Tag Archives: Banking

Bernie Madoff, Richard Feynman, and The Financial Crisis

Bernie Madoff

Bernie Madoff - In Prison

Interviewed in prison, Bernie Madoff asserted that banks and hedge funds were “complicit” in his elaborate fraud. Diana Henriques, writing in the NY Times, 2/15/11, (here) said “Madoff described as ‘willful blindness’ their failure to examine discrepancies between his regulatory filings and other information,” Quoting Madoff, “They had to know. But the attitude was sort of, ‘If you’re doing something wrong, we don’t want to know.’ ”

Look at this in the context of the the Financial Crisis. The bi-partisan committee on the financial crisis, FiscalCommission.Gov,  released its findings on Thursday, 27, January, 2011.  The Commission, I think, got this one right. The financial crisis could have been avoided.  This thirty-year economic experiment in de-regulation, which started under President Reagan, has proven that self-regulation doesn’t work; the government must regulate the financial industry. The foxes can’t guard the henhouse. Continue reading →

Making Lemonade out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

The government recently took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two huge mortgage lenders. I thought the government owned them all along. After all, Freddie Mac” is the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. and Fannie Mae is the FederalNational Mortgage Assoc. But they were privately owned, essentially bankrupt, and in need of a bailout. For more background, see Web of Debt, by Ellen Hodgson Brown, The source of the bailout funds will be my tax dollars, and yours. This gives us the right to a voice on how to execute the bailout. I had a long conversation with Mitchell Kitroser, Esq. , an attorney based in Florida. Kitroseris focused on Real Estate, Probate, Elder Law, Medicaid Planning, Guardianship and Estate Planning.His plan willstimulate the economy,put more money in the U. S. Treasury, and helphomeowners and taxpayers.

As the old saying goes, “If you have lemons, make lemonade.” Here’s my recipe for lemonade. Let’s use the banks we just bought to get us out of the real estate mess those and other banks created, and at the same time, to help American homeowners – to help ourselves. We will stimulate the economy and provide the government – our government – the government “of the people, for the people and by the people” – with a revenue stream. We will even help homeowners stay in their homes.

Since our government just went into the mortgage business, it should start doing refinances. Every American who wants to refinance their primary residence should be permitted to do so, through our new government owned banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These mortgages should be at very low rates – 2% or 3% per year. The savings on the traditional 30 year fixed mortgage, using a $200,000.00 at 6% interest refinanced to $200,000 at 2%, would be almost $450.00 per month. The savings would be about $225 per month on every $100,000 of debt.

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