Buying and Selling: Cronies Running The Asylum

By now we're all familiar with the practice of cronyism as it relates to the Bush administration. Mike Brown, George Deutsch, Julie Myers, Scooter Libby...the list, sadly, goes on and on. But one name you might not be familiar with is Kevin Warsh, newest member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. With his recent swearing-in by the Gangsta-In-Chief, all seven of the current governors have been appointed by Bush. As Bankrate's Greg McBride astutely notes, do we really want a bunch of inexperienced yes-men and inflation hawks dealing with some potentially catastrophic developments in the housing market?

(Hat tip to Waterthread for the +6 image win.)

Ben Jones provides some interesting answers regarding Fannie Mae's inability to police itself. From the comments:

Something no one is talking about with regards to FNM and FRE: Their delinquency rates are ballooning rapidly — to 0.79% at FNM in December from as low as 0.57% earlier in 2005. That December reading is the worst going back to at least the late 1980s, according to my work.

So far, people are buying FNM’s “the hurricanes ate my borrowers” excuse. But the fact is, more and more of their portfolio is being paid late every month. We’re coming off extremely low levels, of course. Yet it’s the trend that matters. I expect to see much higher delinquency rates as housing slows rapidly.

Perhaps this is behind the administration's drive to privatize Fannie Mae's assets--put 'em on the market and resell them for twice the price? Twice as nice.

By the way, in case you didn't hear the news, we are, in fact in a condo glut. I attended a local neighborhood community meeting protesting the development of yet another overpriced condo in Northwest D.C. last night. The developers showed us this picture that looked like someone knocked an icebox over on its side, and were asking $800,000 to start for each unit. For this you kill trees?

When I think of "excess inventory," the first thing that comes to mind are all the nutbar commercial developers, flippers, and speculators that need to be purged before serious investors and buyers--including you and I, dear reader--are willing to get back into the market.

Posted at February 28, 2006 12:52 PM

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By now we're all familiar with the practice of cronyism as it relates to the Bush administration. Mike Brown, George Deutsch, Julie Myers, Scooter Libby...the list, sadly, goes on and on. But one name you might not be familiar with is Kevin Warsh, newest member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. With his recent swearing-in by the Gangsta-In-Chief, all seven of the current governors have been appointed by Bush. As Bankrate's Greg McBride astutely notes, do we really want a bunch of inexperienced yes-men and inflation hawks dealing with some potentially catastrophic developments in the housing market? (Hat tip to Waterthread for the +6 image win.) Ben Jones provides some interesting answers regarding Fannie Mae's inability to police itself. From the comments: Something no one is talking about with regards to FNM and FRE: Their delinquency rates are ballooning rapidly — to 0.79% at FNM in December from as low as 0.57% earlier in 2005. That December reading is the worst going back to at least the late 1980s, according to my work. So far, people are buying FNM’s “the hurricanes ate my borrowers” excuse. But the fact is, more and more of their portfolio is being paid late every month. We’re coming off extremely low levels, of course. Yet it’s the trend that matters. I expect to see much higher delinquency rates as housing slows rapidly. Perhaps this is behind the administration's drive to privatize Fannie Mae's assets--put 'em on the market and resell them for twice the price? Twice as nice. By the way, in case you didn't hear the news, we are, in fact in a condo glut. I attended a local neighborhood community meeting protesting the development of yet another overpriced condo in Northwest D.C. last night. The developers showed us this picture that looked like someone knocked an icebox over on its side, and were asking $800,000 to start for each unit. For this you kill trees? When I think of "excess inventory," the first thing that comes to mind are all the nutbar commercial developers, flippers, and speculators that need to be purged before serious investors and buyers--including you and I, dear reader--are willing to get back into the market.