FHFA is not renewing HARP when it expires end of 2015...I take it...it's because Hussein will be leaving soon...

Member marked...

Out the save the GSE shareholders eh? lol That's ok...I'll hold onto my shares...Thanks anyway...

If HARP is no longer needed, then this should aim towards exiting conservatorship...We're out of the crisis so HARP was never meant to be an ongoing refinance just like conservatorship...

Renewal of U.S. government home refinance program unlikely -Watt

Reuters 53 minutes ago

By Michael Flaherty and Peter Rudegeair

WASHINGTON, March 5 (Reuters) - A top U.S. housing official on Thursday said it was "highly unlikely" that a popular government home refinance program designed to help underwater borrowers would be renewed after it expires at the end of this year.

The Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), set up in 2009 after the housing bubble burst, allows borrowers with loans backed by mortgage finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance at lower interest rates even when homes have lost value.

"It's highly unlikely that we would extend the coverage period ...," Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt, whose agency regulates government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, told a Goldman Sachs conference in New York.

He added that extending the program could have "moral hazard considerations" given that it was put in place to deal with the effects of the financial crisis, not as an ongoing program.

HARP was designed to help the millions of Americans who saw the value of their homes plummet in 2008 and 2009 but were unable to refinance because of traditionally high loan-to-value ratios required by private lenders.

Watt also said a decision on the fees that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can charge lenders for guaranteeing mortgages might be delayed until April. It had been expected this month.

In separate speeches, Watt and Michael Stegman, the counselor to the Treasury Department's secretary for housing finance policy, told the conference the mortgage finance giants needed to speed up the sale of their non-performing loans.

The U.S. government bailed out Fannie Mae, the nation's largest source of mortgage funding, and its sister firm, Freddie Mac, in 2008, putting both in conservatorship.

They have been directed "to make significant efforts in 2015 to reduce the number of severely delinquent loans they hold and to do so in a responsible way."

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have nearly halved their investment portfolios since 2008, and they are required to shrink them further to less than $500 billion in total by the end of 2018, Stegman said.

Stegman added that development of a common securitization platform, a multi-year project to modernize the securitization infrastructure of the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), would best succeed if it was opened up to include non-GSE stakeholders.

Watt said his agency has gathered feedback into its Single Security initiative, launched to improve the overall liquidity of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities, and will offer more details in the second quarter of this year.

(Reporting by Michael Flaherty; Writing by Lindsay Dunsmuir; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Paul Simao)

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/renewal-u-government-home-refinance-212719545.html

low volume drop, still above rsi 50, stopped short of middle of bolli on daily...all good...going up tomorrow...

Here's where we get all the roaches crawling back and CT taking credit on how it stopped right at the purple line...same 'ol same 'ol...next!

GSE's need to be released from conservatorship so that taxpayers are not on the hook...they need to transfer the risk from taxpayers now back to the private market since the taxpayers are now fully repaid. Reform legislation is just another excuse to keep reaping the profits off of the GSE's...additional measures have already been placed before taxpayers to prevent another meltdown...REFORM IS ALREADY COMPLETED...don't kid yourself Stegman...

Well atleast they're admitting the GSE's will be around for the next crisis...lol

Maybe there's word that he felt comfortable enough about making the site private...with the new legislation running about to end conservatorship, completion of discovery close at hand and AIG case about to have a positive outcome...take all that into consideration, maybe he felt confident that our mission is coming to a victory...

Looks like you'll have to register now...

Ask what you know about the GSE's. Be yourself...be real...not being sarcastic at all...what would you like to see happen to the 30 year mortgage?

Didn't you say that last few times already and it kept going up? I hope you covered buddy boy...or get ready to hold the wall...

...they just so happen to catch the tail end of it due to competition...but, no they were never the ones to cause it in the first place. Their risk on loans purchased has averaged less than 2% even without the GSE risk backing before a third party insurance...before the change it used to be borrower, insurance GSE's then taxpayers...now it's borrower, GSE's, insurance, GSE's again then taxpayers...

huh? on the bid...it was over 1.34 million x 3.08 when I saw it last before the pps went higher...

over 880k on the bid for FMCC...lol

I'm deleted?...

She can make a ruling based on what is presented at anytime, but in order to avoid an appeal she would have to give a fair amount of equilibrium to both parties...

Well there you have it...it's not about who's footing the bill...it's about when...even if taxpayers are on the hook...

Double standard...yet we're giving away money to support trust funds/magnet funds while taxpayers are on the hook? Where's the sense in that? Clearly Obama Admin is not concerned about putting private capital before taxpayers...

