Also, see Media is not giving you the whole Mortgage Crisis story: Fannie and Freddie is Enron x 19/Microsoft Sized Monopoly/Leading Compaign Giver and Lobbyist, New York Times articles in 1999 and 2003 on the Economy, The Economy and what Big Media is not telling you..., Obama's connection with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ignored in Big Media. The Fact that Bush tried to reform Freddie and Fannie ignored in Big Media., Mortgage Crisis, and Orson Scott Card (Democrat who is also, highly critical of the free-market and capitalism) writes a powerful argument and telling piece!!! Must read!!.
$6.6 Trillion in Mortgages Were Wrapped into Mortgage-Backed Securities at Heart of Financial Crisis-"The total outstanding balance on all of the U.S. mortgages that have been incorporated into mortgage-backed securities, the financial instruments at the heart of the financial crisis, is $6.6 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve – a sum that dwarfs the $700 billion originally requested by the Treasury Department for the bailout.
The outstanding balances on these securitized mortgages accounts for 59 percent of all money now owed by Americans on home mortgages, which is $11.2 trillion, according to the Fed....Government sponsored enterprises, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, processed $4.6 trillion of the $6.6 trillion in mortgages now tied up in mortage-backed securities."
Don't pay any attention to the New York Times or if you do get some balance. See below...
Damning Phil Gramm for Financial Meltdown-"The Times finds its ideal villain for the financial market meltdown: Conservative former Sen. Phil Gramm. So why did Bill Clinton defend him?...Former Democratic President Bill Clinton hardly comes in for any blame from Lipton and Labaton, although he too defended the deregulation in a September 24 interview with Maria Bartiromo, who writes a column for BusinessWeek (hat tip Heritage Foundation).
Bartiromo: Mr. President, in 1999 you signed a bill essentially rolling back Glass-Steagall and deregulating banking. In light of what has gone on, do you regret that decision?
President Clinton: No, because it wasn't a complete deregulation at all. We still have heavy regulations and insurance on bank deposits, requirements on banks for capital and for disclosure. I thought at the time that it might lead to more stable investments and a reduced pressure on Wall Street to produce quarterly profits that were always bigger than the previous quarter. But I have really thought about this a lot. I don't see that signing that bill had anything to do with the current crisis. Indeed, one of the things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, which was much smoother than it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill.
Clinton even defended Sen. Gramm:
Bartiromo: Phil Gramm, who was then the head of the Senate Banking Committee and until recently a close economic adviser of Senator McCain, was a fierce proponent of banking deregulation. Did he sell you a bill of goods?
President Clinton: Not on this bill I don't think he did. You know, Phil Gramm and I disagreed on a lot of things, but he can't possibly be wrong about everything. On the Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it was a mistake, I'd be glad to look at the evidence. But I can't blame [the Republicans]. This wasn't something they forced me into. I really believed that given the level of oversight of banks and their ability to have more patient capital, if you made it possible for [commercial banks] to go into the investment banking business as Continental European investment banks could always do, that it might give us a more stable source of long-term investment. Yet Lipton and Labaton kept the focus on Gramm, devoting only sporadic sentences to the Clitnon administration involvement. Labaton has a history of hostility toward Republicans, particularly in his series on the failed fight to balance liberal slant at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."
