$210 Million in Freddie and Fannie Retention Bonuses: Will the Media Wig Out AIG-Style?

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By Seton Motley (Bio | Archive)
April 3, 2009 - 17:06 ET
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NewsBusters.org | Media Research Center
Will There Be a Corresponding Media Call to Pitchforks?
Please don't halt respiratory activity in the waiting.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are two public-private partnerships known as Government Sponsored Entities (GSEs).  Wherein the executive staff, populated with woefully unqualified, egregiously overpaid political crony appointees, get to play housing market roulette with the House's (read: OUR) money. 

Freddie and Fannie have spent the last two decades plus buying up nearly every horrendous home loan the federal government forced banks to make to unqualified borrowers.  While the going was good, so too were the profits and attending bonuses for these political hacks posing as home lending experts. 

But when the market collapsed, Freddie and Fannie were left holding the toxic asset bag.  And by Freddie and Fannie I mean us.  You and me.  We tax payers.  

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When these two TITANIC entities caved in, the sinkhole created caused a lot of surrounding businesses to fall in as well.  That, in a broad overview, explains at least in large part our current economic predicament.

Well, today's Wall Street Journal (subscribers only get the full story) informs us that Frannie and Freddie will spend the next eighteen months doling out $210 million in retention bonuses to 7,600 employees.

The media went apoplectic last month when American International Group (AIG) - collateral damage of the Freddie and Fannie mess and a federal bailout recipient - paid $165 million (that would be LESS than Freddie and Fannie will be paying) in retention bonuses.  Many of them to people who had worked for $1 salaries in anticipation of their lump sums and were not in the hedge fund-wing that landed the company in the corporate handout line. 

The press rushed to stoke populist rage, demanding that the money be returned and righteously championing the 90% specialty tax passed by Congress to punitively (not to mention unConstitutionally - equal protection, anyone?) pull back the bonus money via the Internal Revenue Service.

Will they again look to assemble the pitchforked now that Freddie and Fannie - entities that have received federal money every day since their inception - are about to dole out bonuses identical in style and greater in amount?  

Again I say, don't hold your breath.

—Seton Motley is Director of Communications for the Media Research Center and Contributing Editor for NewsBusters.org.


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If....

April 3, 2009 - 17:37 ET by dborschjr68

If this thing doesn't result in the same firestorm of Mob Rule that the libs whipped-up for AIG, I will start it myself.

Turnabout is fair-play, right?

My match is lit

April 3, 2009 - 17:59 ET by jdlybrand

I can promise you I'm spreading the word on this. All the indignation over the AIG bonuses made me want to blow my groceries. Barney Fwank declares no problems with Freddie and Fannie and gets favors in return. ACORN shows up in buses at AIG homes to harass and intimidate employees who were contractually bound to recieve bonuses that Chris Dodd implemented in the bailout to AIG. ACORN gets billions in stimulus money. Why aren't these guys in jail?

Just goes to show you there's no shortage of liars and dumbasses in our country.

 

CLASS WARFARE... YEAH... THAT"S THE TICKET!

Fwank

April 3, 2009 - 17:51 ET by slickwillie2001

Bahney Fwank won't have to demand the names of all those at Fannie and Freddie that got the bonuses, I suspect that they are all in his little black book and that he got them those jobs in the first place.

Outrage/msm

April 3, 2009 - 17:54 ET by bigtimer

The msm has remained silent about Fred/Fan now about everything from Barney and congress-critters that have protected it, that started this whole house of cards to fall from bonuses that Raines, Gorelick, Johnson and others have received in the past...and Rahm too...there will not be diddle about this in the msm unless a handful of determined conservatives get on the networks and bring this up 24/7 themselves...until it catches fire...then phone calls from constituents to follow.

Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea. ~Andrew Breitbart

Bawney Fwank...

April 3, 2009 - 18:04 ET by vastateofmind

...you are in MY sights, and I will make it MY civic duty that you're publicly maligned as much as the AIG folks were. This is DISGUSTING...

The government will give our tax dollars to dead beats...

April 3, 2009 - 18:18 ET by R D Helm

...third-generation welfare consumers, and any other non-productive person or group they can either find or create, 24/7/365, and you won't hear a peep from the lefty hypocrites.

