Barney Frank on Wall Street Reform

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Fourth of July Wall Street Reform

House and Senate have finally agreed on financial reforms and have come up with a bill that is expected to be on Obama's desk by the Fourth of July:

Congress early Friday moved to the brink of passing a landmark overhaul of Wall Street, which would hand President Barack Obama a major victory ahead of the midterm elections.

A 43-member conference of House and Senate lawmakers finished the bill just after 5:30 a.m., after a marathon, all-night session of dealmaking, lobbying and scores of votes. The 2,000-page bill aims to prevent taxpayer-funded bailouts and revamp regulation of mortgages, credit cards, broad financial system risks and the $600 trillion derivatives market.
....
Frank, chairman of the conference committee, said the bill was tougher in the end than he once thought was possible to pass through Congress.

"You hate to have the kind of pain people had during the crisis, but it redoubled our resolve," Frank said. "We have done something that has been badly needed and sorely needed for some time," Dodd said.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the bill, "represents the most sweeping set of financial reforms since those that followed the Great Depression."
Read more at The HIll

Barney Frank Compares a Woman to a Dining Room Table

President Barack Obama now realizes he probably will have to pass health reform with Democratic votes alone, White House officials say.

The admission is a monumental shift in Washington’s top fight of the year, with the energy now shifting to differences among Democrats, rather than efforts to lure a critical mass of Republicans.

The aides call it more a prediction than a strategy shift, and blame the GOP.

"We were forced into this by Republicans," one official said.

The administration is pointing to increasingly partisan comments by the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Charles Grassley of Iowa, who said while home for summer recess: “I’m not walking away from the table. I’m being pushed away from the table.”

Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee, said blaming the GOP is "laughable."

"Apparently having a filibuster-proof majority, a 40-seat advantage in the House, and a president who was once really popular isn’t enough," Spain said in a statement. "Maybe if people actually liked the bill, Democrats’ wouldn’t have such a tough time whipping up bipartisan votes, much less vulnerable Democrats within their own party." Read more at Politico

In this video, Barney Frank slams a woman who compares Obama to Hilter. "Trying to have a conversation with you is like trying to argue with a dining room table." She's not even a dining room table. She's a spoon. Freedom of speech, indeed, but the people in the room don't have to like what she says and they're free to ridicule her for being ridiculous. I'm so tired of the hate rhetoric. Barney Frank is right on. She needed to ask her question without invoking Hitler. Come on people. You need to get yourself up to speed.

Bankers Complain That They're Being Trashed

Hmmmm, wonder why they're being trashed?
Maybe because banks -- and it wasn't the toothpaste factory -- irresponsibly sold bad mortgages and brought the country to its knees. I think we can safely say that the banking industry as a whole is tragic. The shoe fits. Wear it.

I think we all understand that community banks aren't the culprit here. It's the Big Bankers with the capacity to do what they did. During Obama's speech to congress he heralded an exceptional banker, Leonard Abess, who split the profits from the sale of his bank with all of his employees.

With that, Obama said not all bankers are bad but the industry needs serious regulations because when tempted with fast, easy money, they'll take it without thinking twice about the consequences.

Unfortunately, for the banking industry, it has to suffer for its bad apples. Just like we have to suffer for the bad apples who bought into those mortgages the bankers sold -- the people who bought bigger houses than they could afford, the people who irresponsibly bought houses.

Politico: The American Bankers Association has a message for the president: Stop talking trash about banks.

In his unofficial State of the Union address Tuesday night, Barack Obama said that it's "unpopular ... to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions."

In a letter to the White House, ABA CEO Edward Yingling says bankers across the country were "disappointed and concerned" with rhetoric like that.

"Mr. President, of the over 8,000 banks in this country, very few ever made a single subprime loan, and they did not engage in the highly leveraged activities that brought down Wall Street firms," Yingling said.

Yingling referred the president to statements made by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the powerful chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, in which he said that the toxic mortgage lending that sparked the current crisis was done by mortgage brokers and others not subject to the strict rules that govern commercial banks.

If it wasn't for Barney Frank, who demanded money back from Northern Trust which took the bailout money and went partying, we wouldn't be getting $1.6 billion back. How many people's lives could actually be saved with $1.6 billion?

