McCain Blasts Wall Street Failure, Neglects To Mention His Adviser Helped Cause It

By ANN SANNER, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 49 minutes ago
A top Hillary Rodham Clinton fundraiser threw her support behind Republican John McCain on Wednesday, saying he will lead the country in a centrist fashion and accusing the Democrats of becoming too extreme.
"I believe that Barack Obama, with MoveOn.org and Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean, has taken the Democratic Party ? and they will continue to ? too far to the left," Lynn Forester de Rothschild said. "I'm not comfortable there."
Rothschild is also a member of the Democratic National Committee's Platform Committee. She said she would be stepping down from her position on the committee but will not switch political parties.
She praised McCain for working with Democrats to pass legislation and for standing up to President Bush on the Iraq war.
"I just ask, who has Barack Obama ever stood up to? And that troubles me a lot," she said.
Rothschild also disputed Obama's argument that a McCain administration would be an extension of Bush's presidency. Democrats cite McCain's own account of having voted in support of Bush's policies 90 percent of the time.
She said the Arizona senator has broken with Bush to support funding for stem-cell research and to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
"It is the classic cheap shot. Just not true," she said.
Rothschild said she was also excited by the prospect of a woman being in the White House, even though she and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin disagree on issues. The Alaska governor opposes abortion except in the case of a threat to the mother's life. Rothschild said she supports abortion rights.
"I believe that the McCain-Palin government will be a centrist government," Rothschild said. "It's not going to be an ideological government."
Rothschild is a member of the DNC's Democrats Abroad chapter and splits her time living in London and New York. She was one of Clinton's top fundraisers, bringing in more than $100,000 for her presidential campaign. She built a multimillion-dollar telecommunications company before marrying international banker Sir Evelyn de Rothschild.
Rothschild said she has not discussed her support for McCain with Clinton.
"I'm sure she is not pleased with what I'm doing today," she said. "But you know what? I have to do what I believe in."

20th century history 101:

The Federal Reserve is a private banking cartel, not part of the Federal Government.

The same criminals that gave us the Federal Reserve, gave us the 16th Amendment to the (often disregarded) Constitution, The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and ultimately the United Nations.

"The main purpose of the Council on Foreign Relations is promoting the disarmament of U.S. sovereignty and national independence and submergence into an all powerful, one world government." - Admiral Chester Ward - Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy

"The most powerful clique in these (CFR) groups have one objective in common: they want to bring about the surrender of the sovereignty and the national independence of the U.S. They want to end national boundaries and racial and ethnic loyalties supposedly to increase business and ensure world peace. What they strive for would inevitably lead to dictatorship and loss of freedoms by the people. The CFR was founded for "the purpose of promoting disarmament and submergence of U.S. sovereignty and national independence into an all-powerful one-world government." - Harpers, July l958

McCain and both Obamas are CFR, Biden is CFR

If you do not know they are, then you are sadly uninformed go to www.trueworldhistory.info and watch the first 2 videos?

We are witnessing the greatest consolidation of power in history. So what is the solution? Let's elect the only true candidate before us, Dr. Ron Paul. Unlike the others, he does not bow to conform to the Communist views of the power elite, aka the private Federal Reserve System, The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and the United Nations (founded by Communists for the proliferation of one world government, aka Globalization or New World Order). Unfortunately, our servant government has become the master, and "We the People" are now "We the Serfs". Let's join forces with Dr. Paul and give this country the dose of medicine it really needs. Abolish the Fed, NAFTA, the UN, WTO and let truly free markets and FREEDOM reign supreme! Write in Ron Paul if you value Liberty.

www.trueworldhistory.info
www.campaignforliberty.com

Um, look at this and tell me that it was Grahm. you liberals have a VERY narrow view, just like your minds

On May 23, 2006, as a jury in Houston deliberated the case against top Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, a little-known regulatory agency in Washington, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), released a study with the dryly bureaucratic title "Report of the Special Examination of Fannie Mae." The document received far less attention than the news from Enron, but its conclusions were stunning. In meticulous detail, it outlined a culture of corruption at the Federal National Mortgage Association ? better known as Fannie Mae ? that rivals the most serious corporate scandals in recent years. In this case, however, the main players are Washington insiders ? some of them prominent veterans of the Clinton administration ? and the scandal's effects could ripple through Congress for years.

