Examiner sounds like a mouthpiece for Wall Street
Re: “Repeal CRA, stop blackmailing banks,” editorial, April 16
Regardless of whether or not the Community Reinvestment Act is a “legalized form of bank robbery,” your editorial gives it far more import than it deserves. Your assertion that this act created a rush to subprime mortgages that “caused the economic meltdown” makes me wonder whether the Examiner is a mouthpiece for Wall Street.
These assertions only serve to mask the real culprit in the meltdown: More than $600 trillion in legally unregulated, uncapitalized derivatives, in part enabled by the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000. This act is the enabler of the Enron debacle, the nearly trillion-dollar bailout of AIG and large investment banks, and the reason that these same investment banks are making record profits today.
The current market allows a handful of people to rob hardworking people’s retirement accounts while garnering $100 million compensation plans for doing so. If you want to keep this system intact, keep tilting at the CRA and fall for this sleight-of-hand.
Lawrence Fitzpatrick
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Examiner right to oppose unending bank bailouts
Re: “Memo to Washington: No more bailouts,” editorial, April 18
The Examiner was right to oppose the Trojan horse financial “reform” bill that would enrich Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street firm that makes big donations to liberal politicians and was recently cited for fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The bill deliberately does nothing to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage giants, even though Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admits that “Fannie and Freddie were a core part of what went wrong in our system.”
Instead of reform, Obama has showered Fannie and Freddie executives with $42 million in pay, while lifting a $400 billion limit on bailing them out.
The financial “reform” bill undermines competition by effectively giving “too-big-to-fail” banks advantages over small banks. Banking expert Peter Wallison, who prophetically warned about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for years, is right when he says that Obama’s proposals could lead to “bailouts forever.”
Hans Bader
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