So President Clinton’s team had negotiated bad leases, and now our friends are saying that those bad leases must be stopped. We simply need to stop them. We don’t need to unravel them. We don’t need to go through the thorny process of making it right for both sides as we unravel. We simply are going to punish you by not allowing you to derive any economic benefit from this type of installation. I will tell you, that undermines the full faith and credit of the United States. If we cannot depend on the word of the United States, then what do we have? I would draw parallels to things that other countries have done. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez in 2001 raised the royalty rates from 1 percent to 16 percent just like that. Now, I will tell you as a business guy, if you know that a cost is going to be 1 percent or 16 percent, it is sort of irrelevant, but you must know that the cost is steady. When he raised those rates just at a single point with no ability to redesign these types of infrastructures, then he severely limited the interest of people to invest in that country, and certainly

[Page:
H782] GPO’s PDFthat is exactly what is happening. Foreign firms are already curtailing their investments in that country.
So in Venezuela we see that there is an attempt to change existing contracts, very similar to the way that we changed yesterday on the floor of this House of Representatives, and it has affected the desire of people to invest in Venezuela.

In Bolivia we have the same thing. The Bolivian government threatened to expel oil companies from that country in 2006 if they did not agree to new government terms on existing contracts. What has happened? I think you could forecast what has happened. What is done is that foreign investors are now beginning to reconsider whether or not they will actually be a part of the Bolivian economy or not. This is the thing that all shareholders, they will live with any certainty in life, but they will not live with uncertainty. And when we begin to change the contracts, they begin to pull their investments out and go to places where certainty is more of a potential.

In Russia we have seen the same thing. Companies such as Shell, Exxon, BP have had valid oil and gas leases in Russia for years. President Putin had a number of government agencies threaten to pull these leases for a number of suspect reasons. By threatening to pull these leases, Shell was forced to give up assets that were worth billions of dollars. So we see in Russia this attempt to maneuver contracts, to manipulate contracts much as what we did yesterday, and the effects are very bad. Long term, Russia will not have people who are willing to come and invest in that country.

In 2001, I had the opportunity to go as a company; my wife and I had a small company that dealt in oil and gas, repairs of oil wells. Russia was looking for such capability. So in 2001, I went with a team of people who did various different projects. We were the ones who did down hole repairs on oil wells. They took me, they showed me files of maybe 6,000 or 8,000 wells that were simple to correct, yet they in their technology in 2001 did not have access to even the basics that my father had seen here in the United States in the early 1950s when he was working in the same industry. My father retired from Exxon; his whole life was work.

So when I went back, I showed him the videos of the equipment that was in Russia in 2001. He said, “Son, in 1950 we were more advanced than what we are seeing here.”

When countries are unwilling to allow people to have stable returns, it doesn’t have to be high returns, low returns, but there must be stability and there must be predictability. When countries do not allow that, there will be no investments. And so here Russia was with over 6,000 wells asking me in 2001 to come and fix because they did not have anyone that was capable of fixing them.

I determined that the environment was very, very unsettling in Russia, so we actually opted not to become a part of the team that went there. There was a company that was about 10 times our size located in Abilene, Texas. They did go. That was about maybe a $ 50 million company, maybe a $ 100 million company. Within 2 years, they were selling everything at bankruptcy because the Russians, as you can predict, said, “No. These assets are going to belong to us.”

So this contracting problem that was attempted to be cured yesterday in legislation I think is going to be, instead of a fix, is going to cause prices to be higher at the pump, investments to be less, and at the end of the day we are going to wonder if maybe we did not empower a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs to go around and make commitments on behalf of the Federal Government. We shall see. I wish my friends well.

I would say that I am not the only one who wonder about the contracts. Just day before yesterday the Washington Post had an editorial which declared that these elements that are included in the bill, the ones that begin to undo the contracts that we voted on yesterday and pushed by the majority in this House, the Washington Post declared those solutions to be ones that Russia and Bolivia would be proud of.

Bush issue was that he spent a lot. Not good for the economy. He also created a Large Fed. Govt. But why is he getting the blame the main issue of the economic situation is the housing market. The mortgages and loans where made under Clinton’s term. Community Reinvestment Act and many other Democrat policies where affecting the Liberal run businesses to make these loans to people who had bad credit.

Didn’t Bush try to put oversight back into Fannie and Freddy?

So basically what I see is that Detroit would still be in bad shape, the housing market would be in bad shape but we would have more money in the bank if it wasn’t Bush.
@ ACORN…

I explained bushes fault in his part of a bad situation to an awful situation. We are in debt because of Bush. But Bush has almost no part of the current economic situation.

The current economic situation was caused and is the Housing debacle which was created by Democrats and Clinton. The loans where made under the Clinton Regime. Bush tried to put oversight back into Fannie and Freddy but was denied 3 times I think by the Dems. Polosi, Reid, Frank, Dodd… etc etc.

