A sad day for the First Family

The first family is vacationing at Martha's Vineyard. Some of the beaches there are closed due to possible coliform contamination. President Obama played golf instead of swimming.

Rima Fakih, the first Muslim winner of the Miss USA pageant, said she agreed with Mr. Obama's statement that the Cordoba Initiative has the Constitutional right to build a mosque there. She also went on to say she felt it should not be built so close to ground zero. According to the New York Post, she said "I also agree that it shouldn't be so close to the World Trade Center. We should be more concerned with the tragedy than religion."

Finally, Obama's mortgage aid program had a 48% dropout rate according to a recent treasury department report. "The government program as currently structured is petering out. It is taking in fewer homeowners, more are dropping out and fewer people are ending up in permanent modifications," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. This was reported at BreitBart.com in an article by AP's Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger. On the bright side 32% of homeowners in the program received permanent mortgage modifications and are current on their payments.

Treasury Department hosts housing conference

The Treasury Dept is hosting a conference on the future of the US Government in the housing and mortgage industries. Mortgage executives and government housing officials will attend this first of many conferences on this subject. (Was anyone expecting decisive action from a pre-lame duck administration and congress?) Government officials are expected to say that government needs to decrease its involvement in the housing and mortgage industries. In December 2009, the US Treasury removed the $400 billion limit on bailing out Fannie and Freddie. This puts the US taxpayers at risk for any and all losses Fannie and Freddie sustain. How much more involved can the US government get with these 2 companies? At $400 Billion, the sky was the limit. Unlimited liability will put us on the dark side of the moon.

Another consideration is the US Congress, specifically the house financial services committee. Barney Frank, Maxine Waters and cohorts allowed Franklin Raines, director of Fannie Mae to change the pay plan so he received $91 million from 1998 to 2004. Then accounting discrepancies (AKA cooking the books) were uncovered and he was forced out and had a settlement of $24 million on the charges. Look for resistance to reform by the boatload from these folks. Click here for my post on Barney Frank.