Congress Pushed Fannie, Freddie In Wrong Direction During 1990s

BY TERRY JONES
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 9/25/2008

It was October 1992, nearly 15 years before the housing meltdown and subprime crisis.

Republican Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa was on the floor of the House, talking about something that no one at the time seemed to care about: the potential danger that Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) posed to the economy.

In remarks later reported by the Washington Post, Leach warned that Fannie and Freddie were changing "from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the stockholding few."

Leach's prescient comments went unheeded — indeed, Congress spent the next decade and a half avoiding the alarms going off around Fannie and Freddie. Until, that is, it was too late.

Led by top Democrats, including Rep. Barney Frank in the House and Sen. Chris Dodd in the Senate, Congress not only did nothing about the growing risks at Fannie and Freddie, it in essence doubled down on their risks.

Congress Pushed Fannie, Freddie In Wrong Direction During 1990s

WBBM-TV: Feds may indict Blagojevich

CHICAGO (UPI) -- U.S. federal agents say they have enough evidence to indict Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich for fraud and conspiracy, WBBM-TV, Chicago, reported Thursday.

The CBS-owned station also said an indictment of Blagojevich, the first Democrat elected to Illinois' governorship in 30 years, was "not imminent."

WBBM-TV: Feds may indict Blagojevich

How A Clinton-Era Rule Rewrite Made Subprime Crisis Inevitable

BY TERRY JONES
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 9/24/2008

One of the most frequently asked questions about the subprime market meltdown and housing crisis is: How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing market?

The answer is: President Clinton wanted it that way.

Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac, (FRE) even into the early 1990s, weren't the juggernauts they'd later be.

While President Carter in 1977 signed the Community Reinvestment Act, which pushed Fannie and Freddie to aggressively lend to minority communities, it was Clinton who supercharged the process. After entering office in 1993, he extensively rewrote Fannie's and Freddie's rules.

In so doing, he turned the two quasi-private, mortgage-funding firms into a semi-nationalized monopoly that dispensed cash to markets, made loans to large Democratic voting blocs and handed favors, jobs and money to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and the Fannie-Freddie collapse.

How A Clinton-Era Rule Rewrite Made Subprime Crisis Inevitable

'Crony' Capitalism Is Root Cause Of Fannie And Freddie Troubles

BY TERRY JONES
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 9/22/2008

In the past couple of weeks, as the financial crisis has intensified, a new talking point has emerged from the Democrats in Congress: This is all a "crisis of capitalism," in socialist financier George Soros' phrase, and a failure to regulate our markets sufficiently.

Well, those critics may be right — it is a crisis of capitalism. A crisis of politically driven crony capitalism, to be precise.

Indeed, Democrats have so effectively mastered crony capitalism as a governing strategy that they've convinced many in the media and the public that they had nothing whatsoever to do with our current financial woes.

'Crony' Capitalism Is Root Cause Of Fannie And Freddie Troubles

Cool site: SyscraperPage.com - Chicago, IL

Only highrise buildings that have a drawing are shown, ordered by official height. Includes buildings of built, under-construction and proposed status.

SyscraperPage.com - Chicago, IL

The Chicago Spire

Have you heard about the soon-to-be-built Chicago Spire?

Scheduled for completion in 2011 and designed to stand 2000 feet tall and include 150 floors, this new residential tower - currently under construction at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive - will soon be the tallest free-standing tower in North America and the tallest all-residential building in the world. The Chicago Spire will surpass Chicago's own Sears Tower, which stands 1450 feet tall, New York's upcoming Freedom Tower, planned to be 1776 feet tall, and Toronto's CN Tower, which stands 1815 feet tall.

Here is a link to the official Chicago Spire Web site: http://www.thechicagospire.com/

And here are links to two informational videos of the Chicago Spire:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNI37ncgdXQ
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpGsWa3kV8c

Be sure to check out the image gallery at http://www.thechicagospire.com/building/imagegallery/. Click on the FULLSCREEN link in the bottom right hand corner of the images to see them largest and best.

Artist's rendering of the Chicago Spire as it will be seen from Lake Michigan

Fascinating stuff, indeed!

Nathan Scheelhaase - new Illini football commitment

Another Juice Williams! GO ILLINI!



Two more videos are linked on the left side column; Segment #2 has the commitment announcement...
http://www.kcondemand.com/MetroSports.aspx

Chicago's "Cloud Gate" bean - COOL!!!

Photo by Dan O'Brien

Millennium Park's stainless steel "Cloud Gate" bean - what a cool sculpture!

For more details on the "Cloud Gate", check out http://gct13.com/e/20080312/chicago-bean and http://www.millenniumpark.org/artandarchitecture/cloud_gate.html.