Freddie Mac Finds Loan Data with Mobile App

By CLINT BOULTON
Reporter
February 27, 2015, 5:46 PM ET



Freddie Mac FMCC +1.12% says it quickly developed a mobile app to help its staff purchase apartment loans in the secondary mortgage market, where it competes with other loan-pooling groups such as Fannie Mae FNMA +1.07%, a rival government-sponsored business.

Freddie Mac says the tool for its multifamily business helps underwriters, sales staff and asset managers evaluate apartment loan data in a range of housing markets across the country. The company, which buys loans from lenders and repackages them for sale as mortgage-backed securities, also competes with banks and insurance companies. Freddie Mac needs to make quick and accurate decisions about whether purchasing particular loans are worth the risk—a question that determines its own financial health, and also can have consequences for the economy. The mortgage-backed security market played a role in the bursting of the financial bubble in 2007 and 2008, and the recession that followed.


Freddie Mac

Freddie Mac’s multifamily app was built last spring using agile development, a process that emphasizes tighter feedback loops between developers and customers and frequent software updates. Developers wrote and released code Monday through Thursday of each week, said Tim Snyder, business technology officer for Freddie Mac’s multi-family division. Mr. Snyder met with multi-family business representatives frequently to discuss functionality requirements. From conception to completion, the development of the app was completed last July after 90 days.

Freddie Mac now conducts about a third of its software development using agile, said CIO Rob Lux, who championed the approach when he joined the company in 2010.

The app combines loan data with the Google Maps API. Google mashups have been available for a decade, with real-estate focused companies among the first to adopt the Google Maps API. But the app is more efficient than Freddie Mac’s prior process, in which Freddie Mac underwriters printed out pages of maps and property lists before visiting properties. “This is a way to look at all of the data we have on our mortgages through a geographic framework,” said Roger Blair, senior director of Freddie Mac’s multifamily asset management division, who worked on the project.

Rival Fannie Mae says its multifamily business hasn’t produced a similar app because it delegates loan underwriting to lenders. “We don’t have [staff] out in the market underwriting individual loans so an app is not something that would be beneficial to our business model,” spokesperson Carrie Dosberg said.

Identifying which geographies are ripe for acquiring new loans is a crucial exercise. Freddie Mac, whose multifamily portfolio assets are worth $169 billion (single-family worth $1.7 trillion), currently holds loans on about 11,600 apartment buildings in the U.S. With the multifamily app, staff can view loan data on properties that are within a radius of up to 100 miles of a particular address. That can help establish the health of the local loan market. The app also can assist loan managers in calculating the extent to which properties are exposed to the risk of natural and other disasters.

The scale of Freddie Mac’s vast troves of data posed some difficulties. Initially, staff wanted access to 25 years-worth of loan data. But the volume of that data crashed the software, which the company hosts on its servers. They settled for access to active loans, as well as access to loans processed during the previous five years.

Freddie Mac staff can launch the app and type a property address into the search bar, or click a “current location” button. A Google Map displays numbered bulbs showing how many loans Freddie has in a certain area. Clicking on those loans reveals such details as property cash flows, rental rates, property conditions, occupancy, and more. Such information helps staff calculate how a loan in a given market is likely to perform, and then decide whether to go ahead with a deal, or hold off until conditions improve.

A Freddie Mac spokesperson said the company hasn’t yet calculated time savings from using the app, but added that it “helps us work more efficiently.”

The company is building a new version of its app, which it may make available to its lender partners.

Freddie Mac had mulled using Google Maps in its business for a few years, but focused on other critical projects. After the recession, it increased discussions about where it could be more innovative with technology — paving the way for the multifamily app.

http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2015/02/27/freddie-mac-finds-loan-data-with-mobile-app/

Freddie Mac Finds Loan Data with Mobile App

By CLINT BOULTON
Reporter
February 27, 2015, 5:46 PM ET



Freddie Mac FMCC +1.12% says it quickly developed a mobile app to help its staff purchase apartment loans in the secondary mortgage market, where it competes with other loan-pooling groups such as Fannie Mae FNMA +1.07%, a rival government-sponsored business.

Freddie Mac says the tool for its multifamily business helps underwriters, sales staff and asset managers evaluate apartment loan data in a range of housing markets across the country. The company, which buys loans from lenders and repackages them for sale as mortgage-backed securities, also competes with banks and insurance companies. Freddie Mac needs to make quick and accurate decisions about whether purchasing particular loans are worth the risk—a question that determines its own financial health, and also can have consequences for the economy. The mortgage-backed security market played a role in the bursting of the financial bubble in 2007 and 2008, and the recession that followed.