Fannie Mae is the biggest single source of money for mortgages in the United States. From 1998 to 2004, the years covered by the OFHEO investigation, it was headed by former Clinton budget director Franklin Raines, whose top management team included former Clinton Justice Department official Jamie Gorelick, sometimes mentioned as a future attorney general in a Democratic administration. During that period, the report says, Raines and his team grossly overstated Fannie Mae's earnings ? to the tune of $10.6 billion ? for the purpose of paying themselves big bonuses. "By deliberately and intentionally manipulating accounting to hit earnings targets," the report says, "senior management maximized the bonuses and other executive compensation they received, at the expense of shareholders."

In doing so, the report says, Raines and his team steered Fannie Mae far afield from its original mission, transforming it from a stable business into a risky one. Fannie Mae has its roots in the New Deal, when it was established to increase the amount of money available for mortgages. Over the years, its main business has been to issue debt and then use the proceeds to buy mortgages from lenders, allowing those lenders to give out new mortgages. Originally a government agency, Fannie Mae went private in 1968, with the goal of "increasing the availability and affordability of homeownership for low-, moderate-, and middle-income Americans," according to its mission statement.

But Fannie Mae is not just any private institution. It is congressionally chartered, meaning its existence is established in law, it does not have to pay state and local income taxes, and it is not subject to bankruptcy laws. It can borrow money at a lower rate than anyone else except the federal government itself. Given all that, there is a public perception that Fannie Mae is a rock-solid government institution. "There is an implied guarantee," says Sen. John Sununu, a member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee who has sponsored legislation to reform Fannie Mae. "Investors think they are the next best thing to Treasuries."...

According to the report, Raines became obsessed with propping up Fannie Mae's earnings per share, or EPS, even if he had to use creative accounting to make it happen. Raines set a series of increasingly higher EPS goals that, if met, would trigger bonuses for the executive team that far surpassed what they received in salary....

It worked. Fannie Mae met its EPS goals, and Raines rewarded his top executives ? and most of all himself ? with unheard-of amounts of money.

Even though his salary never topped $1 million, Raines's total compensation shot from $6.48 million in 1998 to $8.52 million in 1999, to $13.89 million in 2000, to $18.86 million in 2001, to $18.20 million in 2002, to $24.15 million in 2003, all on the strength of EPS bonuses. Investigators found that of the $90.12 million Raines was paid in that six-year period, more than $52 million came from EPS bonuses.

Gorelick's situation was similar. OFHEO found that she took home $26.46 million in the period from 1998 to 2002 (she left in that year, so she wasn't there for the entire period under investigation). Of that figure, nearly $15 million came from EPS bonuses.

Of course, it wasn't legit. "Fannie Mae reported extremely smooth profit growth and hit announced targets for earnings per share precisely each quarter," the OFHEO report says. "Those achievements were illusions deliberately and systematically created by [Fannie Mae's] senior management with the aid of inappropriate accounting and improper earnings management."

In other words, they cooked the books. And to make matters worse, according to OFHEO, when regulators began to catch on to what was happening, Raines and his team then "sought to interfere" with the OFHEO investigation by trying to get Congress to start up a separate probe of OFHEO. Fannie Mae also lobbied Congress to cut OFHEO's funds unless it got rid of the top official in charge of investigating Fannie Mae.

How about this? do the names look familiar? they should, this is Obamas econimic advisors. Also, all the "experts" Obama is using to form his opinions, where do they come from? The CLINTON YEARS, boy that is change isn't it
On May 23, 2006, as a jury in Houston deliberated the case against top Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, a little-known regulatory agency in Washington, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), released a study with the dryly bureaucratic title "Report of the Special Examination of Fannie Mae." The document received far less attention than the news from Enron, but its conclusions were stunning. In meticulous detail, it outlined a culture of corruption at the Federal National Mortgage Association ? better known as Fannie Mae ? that rivals the most serious corporate scandals in recent years. In this case, however, the main players are Washington insiders ? some of them prominent veterans of the Clinton administration ? and the scandal's effects could ripple through Congress for years.

