Who Is Franklin Raines?
Franklin Rains is the former chairman and chief executive
officer of Fannie Mae, the government sponsored enterprise
started in 1939 to offer mortgages to Americans wishing to
become home owners. After serving as budget director under
President Bill Clinton, Mr. Raines served as CEO at Fannie
Mae from 2000 until 2004. While Mr. Raines was CEO, Fannie
Mae went deep into the practice of buying mortgages based on
almost no or no money down given to borrowers who could not
afford them. During this time he received bonuses and
salary over 90 million dollars. In 2004 he was offered
'early retirement' after the accounting practices used
at Fannie during his tenure to secure top executive bonuses
were shown to be fraudulent. Civil charges were filed
against Raines and two other former executives which sought
$110 million in penalties and $115 million in returned
bonuses from the three accused. On April 18, 2008, the
government announced a settlement with Raines
together with J. Timothy Howard,
Fannie's former chief financial officer, and Leanne G.
Spencer, Fannie's former controller. The three
executives agreed to p ay fines totaling about $3 million,
which will be paid by Fannie's insurance policies.
When pressed by the Bush administration to tighten down
regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, members of
congress - Republicans and Democrats alike - in positions
to pass such regulations, did nothing. Today, Fannie Mae
owns or guarantees over half of America's 12 trillion
dollar mortgage market, and we are in the middle of a credit
crunch and housing slump brought on in large part by
government backed Fannie Mae going down this dangerous
credit slope under Mr. Raines.

And where is Franklin Raines today? He is a chief
economic advisor to the presidential campaign of Senator
Barack Obama.

Getting back into the swing of things. What do you all think?