But if one dime goes to the private sector, even to pay contractually obligated bonuses, then suddenly its the end of the world.

As for Slobbering Bawney, he should be arrested immediately, and held without bond until his criminal trial for his role in the mortgage melt-down.

-Dave

This coup has gone on long enough. The time to put it down is NOW.

If America was 1/100th the fascist country the left claimed...

April 3, 2009 - 18:50 ET by JohnMcGrew

...it was, Frank & Dodd's heads would be on pikes in front of the Capitol.

Finding the punishment to fit the crime...

April 3, 2009 - 21:21 ET by needle

Even if Frank & Dodd's heads were on pikes in front of the Capitol, it would not say anything about this country being Fascist, but merely a bit exuberant in exacting justice.

Frankly (no pun intended), I am hard pressed to think of any punishment excessively cruel for those two mega-scoundrels.  How about rendition to a Middle Eastern country of your choice?  I think we should throw in Barney Madoff while we are at it.

Impunitas semper ad deteriora invitat.

How bout Iran? Fwank would

April 4, 2009 - 11:51 ET by MrSnuggles

How bout Iran? Fwank would not survive long there.

Don't you mean..

April 6, 2009 - 08:50 ET by Sergeant ROCK

... 'FwankenDodd'?

"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason

lol

April 3, 2009 - 21:58 ET by katainkent

better question : will it make the news at all.

We must be really stupid...

April 3, 2009 - 23:32 ET by caiobabe

I mean... c'mon...

We have Obie's really smart home girl known as Maxine Waters who said that Freddie and Fannie are just fine.

Get real.  If Obama is right then his sister would be too.

caio... So right you

April 3, 2009 - 23:46 ET by bigtimer

caio...

So right you are.

Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea. ~Andrew Breitbart

Of course the MSM won't get

April 4, 2009 - 00:44 ET by zf

Of course the MSM won't get as mad. It's only when evil CEO's and those horrible capitalists get huge bonuses do they gnash their teeth. They don't want you to see how the government dominated worldwide banking system caused this mess, they want you to get all fumed up and blame free markets so they can push their view of government as some saintly instutition that can do no wrong and in turn push Obama as the Messiah.

 

 

 

 

It's bad enough these FUTURE bonuses, but how about

April 4, 2009 - 18:21 ET by Cape Conservative

ALL THE BIG $$$$$ Franklin Raines & his cohorts gave themselves WHILE COOKING THE BOOKS just a few years ago!

Our Congress is so FILTHY!!!  And we have the QUEEN of FILTH ruling the roost!  Surely we all remember her promise of the 'most ethical Congress' once she was Speaker!  Harrumph! 

At the very least, Barney Frank & Chris Dodd should be REMOVED from their committees and held accountable for their DEEP involvement in this whole debacle!  In my humble opinion, they should be tried and put behind bars just like Bernie Madoff.  Remember the big deal made over him scamming his clients...well, Frank & Dodd & Schumer have SCAMMED their clients -THAT'S US, FOLKS, THE LAW-ABIDING TAXPAYERS of AMERICA!! - and I want ACORN to bring a bus (at no cost to us) to pick up all the ANGRY AMERICANS and drive us to the Capitol so we can protest!  I am hopping mad at how ARROGANT these sons-of-guns are!!

By the way, I have my teabag pictures ready to get in the mail!!!  April 15 - let's FLOOD the mail rooms in DC and at their local offices.  No tea bags - they just get thrown out - send pictures with any comments - YES WE CAN!!!! 

It is no dishonor to be in a minority in the cause of liberty and virtue. ~ Sam Adams

Of course they  won't 'wig

April 5, 2009 - 19:18 ET by RR GOP

Of course they  won't 'wig out'...Fannie was started under FDR and both of them were supported by the Social Democrats.  Talking too much about Fannie and Freddie may necessitate the the need to drag in Social Democrats like Frank, and the CRE, etc.

Just easier to blame greedy rich people in (once) truly free private companies than to point out the ongoing propping up of Social engineering programs that don't work and mess up the economy.

One of the 34% who thinks George W. Bush was a great President. One of the 61% who wants to bring back the stock and pillory (yep...approval for Congress now at 39%...do you believe that!?).