“Fannie Mae” on The Daily Caller

Credit rating firm Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit rating of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Monday, as part of a larger reassessment of U.S. debt holdings. (more)

UBS AG (UBSN) was sued by U.S. regulators over $4.5 billion in residential mortgage-backed securities sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies operating under government control. (more)

“Austerity” is giving “unsustainable” strong competition for becoming the financial buzzword of the year. However, within the Democratic Party and the political left, we still seem to have an abundance of something. Unfortunately, that something is hypocrisy. Instead of providing us with serious and mature leadership, the president is ratcheting up his populist class warfare and choosing solutions aimed at placating the liberal allies on whose financial support his party depends. (more)

Live Like A Canadian! Did the home mortgage interest deduction help cause the prolonged housing bust?  They’ve got neither in Canada, which is suggestive. …  Another reason to end the most un-endable deduction as part of a rate-lowering tax reform.  (And it’s relatively easy to do. You could even compromise at allowing 80% of the deduction this year, with it losing 5% or so each year. Easier, anyway, than winding down Fannie Mae, which is another issue discussed in the linked piece.) … [via Newsalert] (more)

While it was announced Wednesday that the White House could release its long-awaited plan for reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the end of the week, the message sent from some lawmakers on Capitol Hill was the exact opposite: major reform is politically unrealistic. (more)

More than two years after the government seized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Obama administration will recommend phasing out the housing-finance giants and gradually reducing the government’s footprint in the mortgage market, according to people familiar with the matter. (more)

ORLANDO – Republicans are calling on Washington to begin winding down mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the first step in a longer-term plan to get the federal government out of the housing business. (more)

If Washington had grown fuzzy about the razor’s edge the U.S. economy is currently balanced on, it got a bracing reminder Thursday. (more)

On February 9, House Republicans will begin their effort to reform government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant mortgage lenders many blame for the 2008 financial collapse. The firms were both left out of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that was passed last summer to remedy the causes of the most recent recession. (more)

Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill are planning to hold a hearing on February 9 to begin tackling reform of government sponsored enterprises (GSE) like mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The hearing will be the first in a long series of investigations by Republicans to fix what is viewed as one of the main causes of the 2008 financial crisis. (more)

Since the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, taxpayers have spent more than $160 million defending the mortgage finance companies and their former top executives in civil lawsuits accusing them of fraud. The cost was a closely guarded secret until last week, when the companies and their regulator produced an accounting at the request of Congress. (more)

1.) America bids adieu to ‘Meltdown’ with Keith Olbermann — On Friday, January 21, Anno Domini 2011, Keith Olbermann left MSNBC. Since then, the same people who accused Sarah Palin of controlling Jared Loughner’s mind have circulated the theory that the merger of NBC and Comcast led to Keith’s departure. The New York Times, a right-wing agitprop machine, has reported otherwise: “Underlying the decision, which one executive involved said was not a termination but a ‘negotiated separation,’ were years of behind-the-scenes tension, conflicts and near terminations.” For instance, in addition to working pro bono for the Democratic Party, donating money to candidates on the same day he had them on his show, engaging in–and giving voice to–blatant misogyny, treating his staffers with the disdain and disrespect due none but the most hardened of convicted sex offenders…Keith often just didn’t bother doing anything. “Some days,” reports the NYT, “Mr. Olbermann threatened not to come to work at all and a substitute anchor had to be notified to be on standby.” Incidentally, even liberals are happy with his ouster. Read what conservatives have to say here. (more)

Since the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, taxpayers have spent more than $160 million defending the mortgage finance companies and their former top executives in civil lawsuits accusing them of fraud. The cost was a closely guarded secret until last week, when the companies and their regulator produced an accounting at the request of Congress. (more)

A number of the House GOP’s leading conservative members on Thursday will announce legislation that would cut $2.5 trillion over 10 years, which will be by far the most ambitious and far-reaching proposal by the new majority to cut federal government spending. (more)

Last week, government-backed mortgage entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fined Bank of America $3 billion for selling faulty mortgages that either have, or will default into, huge losses. Now critics are calling the deal a backdoor bailout because the sum is much lower than the losses for which the bank could be held liable. (more)

There was no way that they would fail. Their bonds were rated AAA, they were managed by the chairman of the stock market, they were America’s seventh largest company, and expert accountants confirmed their long-term fiscal viability. But still, AIG, Madoff Investment Securities, Enron, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac all went bankrupt. (more)

The resounding win by the Republicans in November holds the promise of getting some control on spending in Washington. It seems, for the moment, that Congress is focusing on this goal, thanks to its members’ feet being held to the fire by the Tea Party. (more)

Tasked with examining the “cause, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States,” the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), it seems, is now embroiled in a public dispute, perpetrated by the commission’s partisan divide. (more)

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told a congressional oversight panel this morning that the cost of the federal financial rescue program will ultimately be only a “fraction” of the cost originally estimated by the Congressional Budget Office. (more)

1.) Inouye and other Senate dinosaurs make one last mad hobble for cash register — “In the waning days of the lame duck congressional session, Democrats controlling the Senate — in collaboration with a handful of old school Republicans — are pushing to wrap $1.27 trillion worth of unfinished budget work into a single ‘omnibus’ appropriations bill,” reports the AP. Sen. Jim DeMint hates this bill so much that he has threatened to read all 1,900 pages aloud if his colleagues do not make it smaller. To that end, a small contingent of fiscal guerillas are hoping to address the federal budget in the new year, when reinforcements will have arrived from Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Utah, and Kentucky. Until then, it’s DeMint, McCain, and Coburn attempting to hold back a red sea of pork. Their efforts are not completely futile. After requesting an earmark for the Kentucky National Guard to eradicate the most valuable cash crop in the United States, Sen. Mitch McConnell suddenly realized that he is not supposed to be spending other people’s money willy-nilly anymore, and had the earmark removed. “This is exactly what the American people said Nov. 2 they didn’t want us to do,” a chastened McConnell said. (more)