Whether you are a Repub or a Dem, this has got to bother you

[Collier11]

A video about how Barney Frank and others ignored warnings about the economy all the way back to 01'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM&NR=1

[IBleedCrimson]

how barney frank gets reelected every term is beyond me. Guy is frighteningly ideological and incompetent

[soonerscuba]

If makes you feel better to blame a sector-wide problem on a House Rep, knock yourself out. I think he was shortsighted, probably involved, but people make mistakes, and from everything I could tell, at least superficially he thought he was doing some amount of good. I find it interesting that Alan Greenspan didn't get the same skewering, despite a substantially larger role in the mess, same logic applies to him though, nobody can tell the future (save Tebow).

Also interesting is watching Republicans claim that they were in favor of financial regulatory bodies. I think a far more likely chain of events would have been that an agency would have created a far more favorable environment in regards to deregulation of financial markets. I have yet to see the Bush administration really succeed at anything other than the Afghanistan campaign, I have no reason to believe they would have handled anything better if they got even more of what they wanted 2002-2006.

[OklahomaTuba]

Heh.

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.
Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates. ...

The proposal is the opening act in one of the biggest and most significant lobbying battles of the Congressional session. ...

''The current regulator does not have the tools, or the mandate, to adequately regulate these enterprises,'' Mr. Oxley said at the hearing. ''We have seen in recent months that mismanagement and questionable accounting practices went largely unnoticed by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight,'' the independent agency that now regulates the companies. ...

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E3D6123BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B 63&scp=1&sq="barney+frank"&st=nyt

[SoonerStormchaser]

Bawney Fwank is a ****ing moron!

[SouthFortySooner]

He prob. to busy watching his backside.

[TUSooner]

If this was supposed to make me think less of Mr. Frank, it's not working (because I could hardly think less of him already).

[VeeJay]

He prob. to busy watching his backside.

Actually, I think he's probably watching someone else's backside, if ya get my drift....