Frank to Bank: Give Us The Money Back

Apparently, there are bankers that still have the nerve to throw lavish parties, despite receiving bailout money. Our new loser bank: Northern Trust, which received $1.6 BILLION. 
The bank claimed that the money was for marketing and wasn't taxpayer money:

Holt also said that the sponsorship is an "integral part of Northern Trust's global marketing activities," and as with all marketing, advertising, corporate sponsorship or charitable activities, no taxpayer money was used to fund the weekend events.

The fact that banks differentiate between bailout money and other money is idiotic. If you're taking money to stay afloat, it's all the same money. That would be like me accepting welfare checks (is there such a think anymore?), putting it in my bank and then going on a vacation. Then when someone asks me: How can you spend your welfare money to travel, I'd say, I didn't. I spent my other money. Not a single dime of welfare money went to that vacation, I'd say. Do they think we're all a bunch of dumb dumbs?

Barney Frank is asking for the money that was spent:

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, the House Financial Services Committee chairman, is writing a letter to Northern Trust asking the bank to pay back the money it spent, according to Frank's spokesman.

"We are asking Northern Trust to repay the government the equivalent of the funds they spent on the tournament and related events," Steve Adamske of Frank's staff told CNN. Read all about it at CNN

Next: Reducing Mortgages To Stem Foreclosures

On Wednesday in Phoenix, Obama will announce a plan to stop home foreclosures.

Bloomberg: The White House is willing to spend more than the $50 billion already pledged to stem home foreclosures and intends to focus its efforts on reducing monthly mortgage payments, rather than principal, said Lawrence Summers, the president’s top economic adviser.

“We’re prepared to do what is necessary,” Summers said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” yesterday. “Going directly at the problem means addressing affordability by addressing payments.”

Mounting foreclosures have hammered an already weakened housing market, helping to drive the economy deeper into recession. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News forecast that gross domestic product will contract 2 percent this year, its biggest decline since 1946.

President Barack Obama will outline his proposal to deal with the housing crisis next week. The announcement will come after lawmakers voted on Obama’s $787 billion fiscal stimulus that’s aimed at restarting growth and providing for 3.5 million jobs. Read the rest

Democrats are already working on legislation:

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the administration's program would probably require changes to federal law. Some of those are already working their way through Congress. But Frank said he is looking to pull them together into a single housing package.

The legislation would include a provision changing the bankruptcy law to allow judges to modify the mortgages of distressed homeowners, including by reducing the principal of the loan to the property's current market value, he said. This proposal has already gained support from one House committee but drawn fierce objections from Republicans and the financial industry. Though Obama supports this provision, he declined to include it in the stimulus bill approved yesterday, fearing the bankruptcy measure would derail the overall legislation, Democratic congressional sources said.

Another provision, Frank said, would provide legal protection to lenders who reduce interest rates or otherwise modify the terms of troubled loans for homeowners. Some previous foreclosure prevention efforts have been hampered by the threat that investors who own securities backed by the mortgages would sue to block loan modifications, according to the financial services industry. WaPo

Meanwhile, banks have put a moratorium on foreclosures. How good of them.

As the administration moved closer to announcing its plan, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and several other lenders announced temporary moratoriums on foreclosures of owner-occupied properties. The moratorium, while temporary, gives the Obama administration some needed time, Frank said. "It takes a little of the heat off of Geithner," he said.

Banks Tell Financial Services Committee They're Lending

Something ain't right. Nothing's right in financial "services."
It almost seems prudent to let the banking system explode.

CNN: Top executives from eight of the nation's largest financial institutions told Congress Wednesday that they are continuing to lend, even as banks have come under severe scrutiny in recent weeks about their use of billions of dollars in government aid.

But skeptical legislators weren't buying it.

At a closely-watched hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, CEOs from such embattled firms as Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) defended their actions since taking hold of $165 billion last fall, adding that without government assistance, credit would be even harder to obtain.

"We are still lending, and we are lending far more because of the TARP program," Bank of America Chairman and CEO Ken Lewis said in his prepared remarks.

Representative Maxine Waters questions CEOS who increased credit card rates after receiving bailout money:

More grilling:

Obama in Virginia Talking Jobs

See Tim Kaine and Obama's remarks about the consequences of falling bridges here.