Freddie Mac

Freddie Mac’s multifamily app was built last spring using agile development, a process that emphasizes tighter feedback loops between developers and customers and frequent software updates. Developers wrote and released code Monday through Thursday of each week, said Tim Snyder, business technology officer for Freddie Mac’s multi-family division. Mr. Snyder met with multi-family business representatives frequently to discuss functionality requirements. From conception to completion, the development of the app was completed last July after 90 days.

Freddie Mac now conducts about a third of its software development using agile, said CIO Rob Lux, who championed the approach when he joined the company in 2010.

The app combines loan data with the Google Maps API. Google mashups have been available for a decade, with real-estate focused companies among the first to adopt the Google Maps API. But the app is more efficient than Freddie Mac’s prior process, in which Freddie Mac underwriters printed out pages of maps and property lists before visiting properties. “This is a way to look at all of the data we have on our mortgages through a geographic framework,” said Roger Blair, senior director of Freddie Mac’s multifamily asset management division, who worked on the project.

Rival Fannie Mae says its multifamily business hasn’t produced a similar app because it delegates loan underwriting to lenders. “We don’t have [staff] out in the market underwriting individual loans so an app is not something that would be beneficial to our business model,” spokesperson Carrie Dosberg said.

Identifying which geographies are ripe for acquiring new loans is a crucial exercise. Freddie Mac, whose multifamily portfolio assets are worth $169 billion (single-family worth $1.7 trillion), currently holds loans on about 11,600 apartment buildings in the U.S. With the multifamily app, staff can view loan data on properties that are within a radius of up to 100 miles of a particular address. That can help establish the health of the local loan market. The app also can assist loan managers in calculating the extent to which properties are exposed to the risk of natural and other disasters.

The scale of Freddie Mac’s vast troves of data posed some difficulties. Initially, staff wanted access to 25 years-worth of loan data. But the volume of that data crashed the software, which the company hosts on its servers. They settled for access to active loans, as well as access to loans processed during the previous five years.

Freddie Mac staff can launch the app and type a property address into the search bar, or click a “current location” button. A Google Map displays numbered bulbs showing how many loans Freddie has in a certain area. Clicking on those loans reveals such details as property cash flows, rental rates, property conditions, occupancy, and more. Such information helps staff calculate how a loan in a given market is likely to perform, and then decide whether to go ahead with a deal, or hold off until conditions improve.

A Freddie Mac spokesperson said the company hasn’t yet calculated time savings from using the app, but added that it “helps us work more efficiently.”

The company is building a new version of its app, which it may make available to its lender partners.

Freddie Mac had mulled using Google Maps in its business for a few years, but focused on other critical projects. After the recession, it increased discussions about where it could be more innovative with technology — paving the way for the multifamily app.

http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2015/02/27/freddie-mac-finds-loan-data-with-mobile-app/

Green Beambe Jelly Bean!!!

As I recall...that was there before...

Browns and blacks? I never said browns and blacks...JPM and GS never made liar loans? What exactly do you think they're being sued for then?

If they can use racist as a way to give loans to people who can't afford it in the first place...I should be able to refer him to his middle name...

Clinton claimed executive privilege, but failed and had to go to trial because of Lewinsky...so not all executive privilege is enforceable especially on criminal charges...B. Hussein O. watchout!

Not unless the Magician's secret is revealed first...Abrakadabra...maybe it'll land him in impeachment this time...

Because it's politics...the GSE's are very politically involved, hence we have quasi entities in our hands...GSE's have always had an extensive political involvement since their births (see Congressional Orgy)

Fannie-Gate...Where's The Investigation

Posted by paul in cape

If ever there was a need for an investigation or a special prosecutor, Fannie Gate fits the bill. Politics, Democratic corruption, and a laundry list of Clinton pals have cause Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to go belly up. How come no one wants to get to the bottom of this. Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Charles Rangel are up to their ears in potential criminal activity. Where are the calls for an Enron-type investigation?

Byron York has a great primer on this corruption. A good start would be here.

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.”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2083158/posts

Fanniegate: Gamechanger For The GOP?

Walter Russell Mead

Democrats, watch out.

The Republican Party and especially its Tea Party wing have just acquired a new weapon of mass destruction — and it has nothing to do with any of Congressman Wiener’s rogue body parts. If they deploy this weapon effectively in the next election cycle — a big if — then they have the biggest opportunity to move the country rightward since Ronald Reagan took the oath of office back in 1981.