Fannie Mae is the biggest single source of money for mortgages in the United States. From 1998 to 2004, the years covered by the OFHEO investigation, it was headed by former Clinton budget director Franklin Raines, whose top management team included former Clinton Justice Department official Jamie Gorelick, sometimes mentioned as a future attorney general in a Democratic administration. During that period, the report says, Raines and his team grossly overstated Fannie Mae's earnings ? to the tune of $10.6 billion ? for the purpose of paying themselves big bonuses. "By deliberately and intentionally manipulating accounting to hit earnings targets," the report says, "senior management maximized the bonuses and other executive compensation they received, at the expense of shareholders."

In doing so, the report says, Raines and his team steered Fannie Mae far afield from its original mission, transforming it from a stable business into a risky one. Fannie Mae has its roots in the New Deal, when it was established to increase the amount of money available for mortgages. Over the years, its main business has been to issue debt and then use the proceeds to buy mortgages from lenders, allowing those lenders to give out new mortgages. Originally a government agency, Fannie Mae went private in 1968, with the goal of "increasing the availability and affordability of homeownership for low-, moderate-, and middle-income Americans," according to its mission statement.

But Fannie Mae is not just any private institution. It is congressionally chartered, meaning its existence is established in law, it does not have to pay state and local income taxes, and it is not subject to bankruptcy laws. It can borrow money at a lower rate than anyone else except the federal government itself. Given all that, there is a public perception that Fannie Mae is a rock-solid government institution. "There is an implied guarantee," says Sen. John Sununu, a member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee who has sponsored legislation to reform Fannie Mae. "Investors think they are the next best thing to Treasuries."...

According to the report, Raines became obsessed with propping up Fannie Mae's earnings per share, or EPS, even if he had to use creative accounting to make it happen. Raines set a series of increasingly higher EPS goals that, if met, would trigger bonuses for the executive team that far surpassed what they received in salary....

It worked. Fannie Mae met its EPS goals, and Raines rewarded his top executives ? and most of all himself ? with unheard-of amounts of money.

Even though his salary never topped $1 million, Raines's total compensation shot from $6.48 million in 1998 to $8.52 million in 1999, to $13.89 million in 2000, to $18.86 million in 2001, to $18.20 million in 2002, to $24.15 million in 2003, all on the strength of EPS bonuses. Investigators found that of the $90.12 million Raines was paid in that six-year period, more than $52 million came from EPS bonuses.

Gorelick's situation was similar. OFHEO found that she took home $26.46 million in the period from 1998 to 2002 (she left in that year, so she wasn't there for the entire period under investigation). Of that figure, nearly $15 million came from EPS bonuses.

Of course, it wasn't legit. "Fannie Mae reported extremely smooth profit growth and hit announced targets for earnings per share precisely each quarter," the OFHEO report says. "Those achievements were illusions deliberately and systematically created by [Fannie Mae's] senior management with the aid of inappropriate accounting and improper earnings management."

In other words, they cooked the books. And to make matters worse, according to OFHEO, when regulators began to catch on to what was happening, Raines and his team then "sought to interfere" with the OFHEO investigation by trying to get Congress to start up a separate probe of OFHEO. Fannie Mae also lobbied Congress to cut OFHEO's funds unless it got rid of the top official in charge of investigating Fannie Mae.

I doubt that Gramm was ever out of McCain's good graces, they just temporarily kept him out of sight for a while until the dust settled from that impolitic comment. Everything is politics with these guys, and bad politics, at that. Not at all surprising, their cynicism is unbounded.

mcain and palin are another 4 years of corrupt republican
cons---enough already!!

When Karl Rove and Alan Greenspan BOTH dump on McCain you have to conclude that the Republicans don't want to clean up after their own parade. They would rather have the Democrats do all the heavy lifting.

When catching a view of the "crowd" at the McC or Palin "rally's" ..trying to figure out what are these folks smoking/choking on for surely they MUST be dimwitted if they swallowing the nonsense spewed by the GOP team..Truly bizarre and UNFANTHOMABLE that this nation is willingly being swayed by the blantant , outrageous LIES these folks are peddling..They are NOT a CHANGE and is deranged thinking only that goes along with 'em !!

