The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Surprise: ‘The Treasury Department Claims That Fannie Mae . . . Screwed Up’

Posted on | July 28, 2010 | 9 Comments

How effective is the Obama administration’s program to help people with mortgage problems? The answer is, we have no freaking clue:

The Obama administration has revised its latest monthly report on its signature foreclosure-prevention plan, deleting a heavily-criticized performance metric used to measure whether assisted homeowners are re-defaulting on their taxpayer-financed mortgages.
The Treasury Department claims that Fannie Mae, which administers its Home Affordable Modification Program, screwed up. As a consequence, the public can no longer tell whether homeowners with HAMP modifications, which limits monthly payments to 31 percent of income, are being placed in sustainable mortgages.

Daniel Indiviglio explains that when Treasury issued a report showing that only 5% of mortgages for these high-risk borrowers were 90 days past due, “It looked good, a little too good.” The suspicions of analysts forced Treasury to admit that the “too good” numbers were wrong, but the geniuses at Fannie Mae can’t seem to figure out what the actually numbers are.

Is anyone really surprised? Congress passes laws without reading them, spending billions of dollars of money we don’t have on people living in houses they can’t afford. Naturally, responsibility for monitoring the results of this program is assigned to the same bankrupt “government-sponsored entity” that taxpayers were forced to bail out two years ago. And then we expect Fannie Mae’s accountants to be competent?

This is only “news” to anyone stupid enough to think that economic recovery is a special kind of magic for which only Democrats know the secret formula. Which is to say, Peggy Joseph:

If you need further evidence to fuel your suspicion that the administration is just making up numbers randomly, here’s a story I noticed a couple of days ago:

New home sales rose nearly 24 percent in June from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 330,000, the the Commerce Department said Monday. May’s number was revised downward to a rate of 267,000, the slowest pace on records dating back to 1963. Sales for April and March were also revised downward.

So the government tells us that their housing numbers were crap for three consecutive months. But these latest numbers? Solid gold, baby.

Category: Economics

Comments

9 Responses to “Surprise: ‘The Treasury Department Claims That Fannie Mae . . . Screwed Up’”

  1. jefferson101
    July 29th, 2010 @ 12:01 am

    Of course they can’t tell you. If they did, they would be forced to admit that it has worked about as well as the fabled “Rudder on a Duck’s Azz”, of Engineering fame.

    These Mortgage modifications are just a way to throw a lot of good money after the bad, and my money after the buyers.

    Like the “Rudder on a Duck’s Azz”, I don’t care how you do it. It just won’t work!

  2. jefferson101
    July 28th, 2010 @ 8:01 pm

    Of course they can’t tell you. If they did, they would be forced to admit that it has worked about as well as the fabled “Rudder on a Duck’s Azz”, of Engineering fame.

    These Mortgage modifications are just a way to throw a lot of good money after the bad, and my money after the buyers.

    Like the “Rudder on a Duck’s Azz”, I don’t care how you do it. It just won’t work!

  3. Obi's Sister
    July 29th, 2010 @ 12:02 am

    Trainwreck.

  4. Obi's Sister
    July 28th, 2010 @ 8:02 pm

    Trainwreck.

  5. ccoffer
    July 29th, 2010 @ 6:27 am

    The video speaks to a larger story. No one seems to want to acknowledge what almost everyone of every color accepts as genetic gospel.

    I don’t remember seeing videos of Catholics clutching their rosary beads when Kennedy was elected and talking about how they could finally be something other than chattle…finally.

    Why do leftists of every color think so little of black colored people? Why do leftists consider white colored people to be the master race? Why do leftists foster the notion that white colored people owe something to other colors of people because of what color they were born?

    Can we distribute white? I’m sure plenty of guilt-ridden waifs would gladly give it away.

    uggh..

  6. ccoffer
    July 29th, 2010 @ 2:27 am

    The video speaks to a larger story. No one seems to want to acknowledge what almost everyone of every color accepts as genetic gospel.

    I don’t remember seeing videos of Catholics clutching their rosary beads when Kennedy was elected and talking about how they could finally be something other than chattle…finally.

    Why do leftists of every color think so little of black colored people? Why do leftists consider white colored people to be the master race? Why do leftists foster the notion that white colored people owe something to other colors of people because of what color they were born?

    Can we distribute white? I’m sure plenty of guilt-ridden waifs would gladly give it away.

    uggh..

  7. THE OTHER McCAIN: ‘The Treasury Department Claims That Fannie Mae . . . Screwed Up’ | The Right Sphere - Conservative Blogs, Columnists, News and Opinion
    July 29th, 2010 @ 11:16 am

    […] If you’re actually surprised, see a doctor: How effective is the Obama administration’s program to help people with mortgage problems? The answer is, we have no freaking clue: The Obama administration has revised its latest monthly report on its signature foreclosure-prevention plan, deleting a heavily-criticized performance metric used to measure whether assisted homeowners are re-defaulting on their taxpayer-financed mortgages. […]

  8. republicanmother
    July 29th, 2010 @ 9:50 pm

    Check out my Fannie Mae map:
    http://mapper.nndb.com/maps/001/000009971/

  9. republicanmother
    July 29th, 2010 @ 5:50 pm

    Check out my Fannie Mae map:
    http://mapper.nndb.com/maps/001/000009971/