Fannie-Freddie Bailout: $148B and Counting!!

From Newsweek’s TheStreet

Second-quarter results from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac paint a dark picture for the firms' near-term profitability and for an eventual payback of taxpayer funds.

On Monday, Freddie Mac reported a net loss of $6 billion, or $1.85 per share. It continued to build loan-loss reserves even as big banks like Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp saw benefits from reducing the amount of cash held against bad debt. Credit losses climbed and its delinquency rate rose, mainly because of problem loans originated during the subprime bubble of 2005 to 2008.

Freddie Mac's conservator will request an additional $1.8 billion from the Treasury Department to keep its balance sheet in the black.

Freddie's results follow a similarly dour report from Fannie Mae last week. Fannie reported a net loss of $3.1 billion, or 55 cents per share, and will need another $1.5 billion from the Treasury. Its credit metrics were slightly better than its mortgage-finance twin, but warned that financial results will be "negatively affected" by bad loans acquired during the subprime bubble and that related expenses "will remain high in 2010."

The Fannie-Freddie bailout is soon to top $148 billion and, unlike American International Group's, it stands little chance of being repaid. While AIG topped the bailout list with a one-time height of $182 billion, the firm has shaved the total down to under $70 billion, with a big chunk set to be repaid by year-end.

Looking at the delinquency trends of Fannie and Freddie's loan books, it's clear the mortgage-finance giants aren't near the end of the loan-loss tunnel. That's especially true if the economy - and housing market - remain on shaky ground.

...

EGREEEGIOUS Bailouts!!!!
Why aren't we hearing more about these huge continued losses?! ...and the wasteful spending of our money??!! Too Big to Fail ....

Too Big To Fail!!!!

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, "The most important lesson of this crisis is we have to end Too Big To Fail”

Bernanke -- like the Obama administration -- resisted congressional efforts to break up the handful of too-big-to-fail firms that dominate the financial system. In May, however, a third of the Senate voted to effectively bust up the biggest of those giant financial institutions. That effort didn't succeed, but Bernanke attempted to put some lingering concerns to rest during his critical questioning by the panel created to investigate the roots of the financial crisis.

The nation's four biggest lenders collectively hold about $7.5 trillion in assets, according to their most recent quarterly filings with the Fed. That's equal to more than half the estimated total U.S. output last year, International Monetary Fund figures show.

Those four banks -- Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo -- each hold more than $1 trillion in assets. BofA and JPMorgan each have more than $2 trillion. The four giants control about 48 percent of the total assets in the nation's banking system, according to Fed data collected through March 31.

We should rest easy … the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is there to take care of us. The Act is a product of the financial regulatory reform agenda of the Democratically-controlled 111th United States Congress and the Obama administration. Did you know that Fannie-Freddie are protected … yeah, too big to fail!

Golly, if we can’t trust Barney Frank and Chris Dodd… oh yeah … never mind

Calls to investigate the funding for those proposing the $100 million "Cordoba House" have fallen on deaf ears

Pelosi Suggests Probe of Funding Sources Behind Opposition to Mosque Near Ground Zero
by Fox News

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is suggesting a coordinated effort is behind the opposition to a proposed mosque and community center near Ground Zero, saying the whole dispute has been "ginned up" for political purposes and she supports a probe into those opponents.
Commenting publicly for the first time on the Park 51 project, Pelosi said the issue was posing a distraction and that some organized force is behind it.
"There is no question that there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some," she said in remarks posted recently in a video on the San Francisco Chronicle website. "And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque (is) being funded."

Obama first weighed in Friday during a Ramadan dinner at the White House, and appeared to support the mosque project, but the White House later clarified that he was underscoring the developers' right to build the center -- not endorsing it outright.

David Malpass, a New York Republican candidate seeking the Sept. 14 primary nomination to challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in November, issued a statement Wednesday saying Pelosi should be investigating foreign funding for the project.

from the Associated Press
El-Gamal, the son of a Polish mother and Egyptian father, spent time as a child in Liberia and Egypt, where he said his father worked for Chemical Bank, but he graduated from New Hyde Park High School on Long Island.
El-Gamal took classes at several New York colleges but never got a degree, then married a Long Island woman.

Eight years ago, Sharif El-Gamal was just another ambitious striver from Brooklyn, casting about for career leads and dreaming of a grander future in real estate. At age 37, El-Gamal now finds himself being castigated daily on television as everything from an insensitive agitator to an Islamic supremacist.

