The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the government regulator for Fannie and Freddie, approved $12.79 million in bonus pay after 10 executives from the two government-sponsored corporations last year met modest performance targets tied to modifying mortgages in jeopardy of foreclosure. The executives got the bonuses about two years after the federally backed mortgage giants received nearly $170 billion in taxpayer bailouts — and despite pledges by FHFA, the office tasked with keeping them solvent, that it would adjust the level of CEO-level pay after critics slammed huge compensation packages paid out to former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines and others.
Related Story: Freddie Mac reports Q3 loss, asks for $6B in aid
Securities and Exchange Commission documents show that Ed Haldeman, who announced last week that he is stepping down as Freddie Mac’s CEO, received a base salary of $900,000 last year yet took home an additional $2.3 million in bonus pay. Records show other Fannie and Freddie executives got similar Wall Street-style compensation packages; Fannie Mae CEO Michael Williams, for example, got $2.37 million in performance bonuses. Including Haldeman, the top five officers at Freddie banked a combined $6.46 million in performance pay alone last year, though a second bonus installment for 2010 has yet to be reported to the SEC, according to agency records. Williams and others at Fannie pocketed $6.33 million in incentives for what SEC records describe as meeting the primary goal of providing “liquidity, stability and affordability” to the national market.
“It is outrageous that senior executives at Fannie and Freddie are receiving multimillion-dollar compensation packages when they now rely on funding from U.S. taxpayers, many of whom face foreclosure or whose homes are underwater,” Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, who has led House Democrats in efforts to ease Fannie and Freddie’s restrictions on restructuring loans or lowering payments for mortgage holders who owe more than their homes are worth, wrote in an email.
And the Obama deception stays the course.
For confused foreigners, Freddie and Fannie are unusually named mortgage guarantee corporations set up by the US government a long time ago to broker home finance for low and middle income American families. They are quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations.
Fannie Mae went private a long time ago and Freddie was never government at all.
The crap hit the fan when lobbyists demanded that government let loose the reins on their lending while still insisting that government guarantee the loans.
Its basically the “return of the Savings & Loans” where Ronald Reagan deregulated the industry but continued government guarantees of investments made by the S&Ls.
Many foreigners are well aware of who Fannie and Freddie are. More than a few of us are considerably better informed than even the mayor of New York City, Mr Bloomberg, on their role in the recent financial crash.
He recently made some egregiously inaccurate remarks on this topic and they’re taken to pieces here
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/11/dish-check-who-caused-the-financial-collapse-not-fannie-and-freddie.html
Fannie and Freddie didn’t cause the financial collapse. Deregulation was the primary cause. For a comprehensive review I recommend the book 13 Bankers by Simon Johnson and James Kwak.
Let’s wait for the funny comments from the usual sheeple
Damn! That “Older Comments” button got me this time. I’m sure it won’t be the last.
Is the only remaining thing that I really dislike about the re-design
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