We must ask ourselves this.

How is this race even close, how people, McCain by his own claims considers himself a foot soldier in the Reagan army remember people.

These are the only promises that Republicans have made to the American public for the past 25 years, it would be insane to expect any different.

So, what have we gotten in a quarter of a century.

1.) Smaller Government (ie deregulation of the free markets.)

2.) Strong aggressive and muscular foreign policy (ie Bush Doctrine)

3.) Constitutional adherence
(ie Roe vs. Wade/ Patriot Act)

McOnomics
McCain - Graham economic polices

McMilitary
McCain - Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran
Palin potential conflict with Russia over Georgia

McConstitution
McCain - will only appoint (x) type of Justices based on his preconcieved constitutional insight ALONE.

The 7 percent people who feel that this is the best approach to government, need absolutely nothing from government, but they claim to speak for the other 93 percent.

What is there to Conserve about this, and ask yourself why would you want to conserve this.

1.) Credit default swaps - if you controlled millions in the financial markets.

2.) Bush Doctrine - If you are a military contractor, oil exec, or a producer within the military industrial complex (ie Carlyle Group)

3.) Patriot Act
If you live every moment of everyday scared to death and think that a government entity can protect you if they know everything about your life.

Those are not the things which makes this country great, and if they somehow are now, I think like minded American should consider forming a new colony

That will be the only way that the ideals that this country was founded on will survive.

David, Your argument is right in the bullseye. If only the sound-bite media, in the coming week, would Damm Gramm and lay bare his McLock on the election.

Finally! Proof Positive the Republican gang is not able to even help the people they owe the most to -- big business. I hope everyone is watching. The fact that the Republican party, with the able assistance of Phil Gramm and George Bush has accomplished what Osama Bin Laden couldn't -- bringing the US economy to it's knees.

time to start building the Ark. Again! Forest Gump

all aboard to Mars

or the moon

on second thought... its been bought by Bush as his new Ranch

Ha Ha

While it is true the Gramm's bill has cause some of the problems, the real problems are much deeper.
Since the 1913 passage of the Federal Reserve Act we have had an essentially fraudulent banking system. The fractional reserve banking system is pure fraud. The Fed is a privately owned cartel that was unconstitutionally given the power to create money out of nothing. Its policy of credit expansion has caused all of the inflation we have seen since 1913, it caused the great depression and made it last for 18 years, it has caused businesses to "export" jobs by raising the cost of labor and capital here in the States.
In the present crises, all of the mischief of Freddie, Fannie, Lehman, et al would have been impossible without the "easy money" policies of the Fed.
The Fed, and all central banks worldwide, should be abolished.
Only the free market can establish sound, honest money. Legal tender laws should be repealed. Governments should be prohibited from issuing paper money or interfering in any way with the people's choice of currency.
Then, and ONLY then, will we avoid this sort of crisis.
For more information, see
www.mises.org

LOL, McBush is such an idiot its almost comical. What a joke. Surely no one with any common sense is takign this idiot seriously.

Jiff
www.datools.net.tc

All these insanities from the McCain camp, atleast a dozen of them every single day , but still, the race between him and Obama is 50/50...
And I am not saying I believe everything I read, but if only 10% of the things I read is true, you guys should have elected Obama with 80+% majority.

But 50/50???? After the way republicans act, tactics they are using?? etc..

I am sorry, but this info alone makes it very clear to me that America is going down and noone can help,not even a honest and selfless Obama, unfortunately...

I only wish we would have such an easy elections here in Europe :(

I don't get it; we must have some way of bringing charges against the people involved some of this stuff is criminal. I'm not naive I know it the government and no matter how many times we get screwed and handed the bill the people at the top have benefited from or will not be hurt and friends have benefited. We have to have some legal course of action we pay them to do a good job and if they worked in the private sector (at the bottom with us) they would be crucified and fired and possibly face jail time not the slap on the wrist and get to keep the ill gotten gains. So time to get the buck stops here attitude going again. How do we do it.

