In Dodd's case, the accusations basically boil down to whether or not he was given special pricing in relation to a couple refinance loans he got from Countrywide in 2003. Dodd denies receiving any special rates and adamantly claims that the rates were at market, but he does admit that he was likely on Countrywide’s VIP list.
Dodd's accusers have e-mail evidence apparently showing that Countrywide did, in fact, give Dodd preferential treatment. Countrywide sent an internal e-mail message that said to give Dodd a 0.5 discount on his rates because he was a U.S. senator, according to Portfolio.com.
Dodd denies any wrongdoing and is prepared to fight all allegations against him. Considering the facts that I have read, I don’t think they will ultimately find him guilty, yet the effects could be hard-felt nevertheless. The major $300 billion mortgage bailout bill has already been delayed while this investigation is underway, according to the New York Times. In a time when Democrats are trying to support their presidential candidate, Barack Obama, any bad press for the party certainly affects him. Dodd is a high-ranking Democrat who was a candidate in the 2008 presidential election himself, and whether or not Obama has anything to do with Dodd, it won’t change how the Democratic party in general is perceived by some.
Personally, I’m all for the investigation. If Dodd did, in fact, take advantage of his position, then he should have to pay the consequences. More importantly, this has held up the $300 billion bailout bill. Since I am adamantly opposed to a mortgage bailout, I hope that this bill gets delayed permanently.
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Why is this tagged Barack Obama? It has nothing to do with him?
WARNING TO ALL AMERICAN HOMEOWNERS!
Back in May I wrote on my blog that it looked like there were forces at work in some areas of the investment banking community who are trying desperately to destroy the market value of your home in order to cover-up and justify questionable losses in hedge funds and other speculative strategies. (Full story at http://www.useconomycrisis.com )
The relatively small number of sub-prime delinquencies and foreclosures should not have collapsed the entire nationwide real estate market. There must have been some other reason, or reasons, and the two most probable areas were either the unregulated investment banking community dealing in mortgage backed securities, or the sub-prime lenders themselves with the smell of predatory and unethical lending practices surrounding them.
In looking at the investment banking community it became obvious that the origins of this current crisis were the collapse of two Bear Stearns hedge funds beginning in July 2007. But there have been massive hedge fund failures before and they didn’t lead to anything like this. Were these funds shorted before the July 2007 collapse? Did someone or some “investment bank” start a public campaign to create the appearance of a collapse in the alleged housing “bubble” with subprime defaults as the cause in order to justify the write down of these so-called investments? How come there has not been any indication of an upcoming investigation by the Federal Government? Not one word by any Federal official – now I think I know why.
Subsequently I realized that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s public pronouncements were designed to help his pals on Wall Street and not the average American homeowner. Keep this in mind, before coming to Treasury, Paulson was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs, a major Wall Street investment bank. In trying to determine if Wall Street investment banks and related hedge funds were responsible for the sudden collapse in real estate, the real question here then is do we have a conflicted Treasury Secretary? That may be the biggest question of all!
Or so I thought!
If the administration wasn’t going to look into Wall Street, than surely just as a matter of basic “politics” Congress should have looked at the lenders. And they did, and Senator Christopher Dodd’s Committee came up with a plan to bail out – NOT AMERICAN HOMEOWNERS – but Countrywide Financial, an alleged major predatory lender.
However, in now appears that “Senators Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad, among other high-profile individuals, received favorable rates on their home loans as friends of Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo”, reports Conde Nast Portfolio.
However, the major liberal media has been almost completely silent on this corruption, breach of Senate Ethics rules and limits on accepting gifts. What else is new?
In retrospect, I think the colonists had it easy in dealing with the Intolerable Acts passed by Britain in 1774 compared to the media supported and endorsed political corruption in both the Administration and Congress now destroying the average American’s standard of living.
More on this at http://www.useconomycrisis.com
In regards to the tagging of the post, I added the Obama tag because I do mention Obama in the post and talk about how this could potentially affect his campaign. While he is in no way involved in the allegations, and in fact has been openly critical of Countrywide's CEO, it doesn't change the fact that the Democratic party is getting negative press. Ultimately how much impact this will have remains to be seen, however, if the Democratic senators are found guilty the potential is there.
In reality I don't expect that to happen, although the possibility is there. So again that is why I tagged it under Obama, because while it the story is not about him directly, it does indirectly involve him.
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