And I dare anyone out there to prove me wrong.

Cross posted from Investor's Business Daily http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=308186097284712 Please continue to read on and take notice of my notes (Note from Norm.) Thank you. Norman E. Hooben

Wake Up, America

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, October 06, 2008 4:20 PM PT

A nation that doesn't know history is destined to repeat its serious mistakes. People swayed by carefully crafted political propaganda relentlessly repeated and effectively delivered can easily lose their freedom and way of life.

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IBD Series: After The Rescue: Challenges Ahead

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How many times have you been told by soaring, almost hypnotic oratory that "the direct causes of our financial crisis and sub prime real estate loan mess were the greedy banks, big corporations and the failed economic policies of George Bush"?

It's common to blame the one in power. This time, however, it's 100% wrong.

Every American, young or old, must be told who was really behind the sub prime loan disaster that threw our economy off track and injured the good people who lost their homes — like those now boarded up in Cleveland and other major cities — plus the millions of other citizens hurt by yet another failed Big Government-run program gone awry.

In 1977, Jimmy Carter and a Democrat Congress created the Community Reinvestment Act mandating that banks make more housing loans to lower-income and inner-city borrowers. It was for a well-intended social cause and even appeared to work in the 1980s. (Note from Norm: In 1985 I was selling real estate in San Antonio, Texas. Having dealt with buyers and mortgage companies I knew then that something was wrong. I didn't figure it out until one of my customers, a first time buyer, ask for my help in trying to renegotiate his mortgage. Upon investigating his alternatives it was clear that Jimmy "The Hypocrite" Carter was truly to blame.)

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But in 1995, President Clinton imposed even tougher regulations that forced banks to make dramatically more sub prime loans to previously unqualified people with lower credit scores in higher-risk areas. (Note from Norm: I didn't figure this one out until 1999 when I stated that Bill Clinton's deregulation legislation was going to destroy the economy. Note that I called it deregulation for that's exactly what it was. Clinton and his cronies repealed the earlier laws that were passed in the 1920's and 30's that were designed to prevent what is happening right now. And that my friends is one of the main reasons Ive repeated the saying, " WAKE UP AMERICA " Further, and that is why I've stated to Senator Shelby et al, "That this financial meltdown is deliberate." It is deliberate because the bi-partisan Clinton-Obama-Bush clan need to destroy the economy to make way for the Amero and their Brave New World called the North American Union. It is bi-partisan in that some Republicans are involved with this new world order (remember former President George Herbert Walker Bush) but it has to be said that over ninety-plus percent are Democrats destined to turn the country into a Socialist State under the United Nations. And I dare anyone out there to prove me wrong.)

Government regulators rated banks by how well they performed in meeting these strict new CRA obligations. Failure to comply meant stiff penalties and limits on mergers, acquisitions and expansion.

Big Government forced the lowering of long-proven safe-lending standards. Most of the more than $1 trillion of new sub prime CRA loans had adjustable rates. Many required no documentation of the borrower's income and little or no down payment.

For the first time, the Clinton regulatory rules allowed and encouraged lenders to bundle the new, riskier sub prime loans with prime loans and sell these packages to other institutions. The first one hit the market in 1997. That tragic blunder let loan originators make their profits faster and eliminate any future risk for those lower-quality loans. It let them turn around and make even more CRA-type loans and sell them off in packages again, with little future risk.

It was a government-sponsored pyramid scheme, with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac providing the implied government backing by buying ever larger amounts of these risky subprimes.

Freddie and Fannie also became heavy donors to top members of Congress. These included Sen. Chris Dodd, a young Sen. Barack Obama and Rep. Barney Frank, who aggressively defended the highly leveraged, extremely risky lending against any reforms.

Ironically, the Bush administration repeatedly went to Congress in 2004, 2005 and 2006 to obtain stronger oversight and some limits on Freddie and Fannie's reckless subprime lending. And each time, it was voted down by Democrats in Congress, led by Frank, now chairman of the Financial Services Committee.

Bottom line: This whole mess was another Big Government program created, designed and run by Democrats. It started with great intentions but resulted in typically awful unintended consequences that materially hurt the very people they were supposed to help.

Worse, this incompetence put our financial system in jeopardy. It's reminiscent of LBJ's two lost wars — the War in Vietnam and the War on Poverty.

