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Phred42 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-14-08 12:08 PM
Original message
Dodd taking Payola?
Idiot! :banghead:

But this should show that we have cleanup to do on BOTH sides of the asile
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Banking, budget committee chairmen tied to special mortgage deals

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Banking_budget_committee_chairmen_tied_to_0613.html

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd reportedly received two mortgages under a special Countrywide Financial Corp. program that gave preferential interest rates to "friends" of the company's chairman.

A spokesman for Dodd, D-Conn., said Friday that the senator did not seek any special treatment.

"The Dodds received a competitive rate on their loans," spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said in a statement. "They did not seek or anticipate any special treatment and they were not aware of any."

The news of the loans comes as Dodd, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, is playing a high-profile role seeking to ease the nation's housing foreclosure crisis.
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MNDemNY Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-14-08 12:10 PM
Response to Original message
1. Sure as shit.
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Debi Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-14-08 12:13 PM
Response to Original message
2. I question that
We got a good deal on our mortgage w/Countrywide b/c of my husband's age/past mortgage payment history/FICO score. We didn't have to pay points either. And no, we're not friends w/the company's chairman.
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ColbertWatcher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-14-08 12:22 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. I think there's more to this than...
...whatever leaks out in the first story.

I also agree that corruption should be dealt with fairly and swiftly no matter which side does it.

I also wonder who else got sweetheart deals, but haven't yet been mentioned or might not be mentioned at all?

Don't forget McCain's real estate deals for/with Donald Diamond.

Two wrongs don't make a right, obviously, but exposing one while denying the other isn't good practice either.
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mcctatas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-14-08 12:16 PM
Response to Original message
3. I'm dubious....
we'll see how this plays out...
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ColbertWatcher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-14-08 12:23 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. Good advice. n/t
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Zynx Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-14-08 12:24 PM
Response to Original message
6. I wouldn't be surprised. Dodd has been a complete shill for the banking industry
in a lot of the hearings I have seen.
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Phred42 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-14-08 12:29 PM
Response to Reply #6
9. Dodd voted: Banckruptcy No - NAFTA - Yes
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eleny Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-14-08 12:24 PM
Response to Original message
7. If he didn't seek a sweetheart deal, I can't see a problem
We need more info before I make any decisions on how to feel about this.

Thanks for your concern.
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gulfcoastliberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-14-08 12:27 PM
Response to Original message
8. I don't doubt it - both parties are corrupt to their cores.
That is just the sad reality. :(
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OzarkDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-14-08 12:30 PM
Response to Original message
10. Three -eighths and one-fourth of a point aren't much
and I can see how something like this might go unnoticed by the borrower, when rates and discounts were fluctuating daily back in those days.

The amount of money is pretty small in the scope of a large mortgage loaded with lots of closing costs.

It almost sounds like a setup.
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sam sarrha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-14-08 12:32 PM
Response to Original message
11. this is just campaigning for Mc Lame.. read the story.. link>>
Edited on Sat Jun-14-08 01:15 PM by sam sarrha

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Banking_budget_committee_chairmen_tied_to_0613.html
snip"...Countrywide waived three-eighths of a point, or about $2,000, on the townhouse loan, and one-fourth of a point, about $700, on the second, according to internal documents cited by Portfolio. Both loans were for 30 years, with the first five years at a fixed rate..."

take into consideration he is richer than shit, can liquidate investments in a week to pay off the entire loan.. not a risk at all.
and it was a "RE-FINANCE" RICH PEOPLE GET BRAKES CAUSE THEY HAVE THE COLLATERAL"

THIS IS JUST SPINNING SHIT IN AN ELECTION... from the Reich Wing Media Theater

links to the truth.... .>>.links>> Randi Rhodes was on this way back

http://www.star-telegram.com/ed_wallace/story/651928.ht...
snip"...There’s a few hedge fund managers out there who are masters at knowing how to exploit the peak theories and hot buttons of supply and demand and by making bold predictions of shocking price advancements to come, they only add more fuel to the bullish fire in a sort of self fulfilling prophecy." — National Gas Week, September 5, 2005 as reprinted in the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ report, "The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices," June 27, 2006
A week ago Goldman Sachs issued a new investor note, suggesting that somewhere between six months to two years, the price of oil could go into a "super spike" and prices jump as high as $200 per barrel. It became the major story of the night. Ignored in the reporting frenzy was that many legitimate and well-respected oil analysts dismissed Goldman Sachs’ prediction as groundless.snip..."

