Top 25 Scum Sucking Leaches (not under water but should be)

DRC Archive General Saltwater Discussion
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[center]We all love to blame someone and this is a who’s who of scum sucking leaches.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350,00.html

Although I think they could add many more top notch crooks they choose to keep it current. It could easily be called “The top 100 Scum Sucking Leaches that ultimately lead to the demise of the US economy and the instability of wall street.” Least we forget Former Enron greats Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, The quality accounting firm Arthur Andersen, WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers and CFO Bernard Ebbers, Halliburton former CEO, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and many more… The list could easily hit 100

I can’t believe educated economist don’t believe it could happen again - The Great Depression

[/center]

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Barney Frank and his former boi-toi Herb Moses should really be at the head of the line, IMO. If you want to get to the genesis of the housing/sub-prime debacle, start looking there.

And in case you’re not sure who Barney Frank is, or his history as a US Representative, just google the words “gay prostitution ring” along with his name.

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I don’t see him being at the top of the list, but defiantly in the top 100. Barney represents Massachusetts’s 4th congressional district since 1981.

opposed a Bush administration proposal for transferring oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from Congress and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to a new agency that would be created within the Treasury Department. The proposal reflected the administration's belief that Congress "neither has the tools, nor the stature" for adequate oversight. Frank stated, "These two entities...are not facing any kind of financial crisis.......... The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing
I think he was in over his head and didn't want his parents to find out he was jerking one off. More likely he was playing the market (housing and/or wall street). But even this change was after the problem was out of control (2008). Heck most of the policies that are linked to the problem were based on racial tension at the end of the seventies. These issues started to surface and evolve before he was in congress as far back the Carter "error"(pronounced era :P )

http://www.federalreserve.gov/dcca/cra/ circa 1977 revised in 2005

Although this article is titled Frank’s fingerprints are all over the financial fiasco Little of the policies are directly created by him. They were in place before him, he just opposed oversight of two crumbling companies that needed reining in.
This issue arose in his hometown before he was in congress. The laws or rules that followed were not his but a reaction by the government (specifically the Federal Reserve) to end a racial pattern of lending.

The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to “meet the credit needs” of “low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods.” Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans…All this was justified as a means of increasing homeownership among minorities and the poor. Affirmative-action policies trumped sound business practices. A manual issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston advised mortgage lenders to disregard financial common sense. “Lack of credit history should not be seen as a negative factor,” the Fed’s guidelines instructed. Lenders were directed to accept welfare payments and unemployment benefits as “valid income sources” to qualify for a mortgage. Failure to comply could mean a lawsuit.

So congress/federal reserve as a whole made the policy and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took these guideline too new levels of stupid business practices. Now he did swear that they were sound and that the government should remain hands off. But when has the opinion of one member of congress dictate the policy of the government? Would they not have an outside accounting firm verifying Fannie and Freddie’s numbers? (Arther Anderson no doubt) If all your advisers say this will ruin the ecomony and you still fail to act is that the the puppets fault or the Bush at the wheel? (Actually Bush was a puppet, I blame Chaney and move to place him at the top of the list) (Google “Halliburton” and Improperly booked $100 million in annual construction cost overruns before customers agreed to pay for them.) This was a warm up for the wammie we now face.
Are the congressional committees made of one member or are they made up of many pompous idiots who together screw us?

He did have some LGBT issues and openly pushed that agenda. Had he been caught in a scandal with a female prostitution ring little would have been heard.

after an initial encounter in which he paid Steve Gobie $80 for sex, the Congressman says he tried to lift the younger man out of drugs and prostitution by hiring him to run errands. He wrote letters to Gobie's probation officer and paid his psychiatric bills. He allowed Gobie the use of a car and sometimes his apartment when he was out of town.
Some would say (with the right spin) he was saving the guy from destroying himself and was taken advantage of..

Did I miss something?

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[quote=“a1amap, post:3, topic:1160”]
Did I miss something?[/quote]

Yup.

Fox News - Friday, October 03, 2008

WASHINGTON — Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.

So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.

Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank’s relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.

Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.

“It’s absolutely a conflict,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?

“If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have - or at least what’s not in the stock market - that this would be considered germane,” added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. “But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard.”

A top GOP House aide agreed.

“C’mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?” the aide told FOX News. “No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank’s political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley’s wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain’s wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation’s housing and banking laws.”

Frank’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Frank met Moses in 1987, the same year he became the first openly gay member of Congress.

“I am the only member of the congressional gay spouse caucus,” Moses wrote in the Washington Post in 1991. “On Capitol Hill, Barney always introduces me as his lover.”

The two lived together in a Washington home until they broke up in 1998, a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie Mae, where he was the assistant director of product initiatives. According to National Mortgage News, Moses “helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs.”

Critics say such programs led to the mortgage meltdown that prompted last month’s government takeover of Fannie Mae and its financial cousin, Freddie Mac. The giant firms are blamed for spreading bad mortgages throughout the private financial sector.

Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants. In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively.

Three years later, President Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to impose a new regulation on Fannie, but was thwarted by Frank. Clinton now blames such Democrats for planting the seeds of today’s economic crisis.

“I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Clinton said recently.

Bill Sammon is FOX News’ Washington Deputy Managing Editor.

As for an independent firm “checking the books”, Enron’s books were regularly checked, too. So was Maddof’s. Hell, S&P rubberstamped financial this toxic waste with A+ ratings for years. Why? Because S&P is paid to both rate and provide ratings. So, Bank A pays S&P to rate their toxic waste bonds and Bank B also pays S&P for the ability to utilize the ratings they just generated on Bank A’s bonds. S&P really has an internal conflict of interest in the way they do business.

ut I was somewhat focused on the housing/mortgage situation, which kicked this all into gear. And as I said, if you want to get to the genesis of the housing/sub-prime debacle, you’ll consistantly find Barney at the heart of it.

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I was being sarcastic about the independent auditing. Hence Arther Anderson who audited Enron’s books.

The accounting and the ratings issues are the epicenter of the problems with every instance of fraud.

I didn’t see/hear about the Boy friend issue. I remember the gay prostitution ring. The rules or laws that Frank’s would propose would have to clear a committee and then reach the floor to be voted on. Now I know rule changes could be tabled in committee and since he was a powerful congressman a lot could have been ditched there but no one cried foul? Even in 2005 when presidential advisers were suggesting that Fannie and Freddie were insolvent who did nothing? One man may be thinking with the wrong head but were everyone else waiting for there turn?

Edit - As to Clinton’s 20/20 revelation; This economy started to crumble towards the end of his watch. Bush getting us into 2 wars probably stayed off the recession for 2 more years. If you are stone walled and its important stand up in congress and get a vote on TV if they won’t work together for the benefit of the country then embarrass them to do the right thing. The worse thing for getting reelected is people knowing what you did while in office.
Also no riders on bills. Each bill voted separately.

I know it will never happen but I feel with the availability of the internet to everyone (Library for those without computers at home); at what point will we see everything that hits a committee? I know some are considered top secret but they screw around too much to not have independent oversight (the American People). I figure there are enough watchdogs groups out there that will yell when something gets tabled that’s important and then I can take notice. It would be nice to see whats going on before it gets way out of hand.

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[quote=“a1amap, post:5, topic:1160”]
Now I know rule changes could be tabled in committee and since he was a powerful congressman a lot could have been ditched there but no one cried foul?[/quote]

Who? Our media? Cover something like this? Point the finger at our only openly gay Representative?

[quote=“a1amap, post:5, topic:1160”]
Even in 2005 when presidential advisers were suggesting that Fannie and Freddie were insolvent who did nothing?[/quote]

Those same presidential advisers were behind this 2003 proposal that you brought up:

opposed a Bush administration proposal for transferring oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from Congress and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to a new agency that would be created within the Treasury Department. The proposal reflected the administration's belief that Congress "neither has the tools, nor the stature" for adequate oversight. Frank stated, "These two entities...are not facing any kind of financial crisis.......... The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing

Again, the Hon. B. Frank opposing a proposal that possibly would have brought some of this crap into the light.

Don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. I’m not defending Bush (or his staff). They havetheir own share of the blame, as well.

And I understand what you’re saying about watchdog groups. Unfortunately, they each have their own agendas as well.

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[quote=“a1amap, post:5, topic:1160”]
I was being sarcastic about the independent auditing. Hence Arther Anderson who audited Enron’s books.[/quote]

I know that. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Actually, I’m moving Obama to the head of my line - for his ‘most excellent’ stimulus plan, which many think will not work.

The Rata Die is the number of days from 1 January AD 1 in the proleptic Gregorian calendar. For today, February 13, 2009, the Rata Die is 733451. Basically, it’s the amount of days since Jesus was born.

Now, back to the stimulus plan. Currently, Congress is looking at a $789 billion plan, at the behest of our newest moron president. If you take the Rata Die and multiply it by $1,000,000, you get the amount of $733,451,000,000. What that means is that if you started at the birth of Christ and spent $1,000,000 per day, you still would not have spent the amount Obama wants to spend trying to mop up this mess.

Just imagine how nice a tank you could have with just one day of that kind of spend rate.

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[quote=“ronert, post:8, topic:1160”]
Actually, I’m moving Obama to the head of my line - for his ‘most excellent’ stimulus plan, which many think will not work. [/quote]

+1000000000000

I especially like his “bi-partisanship” stance (putting emphasis on it during the campaign), where in the HOR he had 0 Republican votes for this stimulus and only 3 in the Senate… >LOCO<

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its not a stimulus so lets not call it that. its a spending bill nothing more or less. its the left wing sepending money on every thing they can think of while there in power. we just spent the most amount of money in the least amound of time in our history and allredy the guy that didnt pay his taxes wants to spend 2 trillon more.