Many government housing projects, though well-intended as part of LBJ's War on Poverty, later deteriorated into slums that became recruiting grounds to get very young new gang members.

That's how we got into this financial mess — and why the $700 billion rescue package was passed. But what about the future? What serious threats does America face in the next five years? The list isn't comforting:

• Iran's Ahmadinejad and his mullah bosses, the leading terrorist country in the world that will have nukes, and want to wipe out Israel and have a world with no USA.

• Al-Qaida and other radical Islamic global terrorists that want to strike us again.

• Putin's resurgent Russia, which desires to take back Georgia and Ukraine, plus give nuclear capabilities to Venezuela and re-arm Cuba and Nicaragua.

• Communist China's increasing military capabilities.

• Foolish decisions that would result in weakening our ability to defend ourselves.

Let's study the "History Repeats Itself" chart of our Nasdaq index from 1992 to October 2008 and how it has remarkably copied in parallel the Dow Jones industrials, pricewise, from the early 1920s up to the beginning of 1938. One reason for this is that while technology changes over time, human nature doesn't.

Hope and fear, good and bad, and other basic drives are always with us. The market is human psychology on display, and history continually repeats itself.

If our Nasdaq market continues to replicate the 1938 to 1942 market, as it did the prior 16 years, what may be in store for us? What happened in 1938 and 1939 and the early 1930s leading up to '38? What vital lesson does knowing history tell us?

To begin with, Germany's Nazi party in 1928 won only 810,000 votes nationally, elected only 12 to the Reichstag and was considered sort of a joke. But the 1929 crash started the Depression, with unemployment soaring and poverty hitting hard, even among the formerly prosperous middle class.

In 1930, the bad economy helped the Nazi party get 6.5 million votes nationally and put 107 deputies in the Reichstag, becoming the second-largest party. By 1933, again due to a poor economy, Hitler became Germany's chancellor. His storm troopers, Hitler Youth and Goebbels' propaganda departments grew rapidly.

In 1935, Hitler announced a draft to build the national army to 500,000. An air force was already in place in violation of the Versailles Treaty. France and England protested but did nothing.

Hitler said he wanted peace and people believed him. But in 1936 he marched into the Rhineland. France did nothing; Hitler said he had no further territorial demands in Europe.

In 1937, he intimidated Austria and took it over. Only Britain's Neville Chamberlain and France protested. Jewish people were sent to concentration camps or extermination centers. Now we're up to the equivalent of 1938 on our Nasdaq chart — where we are today.

Hitler stirs up demonstrations in Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, claiming ethnic Germans are being persecuted. Britain's Neville Chamberlain visits Hitler in September 1938. Hitler wants Britain and France to let Germany take the part of Czechoslovakia with a German population.

Chamberlain gives in to Hitler's demands; the Munich Agreement gives Hitler Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. Chamberlain returns to London in triumph with a letter from Hitler declaring he thereafter would continue to work for peace.

Crowds cheered when Chamberlain said, "I believe it is peace for our time."

In Parliament, one man rose to state his opposition: "We have sustained a total, unmitigated defeat." But Winston Churchill was shouted down.

In 1939, Hitler gobbled the rest of Czechoslovakia. Czechs were killed or enslaved. In September 1939, 1.5 million German troops defeated 30 Polish divisions in 18 days, as Russia invaded the rest of Poland from the east. World War II had begun — and Germany rapidly took one country after another until finally Chamberlain was replaced by Churchill in early 1940.

Why dwell on all this history? Well, history tells us that showing weakness or appeasement by negotiating with tyrants is both gullible and dangerous.

When a young JFK after the Bay of Pigs failure met with Khrushchev, the Soviets immediately moved to build the Berlin Wall. It stayed in place for 28 years. Next, the Soviets installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, threatening to turn the Cold War into WWIII.

When a one-term governor from Plains, Ga., became president, he visited our strongest military ally in the Mideast and stopped selling our fighter aircraft to them. And why? Because Jimmy Carter didn't like the Shah of Iran's treatment of Soviet spies who had been undermining Iran.

Carter preferred the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini as a leader because he was religious. So we stood by as the Shah, an ally, was overthrown. Today, Iran is the world's biggest sponsor of terror and is on track to have nukes in five years — all thanks to Carter's naivete.