The Tea Party WMD stockpile is currently stored in book form: Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon. By Gretchen Morgenson, one of America’s best business journalists who is currently at The New York Times, and noted financial analyst Joshua Rosner, Reckless Endangerment gives the best available account of how the growing chaos in the mortgage and personal finance markets and the rampant bundling of dubious loans into exotically toxic securities plunged the world, and millions of American families, into the gravest financial crisis since World War Two. It is gripping reading as well, and its explanations are clear enough that readers without any background in finance will have no trouble following the plot. The villains? An unholy alliance between Wall Street, the Democratic establishment, community organizing groups like ACORN and La Raza, and politicians like Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi and Henry Cisneros. (Frank got a cushy job for a lover, Pelosi got a job and layoff protection for a son, Cisneros apparently got a license to mint money bilking Mexican-Americans of their life savings in cheesy housing developments.)

If the GOP can make this narrative mainstream, and put this picture into the heads of voters nationwide, the Democrats are toast. The party will have to reinvent itself (or as often happens in American politics, be rescued by equally stupid Republican missteps) before it can flourish.

If Morgenstern and Rosner are to be believed, the American dream didn’t die of old age; it was murdered and most of the fingerprints on the corpse come from Democratic insiders. Democratic power brokers stoked the housing bubble and turned a blind eye to the increasingly rampant corruption and incompetence at Fannie Mae and the associated predatory lenders who sheltered under its umbrella; core Democratic ideas may well be at fault.

This is catnip to Republicans, arsenic to Dems. If Morgenson and Rosner are right, there is someone the American people can blame for our current economic woes and it is exactly the cast of characters that a lot of Americans love to hate. Big government, affirmative action and influence peddling among Democratic insiders came within inches of smashing the US economy.

The Morgenson/Rosner story is a simple and easily grasped one. It is made for campaign ads. The Great Villain, the man who almost ruined America according to the book, is James Johnson, long one of the most important members of the Democratic establishment. He ran Walter Mondale’s campaign. He chaired John Kerry’s search for a vice-president — the brilliantly executed search that chose the revered anti-poverty warrior John Edwards.

Barack Obama, impressed by this track record of discernment, reportedly asked him to lead Obama’s search in 2008 — though Johnson withdrew when word got out that he benefited from the disgraced and disgusting Angelo Mozilo’s corrupt program of ‘special’ mortgages for political friends. (Mozilo was the head of Countrywide, a massively fraudulent and predatory lender which benefited hugely from its business connections with Fannie Mae.) He is a director of the much hated Goldman Sachs, a former director of Lehman Brothers, has chaired the board of the Brookings Institution, is a major Democratic Party fundraiser who bundled several hundred thousand dollars for President Obama, helped bring old Clinton friends into the Obama organization, and has been at the center of Democratic finance and politics for a generation.

Named CEO of Fannie Mae (a government backed mortgage corporation) Johnson decided to make untold wealth by making and securitizing junk housing loans and by massaging the financial reports to ensure that he qualified for the obscenely generous maximum bonus no matter what was actually happening to the company under his care.

Fannie Mae, a historically staid and predictable government linked company, needed to turn into a cutting edge speculative growth engine to make the hundreds of millions Johnson wanted. Since taxpayers stand behind Fannie Mae’s debts, Johnson needed to get the politicians to back his desire to turn this milkwagon into a Porsche. Fortunately for him — and unfortunately for the country and the world — he found a way.

Fannie Mae would adopt the goal of increasing the percentage of Americans who owned their own homes, targeting the inner city poor who, allegedly, were blocked from home ownership by racial discrimination. (A bogus study to this effect was widely circulated; devastating criticisms and rebuttals quietly ignored.) This is where such luminaries of the American political scene as ACORN and La Raza get into the act. They served as cheerleaders for Johnson’s self-enrichment plan, camouflaging a Wall Street rip-off by hymning its benefits for the poor.

The purpose of no doc, no money down loans wasn’t, Heaven forbid, to generate rich fees and high interest rates for mortgage brokers and Wall Street. No, the smarmy defenders of the Great American Rip-off told us, those features were necessary to make sure that poor people (so cruelly, unfairly locked out of mortgages because they didn’t qualify for the stuffy old-fashioned kind) could participate in the American Dream. Anybody who opposed Jim Johnson’s get rich scheme was a racist who hated the poor. Political correctness married Wall Street chicanery as Maxine Waters, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank led the band; crooked accountants and clueless rating agencies performed the ceremony; big government dowered the couple with a debt guarantee and bankers dressed as flower girls showered the happy pair in a confetti of junk mortgages and junk bonds.

