By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
As a Realtor in Orange County, California, Gary Thomas lives at the epicenter of the last decade’s epic housing boom and bust that is only now beginning to release the economy from its withering grip.
Fannie Mae will return nearly $59 billion to taxpayers after experiencing its best-ever profits last quarter, the mortgage giant announced Thursday.
Have you heard about a nation so in debt, it is seizing assets from the bank accounts of private citizens? On the other side of the world, a modern-day Greek tragedy is taking place now on the island of Cyprus that has implication here at home.
President Obama outright demagogued his way to re-election and more government control over the economy by blaming the free market for the 2008 financial crisis. Now the administration is pushing banks to make more home loans to borrowers with weaker credit by using government programs to insure them against default, at a time when the federal government is already underwriting 90 percent of mortgages.
There is evidently no idea bad enough and no failure severe enough to stop the government from trying it once again. In myopia remarkable even by abysmal government standards, the White House is pushing for policies that fueled the housing bubble, which burst a mere five years ago.
Fannie Mae, the mortgage finance giant that was bailed out by the federal government five years ago, posted in 2012 its first annual profit since before the housing crisis and the largest in company history.
President Obama and Congress will not solve America's problems unless the people force them to. Washington is America's problem. We are the solution.
It is estimated that up to a quarter of all American households still owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Many of these people have been able to refinance their home loans with much lower interest rates, but that does not solve the problem because they have a balance sheet problem rather than a cash-flow problem.
Despite the claim that it is “protecting consumers from irresponsible mortgage lenders,” the new Qualified Mortgage rule finalized in January by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau turns out to be simply another and more direct way for the government to keep mortgage underwriting standards low. This sets the country up for a repetition of the mortgage meltdown of 2007 and 2008.
The U.S. banking industry suffered two big hits Monday stemming from the collapse of the housing bubble, with 10 banks and mortgage lenders agreeing to pay $8.5 billion in a settlement with federal regulators, while Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America agreed to a separate settlement with Fannie Mae over bad housing loans that its controversial lending subsidiary sold to the federal housing finance giant.
You may have been reading how the Federal Reserve has been buying huge quantities -- almost a trillion dollars' worth -- of "mortgage-backed securities" (MBS).
Average U.S. rates on fixed mortgages fell this week near record lows, providing more incentive for Americans to buy homes and refinance.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday for the first time announced a new target of 6.5 percent unemployment for the U.S. economy — down from the current 7.7. percent — and started an additional easing program aimed at achieving that goal.
Median pay for nearly 2,000 senior managers at government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exceeded $200,000 last year, according to a new government report released Monday.
Average U.S. rates on fixed mortgages ticked up this week just slightly above record lows, keeping home-buying and refinancing attractive to consumers.
