Political Ideologies and Constitutions Replaced by Political Bureaucratic Complexities of Questionable Laws and Accounting Practices.

Politicians, voters and the public's general lack of acknowledge and understanding of complex business practices and the fraudulent scams investments like GSE or mortgage backed securities shall not come to an end until we the public educate ourselves.

The transparent insanity and outright gambling with our taxpayer dollars, in a political roulette like game attempt to pick corporate winners and losers within the free market system of capitalism, by unelected bureaucrats and politicians alike, by using tax dollars in ponzi schemes for global bubble economics shall not fully be exposed until voters realize what are the implications of collateralized debt obligations, securitization and credit defaults swaps etc.  

For example a mortgage backed security is a questionable asset backed security supposedly secured by a collection of other questionable assets. And are the results of bureaucratic oversight and dizzy left wing meddling in nutty radical politics which in my opinion allowed a legal confidence game to enrich opportunistic financial institutions, lawyers and politicians alike.

These mortgages first must originate, of course, from a regulated financial institution and they then must be grouped into ratings as established by credit rating agencies, that are accredited of course, who then charge a fee to these same financial institutions for giving a worthy rating so the investments were then in the position to be legally sold to suckers born on a daily basis.

Whatever became of the buyer beware clause in the free market system?

Because these bundled or grouped assets were not at all determined by the free market place. They were however first procured by unelected bureaucrats and politicians.

The values and price of these assets of course were decided by the amount of political influence special interest groups, be they corporations, unions or investment banks, and not by what investors were willing to pay.  

This was a large part of the downfall of the US and the world economy which resulted in the bail out process by governments who supposedly regulated all these organizations in the first place.

However, another catch and the problem was that from the early 1990’s a political government policy being was political pushed through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Because elected politicians were being pushed by special interest groups within their constituencies and political parties to support socialized housing policies based on low mortgage rates.

Thus, the unelected bureaucrats at HUD desperately needed a way to expand home ownership, for citizens and especially the Constituents of elected politician’s, and even to such citizens that were not in the financial position to carry the cost of such ownership in the first place and which can be referred to as political expediency for votes.

To achieve these political vote getting schemes, unelected bureaucrats, were pressured from politicians and special interest groups to disregard lending and accounting principles that had previously governed the U.S. mortgage market of financial institutions.

So bureaucrats came up with a political plan to provide funding to specific types of citizens having poor credit or insufficient income groups who of course would not qualify for conventional mortgage loans.

The U.S. Congress of course approved this idea of a marketable bond for financial institutions called Government Sponsored Enterprises or GSE Debt Securities.

You see as a government sponsored entity these GSE were able to attract lenders that offer lower rates because of the implied government guarantee rather than a real guarantee.

As such lenders were willing to lower the finance charges and interest rates to these risky and poor credit citizens, but investors are also able to yield higher returns as a result of this implied guarantee.

Now the politicians could campaign on their political social ideology that every American has the right to own a house regardless of the fact that they could not afford one in the first place.

A political policy similar in a way to that of CMHC, our Canadian Crown Corporation and largest mortgage insurer, is used by our politicians, as the driving force in the housing market throughout Canada with political policies that have inflated our own housing economic bubble.

To my knowledge as of this date Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has not been transparent to either the government or taxpayers about the stability of its portfolio and just what per cent of its portfolio represent a risk because of low or poor credit and arrears in payments?

Some have suggested it could be as high as 65% or as low as 45% but our government, like Fanny and Freddie in the U.S., and until it was too late, our government as yet has not forced CHMC to come clean and reveal this information to Canadians, even though thanks our government taxpayers are on the hook for any and all defaults in the mortgage portfolios held by CMHC and guaranteed by Canadians.  

It is my personal and strong believe that now and in the immediate future global politics and policies are no longer about political ideologies or a country’s constitution and laws but rather about the complexity of global economics based on complex laws and complex business financial practices.