Fannie Mae and the housing market were off to the races — and where Fannie Mae led the way, the financial markets followed. Regulators were captured by the interests they were supposed to regulate; favors were dispensed with a lavish hand; taxpayer-provided money was used to assemble a vast lobby focused on extracting more money from hapless taxpayers to make James Johnson even richer. In the process, millions of financially unsophisticated low income people were stuck with obscenely unfair mortgages, honest whistle blowers were subjected to savage personal attacks, home prices lost all touch with reality, taxpayers were stuck with losses that may approach one trillion dollars, and financial markets were poisoned almost beyond repair.

But there’s a bright side. Mondale-Kerry-Obama confidant Johnson made a boatload of money, and Fannie Mae was able to pay many of his personal bills — at least until it went broke.

That at least is the story of Reckless Endangerment. No doubt Johnson’s memoirs will tell the story in a different way. The housing bubble and the financial market meltdown were very complex phenomena, many cooks were required to spoil this broth and the arguments over what caused the crash may never end.

Truth is one thing; politics is another. Politically, this story is a killer app for the GOP. It demonizes Dems, lends itself to attack ads, divides Democrats between their Wall Street and union bases, and combines GOP hate figures in ways calculated to unify the GOP and heighten the intensity of the faithful.

The story illustrates everything the Tea Party thinks about the corrupt Washington establishment and the evils of big government. It demonstrates the limits on the ability of government programs to help the poor. It converts a complicated economic story into a simple morality play — with Dems as the villain. It allows Republicans to capitalize on public fury at the country’s economic problems. It links the Democrats to Wall Street — the one part of the private sector that the Republican base loathes. It exposes that mix of incompetence and arrogance that is the hallmark of the modern American liberal establishment and links this condescending cluelessness to the real problems of real American families. It links President Obama (through appointments, associations and friendships) with the worst elements of the Clinton legacy and it blunts some key Democratic talking points.

The story can also be a devastating wedge issue. The Democratic Party today is a fragile coalition of elite liberals, traditionally Democratic ethnic blue collar whites, African Americans and Hispanics. The Fannie Mae story is essentially a story of how liberal Wall Streeters raped every one else — and how the organized leadership of the other groups colluded in the attack. Hammering this picture home will demoralize and divide the Democratic Party, reducing enthusiasm among minorities and pulling swing white ethnic votes toward the GOP.

The story builds GOP unity even as it divides the Democrats, allowing GOP populists and establishment figures to find some common ground. For one thing, it builds the idea that Wall Street is a liberal Democratic institution rather than a conservative Republican one. In fact, Wall Street is in love with power and cuts deals with whoever can make them, but for years Democrats have prospered by making running on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s platform against ‘the malefactors of great wealth’. There are many powerful Wall Street figures who are closely linked to the Democrats, however, and the James Johnson story puts a face on that alliance. Socially and culturally, most of Wall Street stands closer to the Democratic establishment than to the Republican Party these days; linking the Democrats to Wall Street, teacher unions and race hustlers is an easy and compelling way to push the Democrats closer to the cliff even as it allows GOP candidates to lace their speeches with populist anti-Wall Street rhetoric without embracing anti-business policy.

The story doesn’t just attack a failure of Democratic policy execution; it exposes a key flaw in New Democratic thinking. The Third Way as dreamed up by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair sought to harness the power of financial markets to a public service agenda. Old style command and control liberalism believed in directly mandating business to do what politicians thought should be done. AT&T had to serve rural communities, but in exchange it had a phone monopoly and regulators made sure that it made a good profit. The airlines and bus companies had to service unprofitable routes, but regulators made sure that their route networks as a whole were profitable.

As competition became more global and the inflexible regulations of the old liberalism proved less workable, a new and updated liberalism appeared. Instead of old fashioned mandates, liberals would use new approaches that capitalized on the power of the market. Use cap and trade schemes rather than command and control to control carbon through the market — and by creating an international market that will make money for financial firms. Tweak the mortgage regulations to spread home ownership to the poor. Both Britain and the US are looking at fun new ideas like ‘infrastructure banks’ that can fund projects that liberals like without putting large new debts on the public accounts. Private profits can grow even as the public interest is served: this was the Clinton-Blair dream that was billed as liberalism’s response to the Thatcher revolution. Additionally, liberal politicians like Al Gore and James Johnson were well placed to capitalize on the new arrangements. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair have both become much wealthier after leaving office than old style liberals like Harry Truman ever could.

