Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Management Failures Fadeaway? Not Ever!

3 Men who brought down Wall Street....................



Be sure to read the "where they are now"!!



Here is a quick look into 3 former Fannie Mae executives who have brought down Wall Street.

1. Franklin Raines: was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregulaties in Fannie Mae's accounting activities. At the time of his departure The Wall Street Journal noted, " Raines, who long defended the company's accounting despite mounting evidence that it wasn't proper, issued a statement late Tuesday conceding that "mistakes were made" and saying he would assume responsibility as he had earlier promised. News reports indicate the company was under growing pressure from regulators to shake up its management in the wake of findings that the company's books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years." Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion.



Raines left with a "golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear. http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/ . The Government noted, "The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls, misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public. The Notice explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner." These charges were made in 2006. The Court ordered Raines to return $50 Million Dollars he received in bonuses based on the miss-stated Fannie Mae profits.

2. Tim Howard: Was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard "was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that would ensure a "stable pattern of earnings" at Fannie. In everyday English - he was cooking the books. The Government Investigation determined that, "Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae,"


On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La ., asked the Justice Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie Mae executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied manipulating the mortgage-finance giant's income statement to achieve management pay bonuses. Investigations by federal regulators and the company's board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004.

Howard's Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million!


3. Jim Johnson: A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, and you'll see some interesting things about Johnson. Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million." Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae.


Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?


1. FRANKLIN RAINES? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as Chief Economic Advisor


2. TIM HOWARD? Howard is also a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama


3. JIM JOHNSON? Johnson hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential Search Committee<><>

IF OBAMA PLANS ON CLEANING UP THE MESS - HIS ADVISORS HAVE THE EXPERTISE - THEY MADE THE MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Would you trust the men who tore Wall Street down to build the New Wall Street ?

4 comments:

dd said...

Merle, the election is over. How about we stop circulating the old campaingn lies. Here are the facts, if you are interested:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/fanniemae.asp

Merle Widmer said...

DD,

Here are the facts. SNOPES is controlled by the left leaning liberal faction of this country. I'm sure you know that. If you don't believe it, prove me wrong.

Time will tell as "new facts that should have been brought to the attention of the public before the election" will start surfacing in the back pages of the left leaning libral media.

dd said...

Well then how about the Washington Post?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/09/obamas_fannie_mae_connection.html

Anonymous said...

Merle, maybe you should focus on the Dems and Repubs that voted in favor of the 1999 bill deregulating the banking industry and also the derivative traders at the financial companies.

But it's easier just to tie it to Obama.