelo program would be making the same assumption as the Sun revolves around the Earth, it simply can’t be true. Rep. Towns says that this V.I.P. program, only available to politicians, HUD officials and Fannie, had no special features other than faster processing times is just plain stupid, there I said what every other newspaper wanted to say, but can’t. Are we simply dumb enough to believe that mortgage companies offer, as Representative Towns claims, a “frequent flier” type programs for mortgages? Listen, Mr. Politicians, the average American, which we are well aware that you think you are not, get 1 mortgage during their lifetime, 1, so to assume there is any type of frequent mortgage program for people is laughable at best.

I know, the “ethics” committee cleared Senators Dodd and Conrad, of course they did, have you met an ethical politician yet? It’s a freaking joke, the numbers were right there in Dodd’s case he saved $75K over the life of his mortgage because the interest payments were reduced to magically attractive levels. I know math is not Washington’s strong point, but they could have called in TurboTax Timmy to run them for him, well maybe he isn’t the best person, but still Wall Street owes Washington a favor or two so they could send a bean counter up to sort out the problem.

Anyhow, Rep. Towns is so sure he is innocent that when Rep. Issa called hearings on this issue he and all the other Democrats walked out the backdoor like a bunch of 5 year olds, and that is insulting to my 5 year old. Instead, Rep. Towns threw his spokesperson to the wolves and is avoiding the issue altogether which about sums up or representatives in Washington. Now, here is what she says:

“He went to his local mortgage guy and got a normal mortgage,” she said. “The guy’s from Brooklyn and doesn’t have much money and wasn’t prominent enough to be considered a V.I.P. Whether it was later transferred through the V.I.P. program, I don’t know. But he didn’t receive any favors.”

Seriously? Not a guy with a lot of money? How does a guy with not a lot of money afford a home in Brooklyn and in Hillsborough County, Fla.? Rep. Towns also wants to get to the bottom of all of this fraud so badly that he will not even subpoena Countrywide, why? Because he knows a lot of unflattering material will come back, maybe not about him, but perhaps some other people, hint, hint Senators. Perhaps maybe some other potentially embarrassing names may pop up as well that are new to the game, for the love of God, Barney Frank forgot to file a $107K bank account in his annual financial statement.

The bottom line is this, we are not stupid and we know that our politicians are bought and paid for by big business. We know they looked the other way while they sold bad loans to people, but the citizens need to take some responsibility as well. If you made $800 a week you should have known that under no circumstances could you afford a $500K house. However, Congress is making an ass out of itself by chasing ghosts because if you want to catch the real crooks you need to get a panel of real people, like me, with Bernie Madoff leading the charge, hey hate him all you want, but you need a crook to catch a crook, and let’s go after every politician who screwed up. After we are done, I move to pardon Bernie and make him Fed Chairman or Treasury Secretary because the man knows how to keep a Ponzi Scheme going and that’s what the US needs long-term.

So, go on Rep. Towns, Sen. Dodd, Sen. Conrad and get your deals with Countrywide and pretend you did nothing wrong. Pretend that you did not know what V.I.P. meant, you are either incredibly stupid or you are lying, I will flip a coin because it is about a 50/50 shot at this point, but either way you gotta go! I think we have all just about have had enough of the BS from Washington. We wanted change and we got, I don’t even know what we got anymore.

The Donkey or “Jackass” is the Perfect Icon for the Democrats

Posted by Ray on October 8, 2009 under Main | Be the First to Comment

I am an honest to God political neutral as I voted for Bush in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 which makes me probably one of the worst voters in the history of the world, but I voted my conscience and for what I believed was right. As it turned out, they are all crooks and the one thing I learned is we need balance in government, no matter who occupies the Whitehouse. When that balance is out of whack, like we saw when the Republicans had absolute rule and like we see now with Democrats with absolute rule things get ugly, real fast.

Most of all, corruption runs amuck and there is no accountability to anyone. Just look at Senator Dodd, he was guilty as sin and my 5 year old could tell he knew he was getting favors on his mortgages from Countrywide, but not the ethics committee who let him off Scott Free. Now we see the same thing with Representative Rangel who is clearly guilty as sin as well, yet he is still the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, possibly the most powerful committee in all of Washington and the committee that writes tax laws.

Just so you are keeping score at home, we have Timmy Geithner who is Treasury Secretary who “forgot” to pay his taxes, Sen. Dodd who gets sweetheart mortgage deals, campaign contributions from AIG (then let’s them keep their bonuses which he included in the stimulus bill), takes money from Fannie and Freddie while leaving them largely unregulated and so on only to collapse later on. Now we have Rep. Rangel who has spent eons in Congress only to make a small fortune for himself including property in Dominican Republic and some fancy apartment dealings in NYC.