We'll have to have an older, wiser, far more experienced president to deal with this dangerous threat. We can't have another Carter or another Chamberlain. Incidentally, after Carter lost Iran in what amounted to total incompetence, he visited Leonid Brezhnev.

Brezhnev afterward promptly invaded Afghanistan and Carter said, "I can't believe he lied to me." While Carter was in office, the Soviets took over a number of countries, including Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Grenada, Mozambique, Ethiopia, South Yemen and Nicaragua.

The more Carter talked, the worse it got for the U.S.

Of our three youngest presidents since WWII, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton, Bill Clinton was 46 when sworn in. He was a great salesman and a smart, popular politician.

He had never been in the military and didn't know much about it and was not successful in dealing with al-Qaida, who tested him only one month into office in February 1993, when terrorists trained in Afghanistan bombed the World Trade Center in New York.

That October, al-Qaida hurt us in Somalia when they shot down our Black Hawk helicopters; 73 Americans wounded, 18 killed.

Next, a joint Saudi-U.S. facility was bombed, then our Khobar Towers housing complex. July 1996, al-Qaida defectors tell us their direction; 1998, bin Laden declares "war on America"; 1998, they blew up our embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam; 200 killed, 5,000 injured.

In answer, we fired a couple of missiles into the vacant desert and an aspirin factory. October 2000, the USS Cole was bombed.

The 9/11 report showed that the Clinton administration had up to 10 chances to get bin Laden when they knew where he was, but failed to act.

In 12 different surveys by historians, the most recent in 2005 (and all available on the Internet), America's presidents are ranked: Of the 43 presidents, Ronald Reagan ranked 6th; Harry Truman 7th; Dwight Eisenhower 7th; John Kennedy, 15th; Bill Clinton 22nd; Jimmy Carter, 34th.

Reagan was weeks from being 70 when inaugurated, Truman was 60, and Eisenhower 62; Kennedy was only 43, Clinton 46 and Carter 52. History shows that our very best, most productive, successful presidents were older.

Why? They had the most experience, maturity and sound judgment in defending America.

Harry Truman said our most handsome presidents that to the public looked presidential were Warren Harding and Franklin Pierce.

How did they do? Harding in the 2005 survey ranked 39th, while Pierce ranked 38th. Could they have been a little less tested?

So who do you think history tells us may be the most experienced person we can trust to be commander-in-chief and deal with Iranian terrorists with nukes; Putin's resurgent Russia that backs Iran and wants to give nuclear capability to Venezuela, re-arm Cuba and Nicaragua; an al-Qaida that wants to strike America again; and, let's not forget, up-and-coming China?

The following does not say it all but it's enough to hang all the Democrats starting with Bill Clinton and finishing with Barney Frank. Where is the Attorney General when you need him? - Norm

I Smell Trouble...Is Obama trying to cover up his Muslim connection?

Obama's Foreign Experience and his Chicago Politics

H-T to Tony

First this

NAIROBI, Kenya – For the past week, WND author and reporter Jerome Corsi has been in the Kenyan capital investigating ties between Sen. Barack Obama and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, as first presented in his New York Times No. 1 best-selling book, "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality."

At a news conference today in Nairobi, Corsi plans to announce he can now affirm the following as a result of his reporting in Kenya:

• Obama and Odinga have been in direct contact since the senator's visit to Kenya in 2006.
  
  
• Obama remained in active phone contact with Odinga through the New Hampshire Democratic Party primary in January. The Illinois senator continued to support Odinga, turning a blind eye to an agreement signed with Muslims and the post-election violence instigated as part of the campaign strategy.
  
• Obama has advised Odinga on campaign strategy and helped the Kenyan politician raise money in the U.S. for his presidential campaign in the East African nation.
• The memorandum of understanding signed Aug. 27, 2007, by Odinga, representing the Orange Democratic Movement, and Sheik Abdullahi Abdi, the chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum, has been confirmed as a genuine document.
  
  
• An eight-page document drafted for Odinga as an executive summary of his campaign strategy, entitled "Positioning and Marketing of the Orange Democratic Movement and the People's President – Hon. Raila A. Odinga," that was allegedly prepared by the party's core strategy team has also been verified as a valid document.
  