The story also undercuts what little is left of the credibility and the moral authority of the American establishment. What is especially shocking in this story is that the higher up and more powerful people are usually the most venal and corrupt. Low level researchers and bureaucrats are constantly raising questions and preparing devastating reports that expose the flawed premises behind Fannie Mae’s policies. They are being constantly slapped down by the well connected and the well paid. The American establishment does not have the necessary moral strength and intellectual acuity to run the affairs of this country; Tea Party believers will find much in this book that confirms their worst fears.

Republicans of course have a few financial scandals of their own that Democrats can take out and rattle. But because Fanniegate offers a clear storyline, identifiable villains linked to specific disasters that have hit tens of millions of Americans in the pocketbook, and is overwhelming a story of Democratic abuses of Democratic ideas, it is potentially a game changing event. It is also an issue that a GOP candidate for the nomination can use to break away from the field; it is an issue a contender could ride all the way to the White House.

Paul Krugman once told me that he thought that Enron would have a greater impact on American politics than 9/11. He was wrong about that scandal, but if the GOP plays its cards right, Fanniegate could push this country into a new political era.

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2011/06/07/fanniegate-gamechanger-for-the-gop/

Don't get your hopes up too high on that one...It is not the Democrats that will release the GSE's...history tends to repeat itself...

With Senator Boehner (Republican) coming out publicly that a lawsuit will be filled to the Obama Admin...this Lerner email scandal will give Boehner even greater leverage...especially due to it being possibly a criminal case now...

There are instances where an executive privilege changed to negotiated executive privilege...e.g. Clinton vs Lewinsky, but that doesn't fully bar the courts from review...

Judicial review can't pierce through executive privilege except under criminal charges. See Watergate...

Oh sorry for not clarifying...hee hee...Dividend Re-Investment Plan

It used to be called DirectSERVICE™ Investment Program, but has since changed to DRIP for reference...

GTC usually good for 60 days or 2 months...that's probably why...

Could this possibly mean the suspension for DRIP is over? They used to cater to first time shareholders as well as current shareholders...

http://www.fanniemae.com/portal/about-us/investor-relations/stock-information.html

Direct Service info:

First Chicago Trust Company of New York is pleased to announce the DirectSERVICE Investment Program ("Program") for current shareholders and new, first-time investors in shares of Fannie Mae common stock ("shares"). First Chicago Trust of New York has been appointed to originate and administer this Program with EquiServe Limited Partnership to act as service agent (collectively "EquiServe"). Securities held in custody by EquiServe are not subject to protection under the Securities Investor Protection Act. This Program is not offered or sponsored by Fannie Mae. • New investors can affordably buy their first shares directly through the Program with a minimum initial investment of $250, or $100 for "Young Shareowner" Children's Accounts. • You can affordably build your investment over time by making additional purchases periodically, either by automatic deduction from your bank account, or by mailing in a check. • Your purchase and sale orders are processed promptly. • You can buy shares in whole dollar amounts rather than a specified quantity of shares. • Shares purchased for your account are held in secure electronic safekeeping by EquiServe. • You may reinvest all or part of your dividends, at no cost, to purchase additional shares. • You can sell your shares by simply picking up the telephone and instructing EquiServe. • You can deposit any Fannie Mae common stock certificates you hold in your account for safekeeping. Investors and current Fannie Mae shareholders may choose to use the services provided in the DirectSERVICE Program if they make their own investment decisions and have a particular interest in Fannie Mae common stock. The Program provides you with an alternative to traditional methods of buying, holding, and selling Fannie Mae shares, and is governed by the terms and conditions contained in this Shareholder Information Brochure. You can purchase and sell shares directly through the Program at a cost generally lower than what traditional brokerage firms charge. You may also buy or sell your shares through a broker if you wish, subject to commissions and fees you negotiate with your broker.

https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.dripinvestor.com/planforms/Prospectus%255Cfnm.pdf&sa=U&ei=dyrxVMjIPIakyQSJ1oLYDA&ved=0CA8QFjAB&sig2=wmepaTTREvyrv9bYPYVowA&usg=AFQjCNH7xq0wVmSlk7laZvOQF2Ba3MjmPQ

In compliance for what? This was specifically directed towards shareholders...but why?

...hmmm...curious...maybe allowed to claim some of the income to start building capital?

I called it even though it may or may not happen...lol