More bonuses?

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Fannie, Freddie To Pay $210M In Bonuses

(

AP) Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac plan to pay more than $210 million in bonuses through next year to give workers the incentive to stay in their jobs at the government-controlled companies.

The bonuses for more than 7,600 employees were disclosed in a letter from the companies' regulator released Friday by Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

"It's hard to see any common sense in management decisions that award hundreds of millions in bonuses when their organizations lost more than $100 billion in a year," Grassley said in a statement. "It's an insult that the bonuses were made with an infusion of cash from taxpayers."

The two companies, hobbled by skyrocketing loan defaults, were seized by regulators last fall and operate under close federal oversight with new chief executives installed by the government. Since the takeover, Fannie Mae has received $15 billion in federal aid, while Freddie Mac has received nearly $45 billion.

The companies' federal regulator, James Lockhart of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, defended the bonuses in a March 27 letter to Grassley, noting that the collapse of the company's stock prices "destroyed years of savings for many" workers. The companies' stocks now trade below $1, down from more than $60 in fall 2007.

More than 70 percent of new loans in recent months have been backed by Fannie and Freddie. They own or guarantee almost 31 million mortgages worth about $5.5 trillion, more than half of all U.S home loans.

Keeping the companies "operating at full speed was best for the housing markets and best for the economy," Lockhart wrote. "That would only be possible is we retained the Fannie and Freddie teams."

But many lawmakers have little sympathy for that argument amid a public outcry over roughly $165 million in bonuses paid out last month by bailed-out insurance giant American International Group.

Earlier this week, the House passed a bill that aims to keep bailed-out financial institutions from paying their employees hefty bonuses after lawmakers had second thoughts about their vote two weeks ago to tax the bonuses away. The bill would allow the bonuses if the Treasury Department and financial regulators determine they are not "unreasonable or excessive."

Initially after the AIG flap, President Barack Obama had said he would "do everything we can to get those bonuses back." But the White House later backed down as it worked to ensure any restrictions on bonuses didn't alienate the banks and investors needed to help clean up the financial mess.

[Carpathian McGee]

This is Marie, I just didn't feel like logging into my account.

All I have to say is:

What

The

Fuck

[candyman]

*clicks safety off of CAR-15*

so...this place have an address?

[Rev.Reverence]

This is Marie, I just didn't feel like logging into my account.

All I have to say is:

What

The

Fuck

HAHAHA! It's the same ole smoke they are blowin'

[Der Nister]

Why does this not surprise me anymore? The rich taking good care of their own.

[Destroit]

"It's an insult that the bonuses were made with an infusion of cash from taxpayers."

Ahh our wonderful Barack-infused government that keeps handing it to them and allowing it.

It's not the addicts (the rich) that are the problem, it's the enablers (our recent government lead by Barack Obama).

We stop giving them free money and they won't have shit for bonuses. Let them fall on their faces.

Giving them money is retarded, will not stop the economy from collasping, will make it worse. Handing these people money trying to save them is about as retarded as trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic as it's sinking.

*sigh* We try to give the goverment, who is obviously trying to look out for THEIR own, some sound logic/solutions and the answer they come back with is "banana creme pie".

Edited April 14, 2009 by Chernobyl

[ttogreh]

... Why do people forget that the TARP was enacted under the Bush administration? Or that Fannie and Freddie were taken over under the Bush administration under guidelines set by that administration? Why do people think that a man who has been inaugurated less than 13 weeks ago caused these problems that were years in the making?

... Oh right, they are ideologues that don't care about the facts.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

No one forgets those things.

Why do people forget that TARP was written by Geithner and the Democrats in Congress?

Why do people forget that a man who has been inaugurated less than 13 weeks ago took more Lobbyist money from Fannie and Freddy that anyone else?

Why do people forget that the Bush administration tried to get more and better over sight of Fannie and Freddie's loan programs in place to avert this crisis?

Why do people not notice that the current administration and Congress have not done anything to remedy the problems with TARP with new legislation in the last 13 weeks?

... Oh right, they are ideologues that don't care about the facts.

[ttogreh]

Oh, no. I care about the facts. Obama and McCain were not all that different. They both voted for TARP, after all. However, the argument that the Bush administration actually tried to get the foxes out of the henhouse does nothing to change the fact that they failed. They had six years, 2,191 days, to fix this problem when they had House and Senate majorities.

They didn't.

Gaf, trying to avert a problem and failing when you had all the tools to do the job right is worse than doing nothing at all.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

To try and fail is worse than not actually trying at all?

[ttogreh]

No, to try and fail is not worse than doing nothing at all. To fail when you saw the problem, knew what the solution was, and had the ability to stop it is worse than doing nothing at all.

Bush is like a fireman who killed someone in a burning building with his axe while trying to break down a door to save that same person. It would have been better if he had just stayed at the firehouse.