If we didn’t have the housing market collapse, we would what be in Dept… No worst then before Reagan.

So how can you blame the man in which it happened under his watch but wasn’t caused during his watch.

Its like planting a mine in a lot you own and then selling the lot and then someone steps on the mine after you sell the land. The man who is now in charge at fault? I don’t get it…

I think its just because people are biased and retarded.

MICA (SuDoc FR 1.63/22:D 48/)

Price:

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=51448

Analysis by:
Associate Professor of Finance, Drexel University LeBow College of Business,
Senior Fellow at the Wharton School, and Financial Industry Consultant, Criterion
Economics, LLC

(The National Homeownership Strategy: Partners in the American Dream,
Chapter 4: Financing). A great many of the present ills could have been avoided
had some of those warnings been heeded before politicians were lured by the
siren song of homeownership and the votes it brings.

http://www.criterioneconomics.com/docs/20080226%20Market%20Commentary.pdf

NY TIMES 1999

“Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

NY TIMES 2003
“The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.”

“‘These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E3D6123BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

John McCain – 2006

“In 2006,” the Post editorialized, McCain “pushed for stronger regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – while Mr. Obama was notably silent. ‘If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole,’ McCain warned at the time.”
ERIC

These are FACTS!

Deal with it.

The PROOF is in the FACT that the DEMS are NOT starting a congressional investigation.

THINK!

Besides, since when is the NY TIMES a Conservative spin Machine?

1. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 is passed under Carter with pressure from groups like ACORN. It prohibts the practice of redlining – giving fewer loans to poor areas
2. Sometime in the early 1990s home loan data was required to collect racial statistical data, used later to make the false case that minorities were being discriminated against in the loans market
3. In 1995, Bill Clinton gave the CRA teeth. By the force of government, subprime loans were authorized specifically so that lower income minorities could buy homes without meeting the usual requirements.
4. Late in Clinton’s second term he signed the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 that unleashed the GSEs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
5. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began buying subprime notes giving rise to entities like Countrywide that specialized in the practice. Fannie and Freddie became bloated with bad loans, went bankrupt leading to the mortgage meltdown of 2008. The rest, as they say, is history.
6. A ‘Politically Correct’ Mission and Political Friends-
So how have Fannie and Freddie mostly escaped the scrutiny of the network news?
In 2004, Newsweek’s Charles Gasparino provided an explanation in a CNN appearance: “Well, Fannie Mae is a very politically corrupt – it may be politically corrupt, but it’s a politically correct company. I mean, they do all the things that, let’s face, liberal journalists like, like put home mortgages out there for poor people. And so right now, beating up on Fannie Mae is kind of politically incorrect.”

Both companies are also well connected, especially to Democrats, in Washington, D.C.

“Fannie Mae was always a political beast, but it reached its elbow-swinging heights during the time when former Clinton administration budget director Franklin Raines sat in the CEO chair. Under Raines’ leadership, Fannie overstated earnings by a stunning $ 10.6 billion, all the while paying Raines and his senior management team massive bonuses,” the Motley Fool reported Sept. 10, 2008.
Motley Fool also pointed the finger at a few others, including Rep. Barney Frank, the House Financial Services Committee chairman (and Fannie regulator).
Some print outlets have examined Fannie and Freddie’s donations to politicians. The New York Times online attacked Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Sept. 24, 2008 for ties to Freddie Mac, but glossed over then Sen. Barack Obama’s, D-Ill., connection to Fannie and Freddie. And never mind Barney Frank’s (see related story).

The Times story buried campaign contribution figures for both candidates until the very last paragraph of the 1,401 word story. According to the article, since 2004 “Senator Obama has received about $ 126,000 in contributions from employees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, while Senator McCain, over the last decade, has received about $ 22,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.”

Obama was the number 2 recipient of contributions from Fannie and Freddie, compared to McCain’s 62 – but the Times didn’t mention that.

So, Barack Insane Osama bin Laden received $ 126,000 to hide Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s fraudulent financial reporting. THAT $ 126,000 WAS YOUR HOPE AND CHANGE!!!

Recruiting has been very difficult since we are so busy all the time – finding a good staff person is hard to do – and when I do I can’t help but feel like I put too much on their plate… and its short lived.

I tend to work 14 hours a day and would like to cut it back a bit – I do a lot of the marketing, media, and print design work – especially online marketingn and social media updates in the evenings and after hours… I do a lot of file auditing and book keeping in these late hours too…

According to a few people who are trying to selll how-to books and forms – they have had a lot of success getting connections with various vocational and state colleges around the country that will offer their student various unpaid and paid internship positions – virtually…

Anyone have any experience with this? Pitfalls? Success stories? There is no shortage of work to be done here – and I’d love to be able to teach some of the things we do here as investors and real estate marketing professionals to the next generation – and learn from them some of the newer emerging stategies and technologies as well…

Ideas? Legal concerns? Process to work with college staff? What do I need to know to be successful at offering up an internship position?