Therefore those individuals, corporations, special interest groups and unions that currently have or with the willpower to recognize, understand and master these complexities shall be the ones who ultimately control and direct politics and the power that goes with it as we have already witnessed with mergers, the non bankruptcies of GM, Chrysler, bank bail outs and TARP to mention only a few. 

Warmest regards,

Peter Clarke The Little Guy.

Please watch this interview @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/9639507.stm

 

Update Oct.24/11

The top 20 of the 147 super connected companies.

1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
11. Wellington Management Co LLP
12. Deutsche Bank AG
13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group
15. Walton Enterprises LLC (holding company for Wal-Mart heirs)
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
17. Natixis
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
20. Legg Mason Inc

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed--the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html

Source Forbes

Public Info to Get you started………..

Interest Rate Swap

What Does Interest Rate Swap Mean?
An agreement between two parties (known as counterparties) where one stream of future interest payments is exchanged for another based on a specified principal amount. Interest rate swaps often exchange a fixed payment for a floating payment that is linked to an interest rate (most often the LIBOR). A company will typically use interest rate swaps to limit or manage exposure to fluctuations in interest rates, or to obtain a marginally lower interest rate than it would have been able to get without the swap.

Investopedia explains Interest Rate Swap
Interest rate swaps are simply the exchange of one set of cash flows (based on interest rate specifications) for another. Because they trade OTC, they are really just contracts set up between two or more parties, and thus can be customized in any number of ways.

Generally speaking, swaps are sought by firms that desire a type of interest rate structure that another firm can provide less expensively. For example, let's say Cory's Tequila Company (CTC) is seeking to loan funds at a fixed interest rate, but Tom's Sports Inc. (TSI) has access to marginally cheaper fixed-rate funds. Tom's Sports can issue debt to investors at its low fixed rate and then trade the fixed-rate cash flow obligations to CTC for floating-rate obligations issued by TSI. Even though TSI may have a higher floating rate than CTC, by swapping the interest structures they are best able to obtain, their combined costs are decreased - a benefit that can be shared by both parties.

Introduction to Securitization

by: Jason Kravitt, Mayer, Brown & Platt, 1998

"When you measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind . . . ." William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, Popular Lectures and Addresses (1891--1894).

(i) The Nature of Securitization

Most attempts to define securitization make the same mistake; they focus on the process of securitization instead of on the substance, or meaning, of securitization. Hence, the most common definition of securitization is that it consists of the pooling of assets and the issuance of securities to finance the carrying of the pooled assets. Yet, surely, this reveals no more about securitization than seeing one's image reflected in a mirror reveals about one's inner character. In Lord Kelvin's terms, it is knowledge of "a meager and unsatisfactory kind."

Collateralized Debt Obligation - CDO

What Does Collateralized Debt Obligation - CDO Mean?
An investment-grade security backed by a pool of bonds, loans and other assets. CDOs do not specialize in one type of debt but are often non-mortgage loans or bonds.  

Investopedia explains Collateralized Debt Obligation - CDO
Similar in structure to a collateralized mortgage obligation (CMO) or collateralized bond obligation (CBO), CDOs are unique in that they represent different types of debt and credit risk. In the case of CDOs, these different types of debt are often referred to as 'tranches' or 'slices'. Each slice has a different maturity and risk associated with it. The higher the risk, the more the CDO pays

Definition: CDO's, or Collateralized Debt Obligations, are sophisticated financial tools that repackage individual loans into a product that can be sold on the secondary market. These packages consist of auto loans, credit card debt, or corporate debt. They are called collateralized because they have some type of collateral behind them.

Credit Default Swap (CDS)

What Does Credit Default Swap (CDS) Mean?
A swap designed to transfer the credit exposure of fixed income products between parties.

Investopedia explains Credit Default Swap (CDS)
The buyer of a credit swap receives credit protection, whereas the seller of the swap guarantees the credit worthiness of the product. By doing this, the risk of default is transferred from the holder of the fixed income security to the seller of the swap.

For example, the buyer of a credit swap will be entitled to the par value of the bond by the seller of the swap, should the bond default in its coupon payments.