El-Gamal has declined to talk in detail about financing for the purchase, which cost nearly $5 million.
He and other backers of the project have said that they haven't yet begun raising money for construction of the center, and don't yet know where it will come from.

Calls to investigate the funding for those proposing the $100 million "Cordoba House" have fallen on deaf ears!

Photo-op of Obama in St. Andrew’s Bay

Obama Gulf Swim – Real or Faked?
By Andrew Zarowny

Obama’s beach weekend provided us with a photo-op of him swimming in St. Andrew’s Bay in northwestern Florida. This was meant to demonstrate how safe the Gulf of Mexico now is after ‘he’ cleaned up the mess and capped the BP oil leak. But the private beach off Alligator Point in St. Andrew’s Bay technically is not part of the Gulf of Mexico!

St. Andrews Bay, next door to Panama City, Florida, is primarily a freshwater bay, fed mostly by adjoining creeks and springs. The entrance of the bay itself is surrounded by the St. Andrews State Park Aquatic Preserve. A series of seagrass beds and salt marshes protects the bay itself. Along with several sand spits and small islands, the area is more of a lagoon.
Obviously this whole trip was in response to criticism over an earlier vacation weekend spent in Maine. Not until the uproar of that trip was the Florida excursion planned. Obama has been highly criticized for his lack of empathy and action during the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He, himself, made no comment on the event until the 9th day. None in his administration said anything until the 7th day.
Even at the height of the disaster, the area around Panama City was one of the last, and least affected. Even those beach waters which real are part of the Gulf of Mexico were only closed for a very short time. Nothing compared to impact along the Louisiana coast.
The Obama’s beach weekend lasted a mere 27 hours. Along with the ’swim’, they also took in a boat ride, ice cream and a round of golf. They were greeted by a billboard rented by local Republicans demanding that Obama show the world his birth certificate. If not that, then maybe at least the Indonesia passport of one, Barry Soetoro.

Obama's lame speeches on economy, Iraq
By Ed Rollins, CNN Senior Political Contributor

September 1, 2010 5:47 p.m. EDT

New York (CNN) -- In the first two days back from his Martha's Vineyard family vacation, President Obama gave two speeches on two important subjects.
The first was a four-minute address from the Rose Garden on Monday on the economy. This was obviously a quickly thrown together speech to let the country know that even though the economic indicators, to quote the Washington Post, "trended from bad to worse" while the president golfed and relaxed, his team was aware of them.
We all come back a little rusty, and hopefully relaxed, from our vacations, and certainly the president and his family are entitled to theirs. But this speech offered nothing new on the most important subject of concern to voters, who in two months may alter the political makeup of the Congress and change the way this president can do things for the remainder of his term.
The president slammed the Republicans one more time. This is his campaign theme, and obviously it isn't working. Besides, the more he blames the Republicans, the more difficult it will be to work with them in January, when they may have a majority or at least a lot more clout in the Congress.
Saying his economic team was working on identifying new ways to boost the economy, the president said he would provide details "in the days and weeks to come." It raises the obvious question: What has the administration been doing in the weeks and months just past?
It may not matter if the administration proposes any new measures on the economy, especially if they would require a vote in Congress.
I can promise you, Mr. President, in the heat of a campaign battle royal -- in which your congressional team is on the brink of a disaster unlike any that Democrats have faced since 1994 -- in the "days and weeks ahead," they are going to be focused on doing nothing except trying to get re-elected and running as far from you and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as possible.
The second speech was given from the newly decorated Oval Office on Tuesday night in prime time. It was to celebrate the "Campaign Promise Kept": the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq.
I couldn't quite figure out what the speech was about. Our combat troops moved out of the cities of Iraq last summer and haven't been in real combat since the success of the surge much earlier. There still isn't a functioning government there and may not be for months to come.
Mr. President, you need to fill in the blanks about what you meant when you said, "Our combat mission is ending, but our commitment to Iraq's future is not."
It was appropriate to thank our troops and military leadership. It was a nice gesture to tell the country that George W. Bush supported our troops and loved our country, and obviously was committed to our national security.
It would have even been more appropriate to say that the program he and Secretary Robert Gates laid out is the one the president implemented without change, and it seems to have worked.
It would have been an accurate statement to remind people that we were withdrawing our troops because of a Status of Forces agreement signed in December 2008 by Bush and Iraq President Nuri al-Maliki to do so -- and not because Obama had promised this in his campaign.
The Iraq government insisted that we withdraw all of our forces by December 31, 2011. I hope we can. We certainly will know by then whether the Iraq government can stabilize and whether the Iraq army and police can keep the peace.
If not, the president has another tough decision to make. We signed an armistice in Korea in July 1953 -- and we still have nearly 30,000 troops there. Let's hope that's not the outcome here.
The president said: "Now is the time to turn the page."
But, as in his speech on the economy, he raised several issues that will need to be clarified "in the days and weeks ahead."
He gave the clear impression that now that we are finished with the "bad war" in Iraq, his term we can focus on the good war, Afghanistan.
"Because of the drawdown in Iraq, we are now able to apply the resources necessary to go on offense [in Afghanistan]."
I am sure that the more than 100,000 troops fully engaged under the leadership of Gen. David Petraeus already think they are on the offense and didn't realize they were being bogged down by Iraq.
But the president couldn't leave it there. He had to return to politics, because every speech will be political between now and November 2. He went on to say:
"As we wind down the war in Iraq, we must tackle those challenges at home [jobs, deficits, energy independence and education] with as much energy and grit and sense of common purpose as our men and women in uniform who have served abroad."
The war was expensive, not only in terms of the soldiers who were killed and injured but in the trillion-plus dollars spent on it. But if the president thinks the nation and the world are in this economic mess because of a war he didn't want to fight and didn't support, we are in worst shape than I thought.
We still have expensive obligations to those men and woman who so bravely served us. It's not like we can close down the Pentagon and use that money to build more buildings to house Energy and Education Department employees.
Now that Iraq is fixed -- and in a few weeks we will hear how the president and his team plan to get the economy moving again -- we now move on to solving the crisis in the Middle East. Lots of luck!
Like most Americans, I want my president's focus to be on the economy.
In a few short weeks, we Americans get to exercise our voice and vote for a new Congress.
I promise our voice and our message will be a lot clearer than these two pedestrian speeches the president just made.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ed Rollins. BUT Egreeegious agrees with Ed!!!