Either these people are the dumbest people in the world, which should scare you because they are leading our country, or they are simply lying to you (more than likely the case) which means they should resign for the good of the public, which would never happen. Either way, how could these people get reelected? What is wrong with people? If this “happened” to you or I and we used the same lame excuse as I forgot or whatever we would be bed mates with Bubba in a heat beat, but not these guys. Nope, there is definitely a two tiered system in place because not only are these guys not in prison, but they still have jobs.

Not only that, but when a vote comes to the floor to remove Rep. Rangel as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee while the investigation is completed the Jackasses, I mean, the Democrats knock defeat the vote. So much for transparency in politics and fighting for the American people and all that other BS Obama fed us during the campaign. We sure as hell know that Pelosi doesn’t care about us, she is trying to impose a VAT, value added tax, to pay for health care, yeah, ever been to Europe? VAT’s are horrible regressive taxes that stifle growth and punish everyone, especially the poor, equally. You don’t even need to go to Europe to see it in action, just go to Canada.

Anyhow, this is just unbelievable to think that these crooks are able to stay in their jobs as if nothing is wrong when they are under investigation. It’s like someone being accused of murder being released by a judge and allowed to have his gun back because it is the only fair thing to do as the investigation is not complete yet, even though the ballistics test already matched. We know their all guilty, but if you are part of the political class, no problem. Enough is enough already, vote them out and for the love of God let’s get some balance back into government (any party will do!).

Chris Dodd, the People’s Senator

Posted by Ray on September 18, 2009 under Main | Be the First to Comment

Ok, he is only the people’s senator when reelection is close and he is in political trouble. I have relatives in Connecticut and I often ask them why they vote this guy in and they tell me it is because he answers the phone when they call. Well, that is great, but frankly this guy has taken millions from the institutions he is supposed to be regulating and has known about their abusive practices for years and did nothing, nothing, to stop it.

However, now that the election season is starting he is going to introduce a bill to curb abusive overdraft charges, but he can’t even do that right. I will say that it is a step in the right direction, but he is missing the real crime of what banks do. You see, it is not the amount of the fee, even though it is way too excessive, it is how the bank puts the transactions through that is the issue. As I discussed before, banks run transactions from the largest to the smallest, which maximizes fees, and the banks say it is to make sure big bills get paid first, but they clear all of the transaction so any excuse they give is a lie, period. Mr. Dodd mentions it, but I did not see any information that he wants to stop it.

Mr. Dodd simply wants the consumer to have the ability to opt out of the “overdraft” program, again that is a great start, but misses the mark. How about banks that charged their poorest customers those outrageous overdraft charges be made to repay those people, now that is punitive. Darn, I forgot, its reelection time so he is hitting banks up for contributions so he won’t get too tough on them. Instead he will pay people lip service that after 26 YEARS in the senate he is finally doing something to benefit them instead of himself and his campaign supporters.

Let’s face it, he will sit on this, if it even comes out of committee at all, until just before the 2010 election so he can use it to get votes. This guy is a crook or simply the dumbest person in politics, which is a very tough award to win I might add, because he didn’t realize that the VIP treatment from Countrywide was a term meaning he is getting a special deal, even though the terms and rates were far superior than the competition. Let us also not forget that he pressured AIG employees to give to his campaign in 2006 as he was going to be in charge of regulating the firm, guess what he got huge cash that year. I forgot how AIG ended, of yeah we bailed them out. Then there is Freddie and Fannie, do we really need to know anymore to figure out this guy is in politics for himself, not for the people.

So, Mr. Dodd, if you are reading this then get this bill out of the committee and put some teeth in it to make the banks finally pay for killing the little guy. Don’t do the lip service like all politicians do and make these banks pay up. After all, who made out the most over the last year? The banks. They got bonuses last year, when they least deserved them, and this year they are getting record bonuses when we bailed them out and, on top of that, they raped us for some $38B in bogus overdraft fees. The banks are ruling the world and we are letting them get away with it as long as we reelect assholes like Chris Dodd, Spector, Schumer, Rockefeller, Barney Frank and every other piece of shit that has spent more than 10 years in office.

Sorry for the language, but come on people, get your damn act together and vote these assholes out already!

Support and vote for Peter Schiff, go to his website HERE

See who got what From Fannie/Freddie

Posted by Ray on August 12, 2009 under Main | Be the First to Comment

Below is a list of campaign contributions that the GSE’s made as of September 2008. So, now do you know why Dodd and Frank liked the GSE’s so much? Are you really going to trust these people, who take from the very people we bailout, to run health care? Have you noticed that insurers are loving the new government plan so far, makes you wonder how they will cash in on it, doesn’t it?

It is time to vote out incumbents as they have a vested interest in corporate America instead of Americans.
All Recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Campaign Contributions, 1989-2008

Includes contributions from PACs and individuals. 2008 cycle totals based on data released electronically by the Federal Election Commission on Sept. 2, 2008.