Gene's Footnotes

I have never been impressed by the messenger and always inspect the message, which I now understand is not the norm. People prefer to filter out discordant information. As such, I am frequently confronted with, "Where did you hear that...." Well, here you go. If you want an email version, send me an email.

June 17, 2011

Variety Show

Just a few news bits that don't break through the Weiner and Palin reportage:

1.  Iran just launched its second orbiting satellite. It is a weather satellite, something the world needed,  a third world weather satellite. Interestingly, the Russians are now pushing Iran to submit to nuclear inspections.

2.  Everyone knows that Mr. Obama is not a naturally born citizen under the former Constitution, some of know that McCain, Rubio, and Jindal are also not eligible to be president, and now we are told that even the new birth certificate is a poor forgery. Ho Hum.  Here is a report on a 22 page felony complaint provided to the FBI, as though the praetorian guard will do anything.  In a real country you could go out and have a complaint sworn out in the face of a crime.

One may read Corsi's new book.  Since he has an earned Ph.d. from Harvard, I suppose even the left will have to figure out a novel way to destroy him.  Though I would say anyone from Harvard may be a kook.  He is the "Swiftboat" author who saved us from Mr. Kerry. 

Think this over, the focus of our recent government, the presidency, has been usurped by a fraud and his team, and no one seems interested. Judges find complainants have no standing to protest, so the facts are never raised in court.  This being so, how can you believe you are still in the same country?  The Eve of Destruction is already waning.

3.  I have been saying for years that Andrew Cuomo is a major cause of the financial collapse, having directed that banks must lend to bad risk clients - or else and my observations are not new. Now, however, jouirnalists from the New York Times,  the bible of half the country, have identified the financial collapse as stemming from the HUD under Cuomo. HUD threatened any bank that did not lend in identified poor risk areas. The banks turned around and got rid of the crappy loans by sedlling them to Fannie Mae, more government billiance. From, curiouisly, a summary on a  radio site:

...Now Morgenson and co-author Joshua Rosner have written a book about the origins of the financial meltdown. In Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon, Morgenson and Rosner describe how regulators {yes, the Clinton Administration} failed to control greed and recklessness on Wall Street.
Morgenson focuses on the managers of Fannie Mae, the government-supported mortgage giant. She writes that CEO James Johnson built Fannie Mae "into the largest and most powerful financial institution in the world."
(iStockphoto.com)
But in the process, Morgenson says, the company fudged accounting rules, generated big salaries and bonuses for its executives, used lobby and campaign contributions to bully regulators, and encouraged the risky financial practices that led to the crisis.
Morgenson is an assistant business and financial editor and a columnist for The New York Times and the author of the Forbes publication Great Minds Of Business. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her "trenchant and incisive" coverage of Wall Street. Joshua Rosner is a managing director at the independent research firm Graham Fisher and Co., which advises regulators and institutional investors.
Just published, a NYT review by James Brooks.

Brooks just calls Johnson immoral, but Wikki gives your some interesting information, placing just where he can practice immorality.  He is not some free-floating evil genius who snuck into Fannie Mae.

James A. Johnson (born December 24, 1943) is a United States Democratic Party political figure. He was the campaign manager for Walter Mondale's failed 1984 presidential bid and chaired the vice presidential selection committee for the presidential campaign of John Kerry. He was involved in the vice-presidential selection process for the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama....
From 1991 to 1998, he served as chairman and chief executive officer of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the quasi-public organization that guarantees mortgages for millions of American homeowners. Previously, he was vice chairman of Fannie Mae (1990–1991) and a managing director with Lehman Brothers (1985–1990). An Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) report[2] from September 2004 found that, during Johnson's tenure as CEO, Fannie Mae had improperly deferred $200 million in expenses. This enabled top executives, including Johnson and his successor, Franklin Raines, to receive substantial bonuses in 1998.[3] A 2006 OFHEO report[4] found that Fannie Mae had substantially under-reported Johnson's compensation. Originally reported as $6–7 million, Johnson actually received approximately $21 million.
As of 2006, he is a vice chairman of the private banking firm Perseus LLC, a position he has held since 2001. He is also a board member at Goldman Sachs, Gannett Company, Inc., a media holding group, KB Home, a home construction firm, Target Corporation, Temple-Inland, and a former director of UnitedHealth Group.
Johnson has also served as chairman of both the Kennedy Center for the Arts (1996–2004) and the Brookings Institution (1994–2003). He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Friends of Bilderberg, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission. In 1994 he received the Honor Award from the National Building Museum for his contributions to the U.S.'s building heritage during his tenure at Fannie Mae.[5]
So, anyone want to tell my how Rebublicans are the fat cats who steal from the people?  In six years at Fannie, he made $100,000,000 personally and more than that has vanished, if I recall correctly.

Key Johnson items:  Princeton, Democratic National Committee, Mondale, Kerry, Obama, Perseus, Goldman Sachs, Brookings Institution, BILDEBERGs, Council of Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission.  Of course, this could all be part of a crazy conspiracy theory...again.

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