Get Goverment out of our Businesses!!

Close ONE dealership ... look at the ripple effect in our communities!

Run one business into the ground due to near 10% unemployment ...
loot at HOW MANY of us are impacted!!!

Banking, Auto manufacturing, Car dealerships, Healthcare, WE DON'T NEED OR WANT
OBAMA'S ADMINISTRATION OR ANY BIG GOVERNMENT IN OUR BUSINESSES!!!!

WE CANNOT AFFORD IT!!! WHAT IS CONGRESS DOING TO US??
Don't let them!! It is EGREEEGIOUS!!!!

Release Guantanamo Terrorists in the United States?!

Plans are being made to relocate Muslims from China's Uyghur community, presently held in Guantanamo, to the Washington suburbs once lingering legal, logistical and political details are resolved, government officials said last week. Others may be moved to New York City, and held for trials or soon released. Consideration is being given to enrolling them in Welfare, and getting them on the unemployment roles.

Some lawmakers and counter-terror officials worry about terrorists in the United States. The Uyghurs were trained at an Afghan camp before 9/11, though the "widespread belief" is they were focused on fighting the Communist Chinese, not attacking America. None the less, you are dealing with people who trained in and participated in violent activities - people who have associated with Al Qaeda! One of them, Abdul Haq, is listed as a member of Osama Bin Laden's Shura Council - Al Qaeda's board of directors.

A "comprehensive" surveillance watch by FBI and Homeland Security agents will be activated once the Uyghurs arrive, government officials confirmed – I suppose that should make us feel good. I wonder if anyone on that detail will think about the CIA documents recently released and judged in the media… There is no set release date yet, but agencies are prepared to move the Uyghurs any time President Obama green-lights their transfer.

If the Democratic representatives in Washington DC all believe these guys, and most of the other 200+ enemy combatants detained in Cuba, are really just misguided, misunderstood, have been wronged for trying to kill Americans, and should be reformed here in America … perhaps they should divide them all up amongst themselves! I’m sure there’s room in the White House for a bunch – where Obama and his mama-in-law can keep watch on some of the tougher ones, maybe get them into gardening and such!?! I hear he was quite a Community Organizer!!