snip..."Get ready for the next shock to your system. In the past month we have added 11.9 million barrels of oil into our stock reserves, giving us 32.3 million more barrels of oil than we had on hand January 1. On May 5, we found out that for the second time in as many years, Iran was storing its excess crude oil on tankers in the Persian Gulf, because it had run out of storage space in the desert and was awaiting buyers for its heavy crude. That same day Saudi Arabia cut the discount price for its Arabian Heavy crude to $7.45, hoping to entice more buyers for immediate delivery. We didn’t hear that news, either.snip.."



snip..."That’s right, shipments of oil headed west have shown serious declines during the month of April, down 800,000 barrels per day in the week before the publication of the report. Now, let me give you the first line from under the Westbound Oil shipments chart: "In the west, a big share of any stock building done this year has happened offshore, out of sight."

Could this be true? Oil Movements, the unimpeachable source for finding the real world situation on oil transits, is saying that oil is being hidden offshore, not declared in inventories? Yes, that is exactly what they are saying.

That same week our refineries cut their production runs back to 85 percent, down from 89 percent a year ago, to trim more gasoline out of our stock reserves, to increase their profits per gallon....snip"

http://www.star-telegram.com/ed_wallace/story/659081.ht...
2 of 2 snip..." A vote was hurriedly put together before the Clinton White House would take over, and so Lay could finally start "dark" – unregulated – futures trading. The head of the CFTC was Wendy Gramm, wife of Texas Senator Phil Gramm; five weeks after she left, she became a board member of Enron in Houston.

Fast-forward to late 2000 and H.R. 5660, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, sponsored by Republican Congressman Thomas Ewing of Illinois. That bill went nowhere, even though Tom Delay’s wife Christine was then working for a Washington lobbying firm, Alexander Strategies – which Enron had paid $200,000 to push through legislation for permanent energy deregulation in these "dark" markets.

Six months later came Senate Bill 3283, also named the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. This time around the sponsor was Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, and now Phil Gramm was listed as one of the bill’s co-sponsors. Like it had in the House, this bill was destined to go nowhere until, late one night, it was attached as a rider to an 11,000-page appropriations bill – which was signed into law by President Clinton.

Now traders had an officially deregulated market for energy futures. Worse, that bill also deregulated many financial instruments – including the collateralized debt obligations that are at the center of today’s mortgage crisis, which may well cost us more than $1 trillion before it’s over."

http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_325...
snip..."Perhaps 60 percent of oil prices today pure speculation

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley today are the two leading energy trading firms in the United States. Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase are major players and fund numerous hedge funds as well who speculate.

In June 2006, oil traded in futures markets at some $60 a barrel and the Senate investigation estimated that some $25 of that was due to pure financial speculation. One analyst estimated in August 2005 that US oil inventory levels suggested WTI crude prices should be around $25 a barrel, and not $60.

That would mean today that at least $50 to $60 or more of today’s $115 a barrel price is due to pure hedge fund and financial institution speculation. However, given the unchanged equilibrium in global oil supply and demand over recent months amid the explosive rise in oil futures prices traded on NYMEX and ICE exchanges in New York and London, it is more likely that as much as 60 percent of the today oil price is pure speculation. No one knows officially except the tiny handful of energy trading banks in New York and London and they certainly aren’t talking.

By purchasing large numbers of futures contracts, and thereby pushing up futures prices to even higher levels than current prices, speculators have provided a financial incentive for oil companies to buy even more oil and place it in storage. A refiner will purchase extra oil today, even if it costs $115 per barrel, if the futures price is even higher. As a result, over the past two years crude oil inventories have been steadily growing, resulting in US crude oil inventories that are now higher than at any time in the previous eight years. The large influx of speculative investment into oil futures has led to a situation where we have both high supplies of crude oil and high crude oil prices.

Compelling evidence also suggests that the oft-cited geopolitical, economic, and natural factors do not explain the recent rise in energy prices can be seen in the actual data on crude oil supply and demand. Although demand has significantly increased over the past few years, so have supplies.

Over the past couple of years, global crude oil production has increased along with the increases in demand; in fact, during this period global supplies have
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