His adviser caused it? What a narrow-minded view of reality. What caused this was corporate greed and not deregulation. What these firms did was bet that:

1. The subprime borrowers could never afford their home and the ones who did would have to sacrifice everything to keep it
2. Those who couldn't afford the higher interest rates would end up being evicted and in the process their home would have increased in value due to the growth in real estate being experienced at the time
3. If all else fails, Uncle Sam will bail them out

As you'll notice, the rich aren't jumping from windows since they almost all have golden parachutes. You don't work at one of these firms unless you're sitting on some personal wealth. In the meantime, the American Taxpayer and poor wishing to be homeowners are all suffering.

These people are greedy vampires sucking the life out of the American people.

This article is a pure and simple outright lie. The amendments were written by the Democrats along with Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan with the guarantee that they, Congress, would pass the bill and Clinton would sign it. Funny how you neglect to mention this all happened under a Democrat administration. It's great how you skew the facts and try to tie it to McCain. Your rag is a piece of crap and can't be trusted.

Wish More People Had Debated Ron Paul Rather Than Dismissed Him.

Debate Is The Distillation Of Reality.

Suffer The Fools For Their Apathy And Ignorance.

I cannot understand why Obama does not have adds attacking McCain and the Republicans for the Gramm-Bililey Bill that opened Pandora's box for the money grabbing financiers to defraud the system of trillions of dollars and put our economy and retirement accounts at risk. If you look at who voted for it in the Senate, it was virtually all Republicans. Talk about a threat to national security - the economy is by far the biggest threat. You can blame all the lenders, underwriters and consumers but it would not have been possible without that legal change. And I got a letter from McCain asking for money for "legal and accounting" expenses so he could circumvent the campaign spending guidelines that he criticizes Obama for backing out on. When I studied economics as an undergrad, "transfer payments" were understood to be wealth transfers from the wealthier to the poor. Have we turned the tables now.

I'm going to keep saying this until it sinks in. The American population, on average, as a whole, reads, writes and comprehends at an 8th Grade Level. The Republicans know that they are dealing with a bunch of 14 year old's, it's easy to lie to them. That is how they were able to destroy this Country in only 8 years. Our educational system, for the majority of us, is a joke. Analytical thought is uncommon, as a result we have the Patriot Act (a law that no congressman had read before voting on it) a national debt of such magnitude that all China has to do is start dumping dollars and we turn into a third-world-nation overnight. As our financial institutions fail and the dollar plummets, don't think for one minute that the holders of the "Almighty Dollar" won't cut their losses and start dumping enmass. The Republicans hate Government, they think it is the problem (re: to much regulation) now why would you put people who hate Government and regulations in charge of the Government? What do you think will happen? Do you see the cause and effect? Have IQ's dropped 20 points in the last eight years?

The present Republican Administration has looted the treasury, gutted our regulatory agencies such as the FDA,SEC,EPA, OMB, the Civil Rights Division and many other agencies, and people act surprised when greed and unfettered, unrestrained, unregulated capitalism takes over. Do you remember the phrase.."let the buyer beware" and purchasing a "pig-in-a-poke" (sans lipstick)?

Does anybody remember the Keating Five and John McCains' roll in the biggest Savings and Loan failure in the history of the United States? Has anyone noticed that John McCains' son "Andrew McCain", sat on the boards of Silver State Bank and of its parent, Silver State Bancorp, and was also a member of the bank's audit committee, and that he resigned from everything, 30 days before the Bank was shut down by federal regulators? Can you say "like father like son"?

DO YOU GET THE PICTURE? EVEN RAY CHARLES COULD SEE THIS, AND STEVIE DOESN'T HAVE TO WONDER ANYMORE!

......OBAMA/BIDEN '08

The name of the bill "Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act" is self explanatory. No lies here.

Speaking of golden parachutes: Jamie Gorelick got one from Fannie Mae.

Dems have a lot of responsibility in this current economic mess.

obama tried to reward a powerful contributor (to his campaign) of Freddie/Fannie with a position on his vp search committee, until it was discovered that the contributor himself was benefiting from sweetheart mortgage dealing at countryside. Go figure. Obama tries to fool as many people as he can, but his time is running out. Next post - how the rest of wall street contributed to obama's campaign...

Billy Mac is a retard.