Ughh. I really didn’t want to write a charged political post today on a Friday but then I saw this little gem in the news and thought it would be irresponsible of me not to. Apparently Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac plan to shell out $210 million in bonuses as a retainer for employees. I REALLY want to know if Obama and his administration will react with the same outrage that they did over the AIG bonuses (albeit delayed). They were able to garner public outrage over bonuses to be paid (by way of legally binding contracts) to employees who played no part in the liquidity crisis months ago. AIG and their bonuses became the administrations fall guy to deflect attention away from their incompetence in handling the economic mess. Never mind the fact that the bonuses were retainers to keep qualified executives on board to right the ship. So now the liberal puppets (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) are also giving retainer bonuses. I wonder how the administration will address this…if not deflect it all together.
Here’s a little history for you. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were at the forefront of the recent housing crisis and significantly more responsible for the downturn in our economy than the “big bad” CEOs that the news media focuses on. They became liberal puppets when they started eating up sub-prime mortgages from lenders as part of the democrats “fair housing” campaigns in the 1990s. These initiatives encourage lending to people without the income or credit to support such loans. HUD soon found these practices risky but balked a few years later in 2004 and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were once again ballooning profits through sub-prime lending.
Where were our politicians during this blatant prelude to a market crash? Well Republicans were trying to pass reform to ban these practices. And Democrats were busy blocking such reform. Why? Well because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are big time democrat contributors. Dodd, Kerry, Obama and H. Clinton being the 4 recipients receiving the most political contributions. These contributions and other nepotism helped the two institutions stay in practice with liberal politicians blocking any reform. What other nepotism you ask? Well this sure looks like pretty clear evidence. So that's why I'm very skeptical when Obama assumes zero fault in the current crisis, aside from the fact that democrats have controlled Congress since the 2006 mid-term elections. See what happens when you mention this to a liberal, they are stumped, not only because they are severly ignorant to the economic flaws of their poverty pimp champions but also because they have absolutely no recourse.
How the administration handles this will be a good indicator of if they ever intend to steer away from a party divided Washington. I wouldn’t be surprised if this story all but goes away in most news outlets in the coming days. The White House has some spin to work on if they decide to address this at all.
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