  
• Odinga's 2007 presidential campaign strategy called for exploiting anti-Kikuyu tribal sentiments, claiming victory and charging voter fraud even if the campaign knew the election had been legitimately lost. Odinga also was willing to fan the flames of ethnic tribal tensions and use violence as a last resort by calling for mass action that led to the destruction of properties, injuries, loss of life and the displacement of over 500,000 Kenyans. The purpose was to compel the Electoral Commission of Kenya to declare him the winner or enable him to declare himself the winner by force.
  
  
• Odinga has not completely fulfilled his campaign promises to the Muslims who voted for him, and he continues to cause concern among Kenyans, since he has not declared his position on the Islamic law in the country.

And then this

DISPATCH FROM KENYA
Kenya detains Corsi during Obama probe
Officials scuttle WND reporter's news conference on investigation

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Posted: October 07, 2008
7:26 am Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

WND senior staff writer Jerry Corsi

NAIROBI, Kenya – The government of Kenya is holding WND senior staff reporter Jerome Corsi in custody at immigration headquarters after police picked him up at his hotel just prior to a scheduled news conference in which he planned to announce the findings of his investigation into Barack Obama's connections in the country.

Corsi, the author of the No. 1 best-selling book "The Obama Nation," was picked up by authorities at his hotel at 9:45 a.m. and is being detained at Nyayo House, the provincial headquarters for Nairobi.

"Just as we were about to start the 10 a.m. press conference at the Grand Regency Hotel in Nairobi, Kenyan immigration approached us and detained us," Corsi told WND by telephone this morning. "Tim Bueler, my publicist, and I are now in the immigration offices, with our passports taken. The immigration officer told the press, 'There is no problem, and Dr. Corsi is a friend of Kenya.'"

Corsi had extensive meetings with top Kenyan officials upon his arrival. His visit and his activities during his stay have been well-known to authorities at the highest levels.

A senior immigration official in charge of investigations, Carlos Maluta was quoted by the Associated Press as saying: "We still haven't decided what to do with him."

Despite reports elsewhere to the contrary, Corsi has not been arrested or charged with any offense.

Corsi remains in continual contact with WND editors by telephone and text messaging.

Obama has a long history of connections in Kenya, where his father worked as a government economist. Corsi documented this history in his book and went to Kenya to find answers to lingering questions – particularly about the links between the presidential candidate and Kenya Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

Corsi had promised a news conference today that would "expose details of deep secret ties between U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and a section of Kenya government leaders, their connection to certain sectoral groups in Kenya and subsequent plot to be executed in Kenya should Senator Obama win the American presidency."

Meanwhile, the management of the hotel where Corsi was scheduled to hold the press conference has repudiated its plans to provide the facility.

In a press release, the hotel said: "We would like to assure our business partners and the public at large that Laico Regency Hotel is a law-abiding institution and does not condone any smear campaigns. The management cannot allow such activities to take place."

Sen. Barack Obama with Raila Odinga

Corsi told WND he has been assured he will be released soon. He had planned to leave the country tomorrow, arriving in London first and the U.S. Friday.

A hotel worker in Nairobi told Reuters Corsi was picked up as soon as he walked into the hotel for the scheduled press conference: "He was walking in and then some immigration officers who were following him snatched him. It happened so fast, they just vanished with him."

"Obama is revered in Kenya for his paternal roots here and as a flagbearer for Africa on the international stage," explained the Reuters dispatch.

Kenyan TV station KTN said Corsi may be sent home due to lack of a work permit. However, Corsi met with top officials in Nairobi earlier this week explaining in detail the purpose of his visit and sharing copies of his news releases and books.

Corsi told WND Editor Joseph Farah by telephone that Kenyan authorities claimed they were holding him because the immigration forms his party filled out for customs had been lost.

Corsi was set to show Obama and Odinga have been in direct contact since the senator's visit to Kenya in 2006. He was to claim Obama advised Odinga on campaign strategy and helped him raise money in the U.S. for the Kenya presidential campaign.

Corsi was to report Odinga's 2007 presidential campaign strategy called for exploiting anti-Kikuyu tribal sentiments, claiming victory and charging voter fraud even if the campaign knew the election had been legitimately lost. Odinga, Corsi said, also was willing to fan the flames of ethnic tribal tensions and use violence as a last resort by calling for mass action that led to the destruction of properties, injuries, loss of life and the displacement of over 500,000 Kenyans. The purpose was to compel the Electoral Commission of Kenya to declare him the winner or enable him to declare himself the winner by force.