[Rev.Reverence]

No, to try and fail is not worse than doing nothing at all. To fail when you saw the problem, knew what the solution was, and had the ability to stop it is worse than doing nothing at all.

Bush is like a fireman who killed someone in a burning building with his axe while trying to break down a door to save that same person. It would have been better if he had just stayed at the firehouse.

[candyman]

No, to try and fail is not worse than doing nothing at all. To fail when you saw the problem, knew what the solution was, and had the ability to stop it is worse than doing nothing at all.

Bush is like a fireman who killed someone in a burning building with his axe while trying to break down a door to save that same person. It would have been better if he had just stayed at the firehouse.

Umm, it sounds like those first two statements conflict. The first says that if you try and fail it is better then doing nothing. The second then says that trying and failing is worse than doing nothing. Yeah, there have been many times when a solution existed for a problem, but being president doesn't always mean that applying the solution is going to be any easier...a solution does not always work even if it is the right one.

I also love how you use the fireman thing...we all know that fighting a fire is easy as hell and that there is a common soltion to it that should be easily applied in every situation.

Also, if Kerry had been in office could I say that seeing an "enemy" and shooting your grenade launcher into the water directly in front of you causing injury to yourself was at least a good try? He at least tried to add some spark to the boring patrols by giving himself purple hearts...

[Rev.Reverence]

Umm, it sounds like those first two statements conflict. The first says that if you try and fail it is better then doing nothing. The second then says that trying and failing is worse than doing nothing. Yeah, there have been many times when a solution existed for a problem, but being president doesn't always mean that applying the solution is going to be any easier...a solution does not always work even if it is the right one.

I also love how you use the fireman thing...we all know that fighting a fire is easy as hell and that there is a common soltion to it that should be easily applied in every situation.

Also, if Kerry had been in office could I say that seeing an "enemy" and shooting your grenade launcher into the water directly in front of you causing injury to yourself was at least a good try? He at least tried to add some spark to the boring patrols by giving himself purple hearts...

You could not be further from correct.

[candyman]

You could not be further from correct.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.

[Rev.Reverence]

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.

Well...at least you are consistent

[candyman]

Well...at least you are consistent

We really need a sarcasm font...and if you don't get it the font reaches out, grabs your throat, and shakes the crap out of you...

[ttogreh]

Candyman, it's not a matter of trying and failing. It is a matter of just doing it, and screwing up so badly that historians say Bush in the same breath as Ulysses S. Grant.

Seriously, he had transnational support and an domestic entire public behind him after the attacks of September 11, 2001. He had majorities in both houses of congress, and a sympathetic supreme court. What did he do with it?

You know what he did with it.

Gaf knows what he did with it.

Everybody else knows what he did with it. And yet Gaf, Cher, and yourself continue to apologize for the man. I am pointing out that the emperor is naked, and you three are billing Obama for the cost of Bush's pants.

[candyman]

Candyman, it's not a matter of trying and failing. It is a matter of just doing it, and screwing up so badly that historians say Bush in the same breath as Ulysses S. Grant.

Seriously, he had transnational support and an domestic entire public behind him after the attacks of September 11, 2001. He had majorities in both houses of congress, and a sympathetic supreme court. What did he do with it?

You know what he did with it.

Gaf knows what he did with it.

Everybody else knows what he did with it. And yet Gaf, Cher, and yourself continue to apologize for the man. I am pointing out that the emperor is naked, and you three are billing Obama for the cost of Bush's pants.

I would honeslty say that if Bush was worse than anyone it would be Kennedy...except Bush wasn't nearly the pervert and sickly man that John was...nor did Bush screw up foreign relations as badly. Yes, Bush did mess up but the only reason I stand up for his is that it has gone too far and has become stupid. Just like people took the very little good that Kennedy did and ignored the horrible, stupid mistakes...so they now take Bush's mistakes and ignore anything good he did.

I hate them all with a passion...but if you are going to make an ass out of someone, in this case Bush, then you and all the others should try as hard as possible to not take it back to the 5th grade...I have never seen so much childish behavior as I have with anti-Bush people.

Maybe it is time for some of them to...move on?

Oh and why is it ok to say that all the stuff now is the fault of Bush, you will keep saying it for years too, and it was not ok to blame some problems in the days of Bush on other presidents? Is it because of the race difference or because anti-Bush people have such excellent views of their colons?

[ttogreh]

Oh, I don't ignore that Bush inherited a slew of problems that were deferred by the Clinton administration, the foremost being the mortgage mess. However, if there ever was a better example of everything the man touched turning to shit short of what King John of England experienced, I don't know what it is.

I simply am railing against the false assertion that Obama is ruining the economy, or worse, that the economy is in such bad shape because of what Obama has done in the last less than 13 weeks.

I mean if there ever was a better example of manic denial of the facts, I don't know what it would be.

[Oh_My_Goth]

I want my bonus