waynepolsonAtoZ

God Bless Matt Taibbi. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-government-misled-public-on-fanniefreddie-takeover-w494007 My only complaint is that he didn't use the phrase "vampire squid."

It's good. I also watched their appearance on Monday, when the "assigned topic" was FnF lending to the Blackrock's of the world to buy up single family homes as rental properties. Bove and Rosner tried to talk about the "discovery documents" as much as they could, but the CNBC folk tried to keep them on the assigned topic. Anyway, it was good that they got to come back today.

LINK http://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/07/25/unsealed-documents-show-fannie-freddit-bailout-details.html?play=1

Four women seem to fit the criteria. Batchelder, Smith Gibbons, Cook, and White. Batchelder was the Chief Judge until she turned 70. She is classified as a judge rather than a senior judge for some reason. Gibbons sounds ok. Cook had a shot at being appointed to SCOTUS, but wasn't. She sounds ok. White was originally nominated by Clinton, but was approved during the Bush Administration, she sounds like a D to me.

Have the three judges in Robinson been identified by name?

Good point.

Each circuit panel is supposed to take a "fresh look," I forget what the latin term is. I think more discovery coming to light is better than less.

I think the reality is that The Donald isn't super relevant. The problem is that the guys like Cohn and Mnuchin are more or less free to do whatever they want, and that isn't likely to be good for FnF or, by extension, equity investors in FnF securities. Recap obviously makes sense for America, but not for the guys that have made their careers out of hating FnF. Mnuchin, arguably, falls into that category as he was involved in private label MBS at GS. Watt is OK though, but he's said he won't act on his own, although he might be rethinking that. Also, some of the litigation might end up diminishing his independence and ability to do something supportive of recap. Lots of court of appeals cases going on. Maybe 2 out of three judges on one of the panels will agree with Judge Brown.

Fannie freddie secrets (Investors Unite). http://fanniefreddiesecrets.org/resources/ I think there are 33 or so documents that were released on July 12, 2017.

The IU post has hotlinks to some of the docs, easier to read then the twitter stuff. http://investorsunite.org/documents-proof-scheme-illegally-pilfer-fannie-freddie/

St. Gretchen.

I like that legal standard. How could the 3rd Amendment have not affected the reasonable expectations of preferred investors. Thank you Fairholme for pursuing this. I guess Perry has lost interest (don't really blame them at this point).

The OMB chief had sponsored some FnF equity investor friendly legislation when he was in Congress (SC or GA I think).

"Come on now, Mnuchin and Watt are calling the shots." The recent litigations by the way are stupid in that they try to claim that Watt doesn't have valid jurisdiction because he is a sole regulator (not a multimember panel like FERC or FCC). WATT is on our side basically. Mnuchin and Gary Cohn are probably NOT on our side!!! Why try to strip our friend of jurisdiction. A court in Texas might actually believe the theory that went against CFPB. I wrote about this here. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4011863-fannie-freddie-cfpb-court-decision-appeal-waiting-continues

With Mnuchin one never knows, he used to work at GS, LOL, but yeah, he might do the bidding of "Wall Street." Watt though supports recapitalization, but hasn't been willing to use his authority to do so YET. Wait and see.

"my guess is that someone is funding the appeals, on condition that this person chooses counsel." It's pretty clear who that is. It's pretty clear that they don't have an easy exit strategy other than winning. I find that reassuring.

I think it might be too late to worry about Corker going feral. Hopefully, next time around Liz Warren will see Corker as he is. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/elizabeth-warren-makes-a-republican-friend-086996

Corker has an election coming up in 2018. Will someone run attack ads against him? I'm guessing yes.

Lots of great info (I bought roughly 5000 shares of FMCKI this am after skimming it). Anyway, David Thompson is great. Interesting that they are now involved in cases at the 5, 6, 7, and 8th circuits. I guess they are appellate guys so the litigants in the cases added them to their teams once they went to the appeals court level.

Putin is interested in undermining American institutions (e.g., elections), so it's probably reasonable to assume that he would want to underline the 30-year fixed price mortgage, which, after all, is crucial to supporting the ability of the middle class to own their own home.

HERA of 2008 is a bad enough law (as interpreted by the courts) to be worried. Recap seems inevitable but maybe later not sooner. There has been no absolutely explicit taking so far. NWS is very close to being explicit, but not quite. So, the court of claims case is a little uncertain. I still like the DE case pretty well though. Sincerely yours. Debbie Downer

Every summer has been a slow bleed. Ok, maybe not 2012, but we know how that worked out.

I'm not sure Mnuchin Cohn etc are opponents of FnF preferred and commoners, it's just that they've been slow to be proponents. Eventually, maybe everyone will see that the GSE's building capital would be helpful. Treasury would get paid for the guarantee but not via the NWS.

Link https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-19/berkowitz-says-fannie-freddie-legal-fight-may-go-five-more-years I don't think the Sweeney case is doomed. It might take a while though. Also, the DE stuff isn't doomed, wait and see. I did downsize. I now have exactly $1 m of preferreds (redemption value). I'm optimistic about that position doing well eventually.

Gary Cohn is bought and paid for by the bond guys of Wall Street. He's the only adult in the room at the White House.