2008 College World Series Bracket

This year's field of eight includes:
1. Miami, FL
2. North Carolina
3. Florida State
4. Rice
5. Georgia
6. LSU
7. Stanford
8. Fresno State

Bracket

UI would get 2.8% increase in funding

SPRINGFIELD – The state budget sent to Gov. Rod Blagojevich would give the University of Illinois $19.9 million more in operating funds next year, or a 2.8 percent increase.

That would help the university plug a $17 million gap in the $4.1 billion preliminary 2008-09 budget approved by UI trustees in late May. That budget, based on no additional state funding, showed $51 million in new income next year – mostly from tuition – but about $68 million in new costs.

"This is a little larger increase than last year. This certainly will be helpful to the university, there's no question about that," said Rick Schoell, UI executive director of governmental relations, trying to sort out budget details Saturday night.

UI would get 2.8% increase in funding

Homeless James Bond Part 2

"Bond. Vagabond. Homeless 007 is back again."

read more | digg story

Homeless James Bond 007

"This should be in theaters soon."

read more | digg story

A Limbaugh Analysis of Oil Prices

RUSH: Let me give you some more oil data here. Again, according to the US Department of Energy, US oil production has fallen approximately 40% since 1985, while US consumption has grown more than 30%. So in real barrels, US oil production is now below five million barrels a day. It was approximately nine million barrels a day in 1985. So in 23 years -- and see, it's happened slow. The market impact here has been slow, it's been gradual, but we've cut our production in half in 25 years -- and, by the way, can I ask you a question, folks? In doing that, in those 25 years, global warming's gotten worse, has it not? And in those 25 years the planet's gotten dirtier, has it not? According to what these people say. In the 25 years that we have stopped producing oil by half, we have cut our oil production in half, in 23 years; in those same 23 years the environmentalist wackos who are behind this keep telling us how rotten things are getting, how horrible things are getting, and we're destroying the environment; the polar bears, the planet, you name it.

We've been getting the blame for it! Yet we've cut our production in half. And you can see one of the results of this is the price that we're all paying for this stuff, oil-related products today. At the same time -- now, this is going to really frost you -- while in the last 23 years we have cut our production in half, the government has put billions of barrels of domestic oil and natural gas off limits to domestic exploration. According to federal government estimates, there is enough oil in the areas that we are now place off limits, 112 billion barrels to power more than 60 million cars for 60 years without importing a drop. It's off limits. The government, because of the environmentalists. So we're not producing this. We're not getting this. We've cut our own actual production in half in 25 years, and they still blame us for destroying the planet. We keep hearing about ANWR.

Had President Clinton not vetoed exploration in ANWR in 1995 -- oil was $19 a barrel in 1995 -- America would currently be receiving over a million barrels a day from Alaska. Experts estimate that ANWR contains 5.6 to 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Okay, now at $123 a barrel -- and, by the way, ten years ago they said, "Well, it will take ten years to get the first drop. We can't do it." It's been ten years or more. We'd have had it, it would be online. Now they say, "It would be ten years if we start. We can't count on that." There are people, elected officials -- Democrats and some Republicans and entire members of the leftist environmentalist wacko organization -- who don't want this country to be energy sufficient and independent. The environmental movement in this country is largely comprised of -- the militant and wacko realm of it, consists of -- displaced communists and socialists who want this country down to size because it's not fair to everybody.

A Limbaugh Analysis of Oil Prices

YouTube video: "The Comcast Cable Guy Who Fell Asleep In My House"

NICE, Comcast!!! I'll stick with my AT&T DSL, thank you very much.

Gerry DiNardo Previews Illinois Football

Microsoft, Intel to build two college computing centers

Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. are giving a combined $20 million to build computing research centers at the University of Illinois and University of California.

The Universal Parallel Computer Research Centers (UPCRC) will attempt to accelerate development of parallel computing, which involves using multiple computer cores, or engines. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), for example, has worked on an 80-core research processor.

Officials at Redmond-based Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) said multi-core processors represent a "revolution in the computer industry."

Microsoft, Intel to build two college computing centers

Hockey club named national champions

What an amazing season! GO ILLINI!!!

A dream season came to a perfect end for the Illinois hockey club at the American Collegiate Hockey Association National Championships in Rochester, N.Y. A 4-2 victory over No. 2 Lindenwood in the tournament finals on Wednesday night secured the Murdoch Cup and an unblemished 38-0-0 record.

Senior center Drew Heredia scored twice in his final game as the Illini won their second national championship and first-ever perfect season.

The championship game was the fifth meeting between the two teams this season and the third time the top-ranked Illini have played the nation's No. 2-ranked team.

In their bid to upset the nation's top ranked team, it was the Lions who struck first in the tournament final, as Lindenwood forward Larry Kopecky scored 10 minutes into the first period.