Even though Odinga has not fulfilled his campaign promises to the Muslims who voted for him, he continues to cause concern among Kenyans because he has not declared his position on Shariah law, Corsi said.

Corsi said Obama remained in active phone contact with Odinga through the New Hampshire Democratic Party primary in January. The Illinois senator continued to support Odinga, he said, turning a blind eye to an agreement signed with Muslims and the post-election violence instigated as part of the campaign strategy.

CNN - Are they beginning to bend?

The far left news organization CNN has apparently seen the light... or at least some of it. Not known for reporting the truth on any political news CNN has shown a remarkable turn around with the following news item (see video below).

For those of you who have followed some of my warnings please note the reference to the United Nations; this is still the most important factor in these presidential debates and it has yet to be discussed by either candidate. While most Americans are distracted by the issues presented by the parties (Democrats and Republicans), the United nations works diligently in the background for their ultimate take-over of the United States.

Wake up America and start supporting your country; not you political party. - Norman E. Hooben

Never Revealed Before...The facts behind the Muslim Candidate for president.

FALSIFYING EVIDENCE TO WIN SUPPORT. "Accurate information" and "analyzing issues" are two of many seductive euphemism that deceive the public. Truth and facts matter little. (United Nations and Saul Alinsky objectives) Obama uses this tactic very efficiently.

"All the time we are denying with our lips what we are doing with our hands.."

Be sure to click on parts 2 through 6.

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor* moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies in the heart of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear.

The traitor is the plague......" Marcus Tullius Cicero, speech to the Roman Senate.

* Barrack Husein Obama

More explanations on the ideology of Obama: (click on the link below) "This is the last country of freedom...there are no more countries to escape to..."

http://rightinaleftworld.blogspot.com/2008/10/think-it-cant-happen-here-yuri-bezmenov.html

Follow the history of the New World Order: http://www.constitution.org/col/cuddy_nwo.htm

Guess Who?

Who Said What...The Democrats lied, the country died. The Republicans tried, but let it slide.

What They Said About Fan and Fred

Cross posted from: http://wsj.com/article/SB122290574391296381.html

• Video
  House Financial Services Committee hearing, Sept. 10, 2003:

Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.): I worry, frankly, that there's a tension here. The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios. . . .

AP

Clockwise from top left: Sen. Thomas Carper, Rep. Barney Frank, Sen. Robert Bennett, Rep. Maxine Waters, Sen. Chris Dodd and Sen. Charles Schumer.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), speaking to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez:

Secretary Martinez, if it ain't broke, why do you want to fix it? Have the GSEs [government-sponsored enterprises] ever missed their housing goals?

* * *

House Financial Services Committee hearing, Sept. 25, 2003:

Rep. Frank: I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing. . . .

* * *

House Financial Services Committee hearing, Sept. 25, 2003:

Rep. Gregory Meeks, (D., N.Y.): . . . I am just pissed off at Ofheo [Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight] because if it wasn't for you I don't think that we would be here in the first place.

Fannie Mayhem: A History

A compendium of The Wall Street Journal's recent editorial coverage of Fannie and Freddie.

And Freddie Mac, who on its own, you know, came out front and indicated it is wrong, and now the problem that we have and that we are faced with is maybe some individuals who wanted to do away with GSEs in the first place, you have given them an excuse to try to have this forum so that we can talk about it and maybe change the direction and the mission of what the GSEs had, which they have done a tremendous job. . .

Ofheo Director Armando Falcon Jr.: Congressman, Ofheo did not improperly apply accounting rules; Freddie Mac did. Ofheo did not try to manage earnings improperly; Freddie Mac did. So this isn't about the agency's engagement in improper conduct, it is about Freddie Mac. Let me just correct the record on that. . . . I have been asking for these additional authorities for four years now. I have been asking for additional resources, the independent appropriations assessment powers.

Brian Carney of the Editorial Board on the hearings Congresspeople don't want to remember. (Oct. 2)

This is not a matter of the agency engaging in any misconduct. . . .

