onyx1 Posted January 27, 2015 Posted January 27, 2015 I suppose there's no harm in letting out my theory now. If anyone else is watching the House hearing right now, there have been multiple people who have been jumping up and down on Mel Watt because he's diverting funds to the housing trusts while Fannie & Freddie remain undercapitalized. (As of this moment, I can count 4 Congressmen: Luetkemeyer, Royce, Duffy and Mulvaney.) I think Mel Watt has played them all like a fiddle. The Administration would like to push the housing trusts. The Republicans will play the undercapitalized card substantially, and Watt will push back and say that they should just push through housing reform. Republicans know they can't make that happen. Watt, then, would be more than happy to push through an administrative reform of recapitalizing Fannie & Freddie since the Republicans say that it's undercapitalized. Democrats get to preserve their housing trust payments, and they get to say that the Republicans have no reason to be mad because Watt just did what they told him to do. Republicans get to say that the Administration is playing it fast and loose with the law. Shareholders get a nice payout. I agree the Republicans are giving Watt all the ammo he needs, and more, to declare an end to the conservatorship. Watt is also on record now saying the GSEs are "stabilized". That alone is justification enough for him to return the GSEs back to shareholders and recapitalize. Either the Dems don't have a clue of what is going on, or they do and are avoiding entirely the opportunity to object to the errors and inconsistencies in the Republican statements such as "GSE haven't paid back the taxpayers", or Royce's assertion that the Housing Trust fund payments are bad for the capitalization of the GSE (but the alternative of sending the same money to the UST is somehow better?) I think the Democrats DO have a clue. If your opponent is well on his way to hanging himself, you should not get in the way -- let the Republicans get on a roll and hand them more rope. :) If they do, then they are doing a great job coordinating their strategy.
merkhet Posted January 28, 2015 Posted January 28, 2015 Interesting status conference today. (1) I'm sure no one on this board is calling the judge's chambers, but apparently, other people/shareholders have been doing so, and it's starting to piss her off. She's not allowed to have communications with anyone other than counsel for the parties. (2) She's probably going to grant the government's request to extend the discovery period for no more than four months. (She was very emphatic about this being the upper bound.) So, we're probably looking at discovery ending around July 27th, 2015. (3) She's already decided to deny the government's motion for a stay. The order should be coming out soon.
muscleman Posted January 28, 2015 Posted January 28, 2015 Interesting status conference today. (1) I'm sure no one on this board is calling the judge's chambers, but apparently, other people/shareholders have been doing so, and it's starting to piss her off. She's not allowed to have communications with anyone other than counsel for the parties. (2) She's probably going to grant the government's request to extend the discovery period for no more than four months. (She was very emphatic about this being the upper bound.) So, we're probably looking at discovery ending around July 27th, 2015. (3) She's already decided to deny the government's motion for a stay. The order should be coming out soon. Thank you! :D I hope other shareholders would stop pissing her off. That would not be good. It is nice to see that the government's trick to stop the discovery process will fail again. :)
hardincap Posted January 28, 2015 Posted January 28, 2015 WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- On Thursday, January 29th at 9:15am EST, Mark A. Calabria of the Cato Institute and Michael Krimminger, Partner at Cleary Gottlieb, will release a new paper which explains how the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) have breached both the spirit and the letter of the law in their administration of the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. http://www.cnbc.com/id/102369918#
onyx1 Posted January 28, 2015 Posted January 28, 2015 Interesting status conference today. (1) I'm sure no one on this board is calling the judge's chambers, but apparently, other people/shareholders have been doing so, and it's starting to piss her off. She's not allowed to have communications with anyone other than counsel for the parties. (2) She's probably going to grant the government's request to extend the discovery period for no more than four months. (She was very emphatic about this being the upper bound.) So, we're probably looking at discovery ending around July 27th, 2015. (3) She's already decided to deny the government's motion for a stay. The order should be coming out soon. Thanks for the update merkhet
Philip Morris IV Posted January 28, 2015 Posted January 28, 2015 Thanks again merkhet for all your work here and the updates. Seems there is big volume on several of the preferreds today. Looks like someone picked up 3.9M shares of FNMAP.
merkhet Posted January 28, 2015 Posted January 28, 2015 A funny side note. At one point, the Government lawyers objected to the fact that Plaintiffs had requested discovery from the GSEs and wanted to depose the CEOs. Sweeney's response was to say "Hold on. I don't understand. Why are you objecting on their behalf? They have lawyers. If they wanted to object, they should object. Your entire case is premised on the fact that this case should be dismissed because FHFA is not the government once it steps into the role of conservator. So why is Justice objecting on behalf of a private entity?" Hilarious.
merkhet Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 Looks like Berkowitz added to the preferreds and the commons after the Lamberth decision.
