Hindsight is 20/20 - Just another day in the mortgage mess

Apparently, Senator Grassley asked Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac today to justify bonuses while firms lost money.

Do you want to know what confuses me? Congress has talked about privatizing Fannie and Freddie for over a decade, and now owns Fannie/Freddie. Congress now wants Fannie/Freddie to justify their bonuses now. They are a little late to the playing field in my opinion. This should have been done by its regulators over the past years. It is so frustrating listening to our Congress because their ways seem so antiquated. Their actions seems pathetic, especially after passing the first bailout without any apparent oversight measures put into place, and now the issues with the AIG bonuses. Congress seems so quick to point the fingers instead of taking accountability for their actions.

At a town hall meeting today, President Obama promised the audience, "there will be brighter days". I hope President Obama gives Congress a makeover that modernizes its methodologies and ideologies. Now, that will be a brighter day! Moreover, more importantly, what I find peculiar is that the system apparently allowed the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee to take contributions from Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac as well as from AIG in the first place.

In addition, does it seem logical for President Obama to introduce a "new" law that prohibits anyone serving on the Finance Committee, the Senate Banking Committee or any committee having jurisdiction over banking and consumer protection, from ever taking contributions from the entire financial/commercial industry. This seems like "common sense".

I just cannot believe the law allowed a Senator or anyone who had jurisdiction over the safety and soundness of banks and consumer protection, to take contributions from the financial/commercial sector. How was this not a conflict of interest? Who protected whom here?

With this said, I am going to end this blog entry with a quote: “There is something about too much prosperity that ruins the fiber of the people.” Dwight Morrow, running for the Senate in 1930

Stay tuned...I have more to share. Just another day in the mortgage mess!