Swamp: Today, while House and Senate leaders attempt to hammer out an agreement on an economic stimulus that came out of the House at $819 billion and came out of the Senate at $838 billion -- and conflict in many key ways -- Obama will take a short hop down the road to Springfield, Va., using a construction site there to tout job creation.

The Virginia governor and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Tim Kaine, will join the president in Springfield.

Tomorrow, Obama will be in Peoria, Illinois to celebrate Lincoln's birthday. He will also visit the Caterpillar plant.
Meanwhile, the house and the senate are munching on the two versions of the stimulus bill trying to turn it into one and live at CNN, Barney Frank's Financial Services committee is grilling bank executives about misspent money.
Obama at construction site in Virginia:

The Big Other Upside of the Stimulus

The upside of the stimulus is that it works as planned and saves jobs. But the other potential upside is that it's wildly successful and republicans learn that government can be useful and that spending can stimulate. But the stimulus money has to be spent properly by those who get a piece of it.

The stimulus package, which now has $281 billion in tax cuts in the Senate's version and $182 billion in the House version, is expected to pass after both versions are combined and whittled.

The main talking point against the stimulus now is JAPAN. On Meet the Press, John Ensign, R-Nevada brought up Japan, which misused a stimulus and 10 years later has a deficit. Read lessons of Japan here:

In addition, economist Barry Eichengreen of the University of California, Berkeley, says that one problem with Japan's stimulus spending was that it was slow and halting. "My reading of Japan's experience is that fiscal stimulus didn't work because it was delayed, sporadic, undersized and inadequately front-loaded," he argues.

The other big lesson from Japan, says Mr. Eichengreen, is that "fiscal stimulus alone won't bring a deep recession caused by a banking crisis to an end. You need to fix the banking problem and get financial markets going again at the same time you replace some of the private spending that has evaporated with public spending."

Ensign, of all people, should want to create jobs. People in his state are suffering more than people in many other states. To start, Nevada tops nearly ever social ills list -- teen pregnancy, huge high school drop out rates, few kids that go on to college. You name it. Nevada suffers it.

Now, its troubles are being compounded by the recession. Nevada is ruled by the Casino party, which of course, is made up of republicans.

John Ensign said the bill in the Senate is a one-party rule. Yep. But that's okay. Notice, it is the moderate republicans who are supporting the bill, which says something about the bill. It says that reasonable people support it.

Claire McCaskill looked in Ensign's eye and said democrats negotiated with republicans who wanted to and "by the way, that door was open." It's a given that the stimulus is so against conservative republican ideology that they didn't even bother.

Republicans seem to be unaware of the economic moment. Mike Pence, R-Indiana, compared this economy to post 9-11. Not quite dude.

Barney Frank said spending nearly $1 trillion in Iraq was a waste. War spending is the republican version of a stimulus. Frank is going to be hosting a barbecue on Wednesday, when CEOs will be called up in front of his House Financial Services committee. That's going to be a must-see. At one moment, Frank and Pence got into it and Pence looked like he was going to clock him. Folks don't usually argue on MTP.

On Daschle, McCaskill says Daschle was a wake-up call. Obama saw so much of the good in Daschle, that he could get the job done, that he didn't see the bad, she said. 

After the politician roundtable, Tom Ricks, a writer for the Washington Post, said Iraq is going to change Obama. Ricks said Obama's not going to be able to withdraw from Iraq. He's promoting his new book, "The Gamble."

Ricks said Pakistan is a "problem from Hell" and he has no idea how it could be solved.

A side note, David Gregory is doing a terrific job hosting the show. He's maintaining the show's integrity by being nonpartisan.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Barney Frank Hosts CEO Barbecue Next Week

I hope we get to see this on C-SPAN.

Patt Morrison: Next week, when Barney Frank starts hauling fat-cat CEOs before his House Financial Services Committee, I want him wearing a barbecue apron. Instead of a gavel, I want him wielding a barbecue fork the size of a trident. By the time the grilling's over, I want ... I want a lot.

I want groveling. I want show-trial sweating and stammering. I want their nine-figure bonus checks endorsed over to the rest of us. I want my 401(k) money back. I want blood; I'm a vegetarian, but I'd make an exception for a smoking plate of CEO en brochette.

