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Need Money? Call Angelo Mozilo's political Money Store!!!

Submitted by Ironman on Fri, 06/13/2008 - 21:39
in

I remember well Phil Rizzuto's scream Need Money?..Call the Money Store! as a TV staple.

There's a new Money Store now, and it offers below-market rates to a handful of Democratic DC senators

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2008/06/12/Countrywide-Loan-Scandal

Countrywide's Many 'Friends'

 


by Daniel Golden Jun 12 2008

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Senators Dodd and Conrad are among the government officials who scored V.I.P. loans from C.E.O. Angelo Mozilo. An exclusive Portfolio investigation.

 
 
Most of the officials belonged to a group of V.I.P. loan recipients known in company documents and emails as “F.O.A.'s”—Friends of Angelo, a reference to Countrywide chief executive Angelo Mozilo. While the V.I.P. program also serviced friends and contacts of other Countrywide executives, the F.O.A.’s made up the biggest subset.
 
The article continues as to Dodd getting no points, no closing cost mortgages at 4.25% and 4.5%. I'm sure his position as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee had nothing to do with this preferential treatment.
 
Excuse me while I list a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.
 
Dodd is a wonderful example of the career liberal officeholder. He mouths all the right words but doesn;t believe they should apply to him. And he thinks bombastic press releases will make up for the fact that when it came to dealing with the subprime mortgage debacle, Dodd's actual record resembles Nero/fiddle/Rome/burns.   
 
Early this year Dodd blamed Bush for the mortgage meltdown his friend Mozilo helped create
Dodd Defends Housing Plan, Blasts Bush
 
He decried "inaction" and claimed a $400 Billion plan to refinance failed mortgages wasn;t a bailout.
 
But why did things get this far. Because, look in the mirror, Chris, you did nothing all fall while running for President in a farcical pipe dream. Say what you want about Barney Frank, at least he wanted to get off the dime and do something last year before things got completely out of hand  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/06/AR2007110602146.html it's not like the mortgage crisis emerged out of whole cloth , now, is it?
 
And who paid for Dodd's vacation in the Field of Pipe Dreams....yep...the same financial services firms he claimed to "oversee' as Banking Committee chairman  http://www.opensecrets.org/pressreleases/2007/PresidentialMoney.4.18.asp
 
So let's see. Dodd gets personal favors from mortgage insiders and tons of campaign cash. Then he leaves them alone for 2007 pretty much. And what do his friends like Mozilo do? Cash out! http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/business/11land.html?ex=1349755200&en=3721caeaa6a9990a&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss 
 
Now having plundered the business. Mozilo and his top honchos have made a deal with Bank of America to sell the firm and many will keep their lucrative jobs. Some liberals have complained http://www.nypost.com/seven/01122008/business/mozilo_eyeing_76m_exit_from_bofa_914417.htm
but Dodd hasn;t, since his friend will get another $76 million on this deal.
 
Now Bank of America is getting skittish about this deal http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080611/bs_nm/bankofamerica_dc but their Chairman is sticking with it.
 
Why?
 
Perhaps because if Dodd gets his mortgage bailout bill past Bush tens of billions of dollars of bad paper will magically move from BofA/Countrywide's balance sheet to the FHA's!
 
Get your own benefits, ignore a problem until its out of control, and then bail out the folks who made the mess with taxpayer's money.
 
And Dodd's response?
 
As a United States Senator, I would never ask or expect to be treated differently than anyone else refinancing their home. This suggestion is outrageous and contrary to my entire career in public service.
 
 
My dear Mr. Senator. What's outrageous is your dereliction of duty; your befriending of robber barons and your willingness to turn the keys to the treasury over to them.  And since your career in "public service" is replete with vacuuming in dough from the special interests and soaking the public with punitive taxes, what's so unusual about this one? 
 
The Dodd family has spend most of the past 60 years treating CT voters as the willing foils to their perpetual fiefdoms in Congress.  Hundreds of thousands of people are losing their own house to the likes of Countrywide. Maybe Chris Dodd ought to be evicted from the Upper House?
 
P.S. Will someone from ND mind explaining Kent Conrad's multimillion dollar beach house? 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 

 

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Comments

I can believe...

Submitted by Prester John on Sat, 06/14/2008 - 13:30.

....that Dodd didn't ask for a deal.  I can almost believe he didn't think he'd get a deal, although it is pushing it to believe that he didn't know about the FOA program.  But to believe that a U.S. Senator who has spent years, if not decades on these committees, didn't pick up on the preferential numbers on the closing documents he had to sign is going too far.

I can take differences in political views.  I can accept that politicians often have to compromise to get things done. 

What I cannot take is the blatant and shameless manner in which they continually let us know how stupid they think we all are.

well this is what happens with entitlement politicians

Submitted by Ironman on Sat, 06/14/2008 - 15:04.

Dodd thinks this senate seat is some sort of inherited heirloom. He is soooo out of touch---moving to Iowa for months to run for President, neglecting the banking crisis and then getting like four votes in the caucus.

Plus, he's convinced himself that his dad was like the whole Nuremburg trial and Bush is a quasi-fascist for not inviting Islamic fanatics in for tea to discuss whethter to tap their phone or  detain them at Gitmo. since dear ole dad would have done it that way,

 

Is it that they think *we* are that stupid

Submitted by GOP_Rebel on Sat, 06/14/2008 - 16:24.

or is it that they are actually that stupid?  Or is it something far darker and more troubling altogether like the diagnosis Charles Krauthammer gave the Clintons as being "pathologically narcissistic"?  Charles is far more qualified to diagnose than I am, as he is a psychiatrist by profession, so I have no idea if politicians like Dodd, Jefferson, Craig, Foley, Spitzer, et al are stoned, stupid, or just high-functioning fruitcakes. The most interesting ones, of course, are the ones who campaign stridently against the very activities in which they are clandestinely engaged. 

Sometimes I wonder whether we should rotate average citizens into public service rather than electing them, or maybe have validation elections or votes-of-confidence to determine whether to keep them in office once they are elected.  Will the quorums of direct democracy be available again in the future once all citizens have the Internet?  Then in addition to invoking Reagan, will we hear "what would Pericles do"? 

Update: The Wall Street Journal chimes in

Submitted by Ironman on Mon, 06/16/2008 - 06:32.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121357125417575867.html

In the week since the Journal revealed this program, the key questions have become clear: What did Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo receive – or think he would receive – in return for the friendly loans to politicians

 

 

Meanwhile, until it is clear how much Countrywide will benefit from Senator Dodd's proposed $300 billion mortgage rescue – and exactly how Mr. Dodd came to do business with Countrywide – Congress should call a halt to legislating bailouts. Taxpayers deserve no less.