If anyone has and doubts as to the ‘why’ of Senators Dodd and Conrad receiving VERY FAVORABLE loan terms from Nationwide, wonder no longer!
************************************************
“Two weeks ago, the Banking Committee chairman was busy introducing a $300 billion rescue package for the subprime mortgage industry and its victims when news broke that Countywide Financial - subprime’s Enron - had given Dodd special “VIP” mortgage rates on homes in Connecticut and Washington, saving him $75,000 over the life of the mortgages. Dodd’s initial reaction was wounded outrage. How could anyone think that he’d done something wrong? After it became clear he’d known he was getting VIP handling (on orders from Angelo Mozilo, the chairman-founder of Countrywide), Dodd backtracked, insisting he hadn’t realized what “VIP” meant.
With 8,000 US families facing foreclosure daily, the $200 per month Dodd’s been saving doesn’t sound so small - and Mozilo’s own toxic reputation, especially after he admitted pocketing $142 million last year just as Countrywide started sinking like the Titanic, hasn’t helped.
Dodd hasn’t been the only one caught up in the scandal. Senator Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, also got Countrywide’s VIP treatment - as did former Clinton-era heavyweights Donna Shalala, Alphonso Jackson, Richard Holbrooke, and Jim Johnson. Conrad quickly mailed off a check for the estimated value of his VIP treatment to Habitat for Humanity, and announced he was taking out new mortgages. Shalala, Jackson, and Johnson meanwhile have ducked the press - though Johnson, who was heading the search for Obama’s vice presidential candidate, had to hastily resign that role.
Dodd, however, keeps insisting - despite growing statewide criticism and a sharp drop in his poll ratings - that he has no plans to give up his VIP benefits, because he has done nothing wrong.
…The $300 billion subprime rescues package Dodd is now managing may be in trouble, with critics tarring it as the “Dodd Countrywide bill.” We voters in turn need to do a little remembering ourselves here, because this bill is the latest “rescue package” in a long ignominious history that includes corporate bailouts such as the Chrysler and Lockheed salvage operations; the savings and loan rescue; the two Mexican rescues, the Asian rescue; the airline rescue after 9/11; the ongoing bailout of agribusiness; and lest we forget, the bailout of Wall Street and Bear Stearns just two months ago.
A chief beneficiary of the Dodd bill is Bank of America, which has just bought Countrywide. If Dodd’s bill passes, taxpayers will take on much of the Bank of America’s risk of further portfolio default - a move worth billions to the bank.
Washington desperately needs to stanch the forced liquidation of millions of American homeowners. Yet once again, the benefits of its rescue efforts will accrue unequally - stacked heavily in favor of the wealthy and the powerful - because in American politics, as in Orwell’s “1984,” some are more equal than others.
Especially the VIPs”
Lee ADDS: At the very hint of possible improprity several Justices on the Supreme Court recused themselves and would not sit in judgment on a case involving firms wherein each held investment. Wht will Senators Dodd and Conrad not do likewise? Is it that they want to make certain their ’special treatment’ is recognized?
