I recently read about the “genesis�? of the mortgage crisis being attributed to a Bill Clinton HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) appointee, Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo, the youngest ever to hold the position, had been appointed without any real solid credentials. His father being the Governor of New York and his marriage to a daughter of the late Bobby Kennedy all make the case that political cronyism were his main credentials. He led the HUD from 1997-2001 and is primarily responsible for loosening regulations which put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the subprime mortgage market without putting safeguards in place that would prevent ever increasing risk. Through him, the FHA (Federal Housing Administration) turned into a high risk mortgage lender allowing no money down and actually started giving “kickbacks�? to brokers that encouraged the sale of these high risk, unsupportable loans.
Now John McCain has endorsed Cuomo to head up the SEC and has called for the resignation of Christopher Cox. Currently, Andrew Cuomo is the attorney general for New York and is investigating Wall Street practices related to the recent market slides and has declined to comment on Senator McCain’s statements. There is no way to know how much Mr. Cuomo’s actions are linked to all the market troubles we are having now, but there does seem to be a link. With Cuomo being a Democrat and having at least arguably some responsibility for these economic woes, why is McCain endorsing this guy? Once again, McCain is a maverick. He’s going against the grain a bit here. In Cuomo’s defense, I don’t think anything he did at the HUD was ever intentionally bad. Perhaps he’s a guy that could get Democrats to listen, while still working with Republicans if he was appointed by McCain. I guess it could work. Maybe McCain sees political advantage here. Cuomo’s investigation into Wall Street would probably make McCain look good. I’m still a little baffled though.
September 21st, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Cox should go and be a man of some dignity and resign and leave our country alone. He abolished the short uptick rule which took out all the circut breakers so shorts could then drive straight down stocks. And the did. he allowed naked shorting where shorts could just short endlessly without having to borrow the stock(costs money). This caused a proliferation of hedge funds whom make most of their money shorting and using gambling options and futures. This shorting can bury a good stock no matter how many people buy it. So normal investors, retirees, people saving, all lost money to the shorts who are indeed sharks. They took peoples 401 k moneys and in fact investors have seen their stocks drop from 1998 levels accumulating no capital gains in 10 years due to the shorts. The sec has access to tons of data and a large staff to analyze it and Cox sat on this information till everything blew up. Absolutely immoral and malfeasance of office. He is not the people’s friend. A few thousand people made many billions of dollars because of his policy, some 100’s of millions, while they wreaked the finances of the country. Is anyone going to give it back? Its so immoral its not even funny.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:38 am
Cuomo is NOT THE ANSWER!
His father destroyed New York with high taxes … to this day we pay 30 cents more a gallon than New Jersey.
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:19 am
“I recently read about the “genesisâ€? of the mortgage crisis being attributed to a Bill Clinton HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) appointee, Andrew Cuomo.”
Typical neocon garbage. Blame Bill Clinton for everything.
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:31 am
I remember Cuomo, and how incredibly corrupt HUD became on those days. Banks basically controlled all the upper levels of the agency. Terrible choice by McCain.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:11 am
Chris Cox is a great American and McCain is demented.
I cannot in good conscience support either of the major party nominees for president.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I don’t agree with this. The root cause of this crisis was not the loans themselves, but the fact that certain financial institutions were able to repackage them and sell them, essentially. This is why they made the loans in the first place. No one wants to make a bad loan. It is 1) risky, and 2) unethical. The risk was turned into an opportunity, since one could make money from them, and ethics? Well, there are plenty of companies and people out there who are willing to look the other way ethically if they can make a buck. There should have been regulations to restrict the trading of securities backed by these bad loans, in my opinion, and this is where things went wrong.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Edward: Thou dost protest too much. In an attempt at social engineering, Mr. Cuomo loosened FHA guidelines for home mortgages to help more of the poor get loans, which they couldn’t afford. In the end, this leads to massive foreclosures and plumiting real estate values aroung the nation. His policies weren’t the only factor, but they were a factor.
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Edwin has a point, but worse is the rating agencies gave AAA ratings to junk loan paper(so unrateable we can’t even price it now) wrapped in a tiny patina of good bonds. Its as fraudulant as selling pewter dipped in gold as being all gold. And the rating agencies were paid by the issuers of the junk mortgages to rate them. Total conflict of interests. Now the people who headed these organizations were lawyers and MBA’s with all sorts of staid banking credentials. Maybe we should blame their parents, their schools starting from kindergarden through graduate and law for never teaching them basic ethics 101. These people sold out everyone they came into contact with. The reason why it ended so badly as it would in laymen terms be called criminal collusion against the ill informed in the vacuum of no governmental regulation even though taxpayer dollars funded tons of regulatory and elected jobs that were supposed to work for the public welfare. Its all so disgusting.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Cuomo is secretly harassing a woman Denise because she would not chase him and compete for him when they met and he was running for office. He’s threatened her future and career in NY. She is an attractive, blond NYC yoga teacher who serves the community and travels to orphanages to give aid. Because she won’t personally stroke his ego. He stepped into her personal business, privately destroying her credit card identity theft case being investigated by Officer Paul Arroyo at Precinct 24, stopping Attorney Alfonso DeCicco from advising her when she tried to keep her apt rental and she was dealing with a crooked broker. Both men were told to no longer have anything to do with her because his office was taking over. The case was run into the ground and she lost her apt. He also interfered with her HMO doctor. Since then Dr. Elizabeth Uchitelle closed her office leaving Denise to look else where for help. I’ve seen the paper work and heard the voice mails. She should show these materials to the Governor and let Albany investigate Cuomo. He’s slick, secretive and not abiding by the law when it comes to himself.