Probe Reveals Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Handed out VIP Loans to Executives

Countrywide probe snares Fannie, Freddie execs
By: Jake Sherman
July 20, 2010 02:34 PM EDT

Employees at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — including top executives — received 173 cut-rate loans from Countrywide Financial, according to a congressional probe, the latest accusation that the lender tried to curry influence with people in power.

A Republican-led investigation revealed that Fannie Mae employees — including an assistant to the CEO, a government relations lobbyist and a vice president for sales — received 153 favorable loans, while 20 VIP loans were issued to employees at Freddie Mac. Countrywide Financial collapsed in the 2008 housing meltdown and was swallowed by Bank of America, but its connections to powerful political figures continue to reverberate in Washington.

These are the same type of special loans that created an ethics controversy for Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Chris Dodd of Connecticut. The senators were accused of getting VIP mortgages because of their political positions but were later cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee.

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Addressing the democratic leadership --> Must see

Bank Failures Find F.D.I.C. Has Fallen Into Red

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/business/economy/25fdic.html

The fund had a negative balance of $8.2 billion at the end of the third quarter, federal regulators said Tuesday. Bank customers, however, should remain confident that their deposits would be protected since most of the amount reflects money that Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation has already set aside to cover the losses from future bank failures.

New Bank Failures / Bernake claims we're near 'Recovery'

All 106 bank failures detailed on this bank failure map:
http://ow.ly/l7Zw

NEW YORK (TheStreet) --
New bank failures last week included two in Georgia and one each in Texas and Alabama, bringing the total number of banks and savings and loans shut down by regulators this year to 81.

Georgia continues to lead all states with 23 bank or thrift failures during 2008 and 2009, followed by Illinois with 14 failures, California with 13, Florida with eight and Nevada with five failures.

The Office of Thrift Supervision took over ebank of Atlanta and appointed the FDIC as receiver. The FDIC then sold the thrift's deposits and sole office to Stearns Bank NA.

Georgia regulators shut down First Coweta Bank of Newnan. The FDIC was appointed receiver and sold the failed bank's retail deposits and branches to United Bank of Zebulon, Ga.

The Alabama State Banking Department closed CapitalSouth Bank of Birmingham and appointed the FDIC receiver. The FDIC sold all of CapitalSouth's retail deposits and branches to Iberiabank of Lafayette, La. Iberiabank is the main subsidiary of Iberiabank(IBKC Quote).

The Office of Thrift Supervision closed Guaranty Bank of Austin, Texas, the main subsidiary of Guaranty Financial Group (GFG Quote). In a deal that was leaked Thursday, the FDIC sold all retail deposits and branches of Guaranty Bank to BBVA Compass of Birmingham, Ala., the main U.S. subsidiary of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (BB Quote).

Guaranty Bank had $13 billion in total assets when it failed, and it was a particularly expensive failure, with the FDIC estimating that the cost to its insurance fund from the thrift's failure would be $3 billion. In comparison, Colonial Bank, which failed the previous week, had $25 billion in total assets and the cost of its failure to the FDIC was $2.8 billion.

First Coweta and CapitalSouth were included in TheStreet.com's preliminary list of 104 undercapitalized banks and thrifts, based on preliminary second-quarter data. Guaranty Bank and ebank were not included in the preliminary second-quarter list, since data for most thrifts was unavailable when the report was published on Aug. 6.

Of the 89 institutions on a previous list published TheStreet.com in late May, 35 have failed.

Large bank holding companies that have acquired failed institutions during 2008 and 2009 include JPMorgan Chase (JPM Quote), which acquired Washington Mutual, the largest-ever bank or thrift to fail in the U.S.; SunTrust Banks (STI Quote); Regions Financial (RF Quote); Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB Quote); U.S. Bancorp (USB Quote); Zions Bancorp (ZION Quote); PNC Financial (PNC Quote); and BB&T(BBT Quote).