Rep. Waters: However, I have sat through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn't broke. Housing is the economic engine of our economy, and in no community does this engine need to work more than in mine. With last week's hurricane and the drain on the economy from the war in Iraq, we should do no harm to these GSEs. We should be enhancing regulation, not making fundamental change.

Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and in particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines. Everything in the 1992 act has worked just fine. In fact, the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals. . . .

Rep. Frank: Let me ask [George] Gould and [Franklin] Raines on behalf of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, do you feel that over the past years you have been substantially under-regulated?

Mr. Raines?

Mr. Raines: No, sir.

Mr. Frank: Mr. Gould?

Mr. Gould: No, sir. . . .

Mr. Frank: OK. Then I am not entirely sure why we are here. . . .

Rep. Frank: I believe there has been more alarm raised about potential unsafety and unsoundness than, in fact, exists.

* * *

Senate Banking Committee, Oct. 16, 2003:

Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.): And my worry is that we're using the recent safety and soundness concerns, particularly with Freddie, and with a poor regulator, as a straw man to curtail Fannie and Freddie's mission. And I don't think there is any doubt that there are some in the administration who don't believe in Fannie and Freddie altogether, say let the private sector do it. That would be sort of an ideological position.

Mr. Raines: But more importantly, banks are in a far more risky business than we are.

* * *

Senate Banking Committee, Feb. 24-25, 2004:

Sen. Thomas Carper (D., Del.): What is the wrong that we're trying to right here? What is the potential harm that we're trying to avert?

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan: Well, I think that that is a very good question, senator.

What we're trying to avert is we have in our financial system right now two very large and growing financial institutions which are very effective and are essentially capable of gaining market shares in a very major market to a large extent as a consequence of what is perceived to be a subsidy that prevents the markets from adjusting appropriately, prevents competition and the normal adjustment processes that we see on a day-by-day basis from functioning in a way that creates stability. . . . And so what we have is a structure here in which a very rapidly growing organization, holding assets and financing them by subsidized debt, is growing in a manner which really does not in and of itself contribute to either home ownership or necessarily liquidity or other aspects of the financial markets. . . .

Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.): [T]he federal government has [an] ambiguous relationship with the GSEs. And how do we actually get rid of that ambiguity is a complicated, tricky thing. I don't know how we do it.

I mean, you've alluded to it a little bit, but how do we define the relationship? It's important, is it not?

Mr. Greenspan: Yes. Of all the issues that have been discussed today, I think that is the most difficult one. Because you cannot have, in a rational government or a rational society, two fundamentally different views as to what will happen under a certain event. Because it invites crisis, and it invites instability. . .

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.): I, just briefly will say, Mr. Chairman, obviously, like most of us here, this is one of the great success stories of all time. And we don't want to lose sight of that and [what] has been pointed out by all of our witnesses here, obviously, the 70% of Americans who own their own homes today, in no small measure, due because of the work that's been done here. And that shouldn't be lost in this debate and discussion. . . .

* * *

Senate Banking Committee, April 6, 2005:

Sen. Schumer: I'll lay my marker down right now, Mr. Chairman. I think Fannie and Freddie need some changes, but I don't think they need dramatic restructuring in terms of their mission, in terms of their role in the secondary mortgage market, et cetera. Change some of the accounting and regulatory issues, yes, but don't undo Fannie and Freddie.

* * *

Senate Banking Committee, June 15, 2006:

Sen. Robert Bennett (R., Utah): I think we do need a strong regulator. I think we do need a piece of legislation. But I think we do need also to be careful that we don't overreact.

I know the press, particularly, keeps saying this is another Enron, which it clearly is not. Fannie Mae has taken its lumps. Fannie Mae is paying a very large fine. Fannie Mae is under a very, very strong microscope, which it needs to be. . . . So let's not do nothing, and at the same time, let's not overreact. . .

Sen. Jack Reed (D., R.I.): I think a lot of people are being opportunistic, . . . throwing out the baby with the bathwater, saying, "Let's dramatically restructure Fannie and Freddie," when that is not what's called for as a result of what's happened here. . . .

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R., Neb.): Mr. Chairman, what we're dealing with is an astounding failure of management and board responsibility, driven clearly by self interest and greed. And when we reference this issue in the context of -- the best we can say is, "It's no Enron." Now, that's a hell of a high standard.