Thursday, October 16, 2008

Sen. Dodd Calls Hearings? Seriously?

Chris Dodd, the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee is holding hearings to get to the bottom of the financial crisis. He begins his hearing by defending, that is right, defending Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He claims that it was Wall Street, not Fannie and Freddie, that created the sub prime crisis. 

View the You Tube video here.

Set aside the fact that Sen. Dodd is culpable in the collapse of our financial system, as he received more money ($125,000) from Fannie and Freddie, and hundreds of thousands more from executives of these firms. Set aside the fact that, Sen. Dodd, received special treatment from Countrywide Financial in a sweetheart mortgage. Set aside the fact Sen. Dodd only mentions a two year period from 2004 to 2006. Nobody disagrees that Wall Street greed is part of the problem. 

Sen. Dodd should not be holding hearings, he should be under investigation. He should be interrogated by a panel looking into how this happened. He should be sitting right next the the executives of Fannie, Freddie, Wall Street banks, hedge funds and government oversight committees. He is just as culpable. 

A hearing into a problem by one of the players who helped create the problem is laughable, except it has left the whole world in financial turmoil. And it is not funny. It is criminal. 

I didn't think the approval ratings of Congress could go lower than 9%, but even "relatives and paid staffers" (as Sen. McCain explains Congressional approval ratings), are going to turn against Congress with hypocritical arrogance like this.

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