Political scientists call this a "public mood" moment, when a focal incident like the Olympics or 9/11 fuses a nation of hundreds of millions of identities into one public identity.

UCLA political scientist Lynn Vavreck tells me that, in this case, the public mood is outrage on the part of good citizens -- that's us -- over the misdeeds of bad citizens.

It's embarrassing to think that we share a country with these rich dimwits. As Frank told the bankers: "People really hate you. ... You have to help us deal with that. You have to avoid being stupid." Read the rest.

Republican Stimulus: The Iraq War

The more I think about it, the more republicans must be ignored on the stimulus. They're offering ZERO, except the knee-jerk tax cuts. Spending is stimulus, says Congressman Barney Frank. He's right. Republicans are laughable. Here's a look at what's in the stimulus bill.

Barney Frank: Rick Warren at Inauguration a Mistake

I agree with Frank. Warren thinks gay people are less than human. That kind of person shouldn't be participating at the inauguration. I'm still hoping he'll step aside but I think his ego is too large for that kind of humility.

WaPo: The first openly gay member of Congress said yesterday that it was a mistake for President-elect Barack Obama to invite the Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.

"Mr. Warren compared same-sex couples to incest. I found that deeply offensive and unfair," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

"If he was inviting the Reverend Warren to participate in a forum and to make a speech, that would be a good thing," Frank said on CNN's "Late Edition." "But being singled out to give the prayer at the inauguration is a high honor. It has traditionally been given as a mark of great respect. And, yes, I think it was wrong to single him out for this mark of respect."

Warren is essentially ignorant:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Democrats Finally Divorcing the Clintons

this is why obama has had to work extra hard: he's been battling the democrats loyalties to the clintons, ties of which now seems to be severed or severing. there are some stragglers still. loyalty, especially with the clintons, runs deep.

wsj: The price was that they had to put their ethics in a blind Clinton trust. Whitewater and the missing billing records, Webb Hubbell, cattle futures and "Red" Bone, the Lincoln Bedroom, Johnny Chung and the overseas fund-raising scandals, Paula Jones and lying under oath, Monica and the meaning of "is." Democrats, or all of them this side of Joe Lieberman and Pat Moynihan, defended the Clintons through it all. Everything was dismissed as a product of the "Republican attack machine," an invention of the "Clinton haters," or "just about sex."

Democrats and the media did make a fleeting attempt at liberation when Bill Clinton left office after 2000 amid the tawdry pardons. Barney Frank, the most fervent of the Clinton defenders throughout the 1990s, even called the pardons a "betrayal" and "contemptuous." More than a few Democrats also noticed that George W. Bush's main campaign theme in 2000 was restoring "dignity" and "honor" to the Oval Office, and that Al Gore had somehow lost despite two-thirds of voters saying the U.S. was moving in the right direction.

But Hillary Clinton had also won a Senate seat that year, and she had presidential ambitions of her own. So the trial separation was brief. Democrats acquiesced as the first couple put their own money man, Terry McAuliffe, in charge of the Democratic National Committee. As the Bush years rolled on and John Kerry lost, they watched Hillary build her machine and plot a Clinton restoration. They watched, too, as the New York Senator did her own triangulating on Iraq, first voting for it, then supporting it before turning against it as the election neared. Party regulars fell in line behind her, and her nomination was said to be "inevitable."

Then something astonishing happened. A new star emerged in Barack Obama, a man who had Bill Clinton's political talent but Hillary's liberal convictions. He had charisma, a flair for raising money, and he held out the chance of a 2008 Democratic landslide. Something more than a return to the trench warfare of the 1990s seemed possible – perhaps the revival of a liberal majority, circa 1965.

Barney Frank: Trailing Candidate Should Drop Out

rep. barney frank apparently supports hillary clinton but says that the trailing candidate should drop out by june 3.
only thing is, he doesn't define "trailing" at least at the cnn post. trailing in what? delegates? popular vote? states? character?

cnn: In an interview with the Associated Press, Rep. Barney Frank said the Democratic race should not continue past the last two primaries on June 3 and said one of the candidates should even consider getting out "sooner" if it seems inconceivable he or she could win the nomination.