Illinois would storm back, however, rattling off three unanswered goals to assume a 3-1 lead, which lasted until a late second period goal from Lions forward Travis Bokina, keeping the game close entering the final 20 minutes.

Neither team found a clear advantage in the third period until a precise Johnny Liang pass to Tom Connell set up a backhanded shot that found the net and gave the Illini a 4-2 lead.

From there, Illinois kept its conference rival at bay, as goaltender Mike Burda and the Illini defense preserved the two-goal lead despite the Lions desperate attempts to score in the final minutes with their goaltender pulled.

The mostly pro-Illini crowd erupted after the final buzzer sounded, chanting "38-0!" as the Illinois players stormed the ice.

Heredia, the team's captain, was named the tournament's most valuable player after the victory, while Brad Hoelzer and Liang were named to the first all-tournament team and Burda earned second all-tournament team honors.

Head coach Chad Cassel won his second national title in his 11th season with the team, the first coming in 2005.

Hockey club named national champions: No. 1 Illinois beats No. 2 Lindenwood to finish season undefeated, 38-0-0

Illini Hockey - Undefeated 2008 ACHA National Champions!

March 05, 2008 - First it was CSCHL Regular season champs for the Illini, then CSCHL playoff champs,and now you can add undefeated, 38-0-0, ACHA Division I National Champions to their title. From the start of the season the Illini had their eyes on the prize of being national champs, and tonight after a long hard fought season, that prize is theirs to enjoy.

The perfect end to the perfect season

Y-Basketball: Bulls 28, Spurs 10

The Bulls completed another fine Y-Basketball league season with a solid 28-10 victory from the Spurs last Saturday morning at the Champaign County YMCA.

Balanced scoring was the rule for the Bulls in this contest: Henry, George and Joe set the pace with 6 points each, while Tobin added 4 and Michael, Jarron and Luke each added a bucket. Rory and Nathan also played, but did not score.

Solid defense again keyed numerous fast-break opportunities for the Bulls. And the Bulls enjoyed another strong performance from their backcourt: good ball-handling, good passing and few turnovers resulted in another outstanding ballgame.

Congrats to the Spurs' Max and Johnny, who played great games on Saturday as well. Max led all scorers in the game with 8 points and Johnny added the other 2 for the Spurs. It's always difficult playing (and coaching) against your friends.

And so the Bulls finish the Winter 2008 league with a 6-1 record and high hopes for more success in the future. The nucleus of this team - including George, Joe, Michael, Tobin, Luke and Nathan - has posted the following (unofficial) won/loss Y-league records over the past twelve months:

Winter 2008:  6-1   0.857
Fall 2007:    7-0   1.000
Winter 2007:  7-0   1.000
-------------------------
Total:       20-1   0.952

When you consider that the only loss this team has taken in the last twelve months was by just two points (and that game could have easily ended in a tie), you might agree that there are good reasons for optimism going forward. Winning consistently is difficult to achieve, especially when you're talking about 6- and 7-year-old kids who are still learning the fundamentals of the game. Certainly, this group of St. Matthew first graders will be a force to be reckoned with when they grow to be fifth graders and wear the green unis for the St. Matthew Raiders. Meanwhile we're enjoying our journey into the future with this team.

I should mention that the Champaign County YMCA does not condone keeping score or declaring winners or losers in our basketball games at this level. But a year ago, when we started to come together as a team, we coaches noticed that this group of kids was special. Our team seemed to gravitate to success rather quickly. It was this success that prompted me - and several other team parents - to start unofficially tracking game scores. Most parents seem to want to know if we're winning or losing anyway. It sure is nice when you can inform them that we're winning.

Y-Basketball: Bulls 28, Suns 18

Tobin's 10 points in the paint carried the Bulls to a 28-18 victory from the Suns this morning in YMCA Youth Basketball at the Champaign County YMCA.

Tobin got things going early in his breakout game for the Bulls, positioning himself in the paint and taking advantage of a porous Suns interior defense. At the other end of the court, the Bulls played another typically strong defensive game and coasted with comfortable leads throughout the first three quarters, leading 26-10 after three periods were complete.

But poor ball handling and some rushed shooting by the Bulls in the fourth quarter allowed the Suns to cut into the lead with an 8-2 run.

Henry had another strong game in the paint, adding 6 points for the Bulls. George and Joe each had 4, and Michael and Nathan each hit a basket for 2 points apiece to round out the scoring for the good guys, who improve to 5-1 with the victory. Henry, Tobin, George, Joe and Michael did a solid job rebounding in the game. And Nathan and Joe provided excellent ballhandling skills throughout their three quarters of action.

Next up for the Bulls: the final game of the league season against the Spurs at 9 AM this Saturday at the Champaign County YMCA.