muscleman Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 Looks like Berkowitz added to the preferreds and the commons after the Lamberth decision. Thanks for your update. This is the report http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53962eb7e4b053c664d74f3d/t/54cc0c88e4b01e8c22bc8148/1422658696249/Fairholme+Fund+Annual+Report+2014.pdf
muscleman Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 Regarding discovery, Fairholme's report says:"In the interim, the Fund continues to pursue litigation against FHFA and Treasury to defend its rights as an owner of the companies. To date, the Fund’s lawyers have received approximately 387,000 pages of documents – most of which have come from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and their respective auditors. Not only has the government insisted on shrouding all documents in a veil of secrecy known as a “protective order,” but FHFA and Treasury have further shielded responsive documents from disclosure by broadly asserting executive privilege. One example from the recently released Privilege Log is indicative:" So can judge Sweeney do anything if the government insists that these documents have executive privilege and should not be disclosed?
merkhet Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 Plaintiffs can challenge the privilege before Sweeney, and I'm assuming that they will.
muscleman Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 Is there any news? FNMAS is dropping like a stone right now.
gfp Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 berkowitz is holding a conference call right now. You should listen to it. (there is no new news) Is there any news? FNMAS is dropping like a stone right now.
muscleman Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 berkowitz is holding a conference call right now. You should listen to it. (there is no new news) Is there any news? FNMAS is dropping like a stone right now. Yeah I am on it. What's interesting is that this mini crash started at 7:40 AM, which is 20 minute before the cc start time. :) I didn't spot anything unusual in Bruce's remarks on FNMA and FMCC.
merkhet Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 Judge in Iowa dismissed the case.254581989-Fannie.pdf
Guest notorious546 Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 Judge in Iowa dismissed the case. what does this mean in english?
rpadebet Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 Picked up this lottery ticket today for 1% position. Small enough not to bother me if it is a total loss
Mephistopheles Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 Judge in Iowa dismissed the case. what does this mean in english? Seems like the Judge dismissed it because Continental Western is a subsidiary of Berkley Regional Insurance co., which was one of the Plaintiffs in the District Court case that was dismissed last Fall. I think the Judge is saying they are the same entities for all intents and purposes, therefore they can't have two cases in two different courts with identical complaints. Merkhet would probably be able to give a more eloquent answer.
merkhet Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 Judge in Iowa dismissed the case. what does this mean in english? Seems like the Judge dismissed it because Continental Western is a subsidiary of Berkley Regional Insurance co., which was one of the Plaintiffs in the District Court case that was dismissed last Fall. I think the Judge is saying they are the same entities for all intents and purposes, therefore they can't have two cases in two different courts with identical complaints. Merkhet would probably be able to give a more eloquent answer. You explained it well. My eloquent answer was that the judge in Iowa dismissed the case. :) notorious, what explanation are you looking for here? (1) Is it a question as to whether dismissed is a term of art that means something different in legal terms versus colloquial usage? (2) Is it a question of why the judge dismissed the case in the Iowa courts? (3) Is it a question of what this means for the remaining cases? (4) Is it a question of what this means for the investment thesis?
Guest notorious546 Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 the previous reply was sufficient. yeah, my background isn't legal so it was a bit hard to understand. thanks everyone
rpadebet Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 merkhet - thanks for all your contributions here and help in translating the legalese.. My question to you is probably quite dumb... Do you think its possible to put an upper bound on how long the entire process would take assuming its decided one way or the other via the court system only? Are we looking at 2 yrs, 5yrs, 10 yrs or can it go on even longer theoretically? Assuming legislatively/politically we don't make much headway, is there anything else preventing the current or any future administration from continuing with the current system of net worth sweep each year to eternity?
merkhet Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 merkhet - thanks for all your contributions here and help in translating the legalese.. My question to you is probably quite dumb... Do you think its possible to put an upper bound on how long the entire process would take assuming its decided one way or the other via the court system only? Are we looking at 2 yrs, 5yrs, 10 yrs or can it go on even longer theoretically? Assuming legislatively/politically we don't make much headway, is there anything else preventing the current or any future administration from continuing with the current system of net worth sweep each year to eternity? Not dumb at all. Most people don't have any legal training or experience, so it's sort of like trying to guess into a void. It can theoretically stretch on for a very long time. There are cases against the government that go on for twenty years. The issue with this case is that it will be difficult to keep the status quo going without, in my opinion, harming the housing market. There are practical/economic concerns that would tend to suggest that this is not a stable arrangement. So, my current ongoing theory is that this administration would be reticent to hand the GSEs over to a Republican administration which could un-do the administrative reforms Watt has put in by firing Watt and putting their own FHFA administrator/conservator into the role. That's my best guess. I think, however, that litigation will have cleared it all up before then. And I've gone a while now without putting up my usual disclaimer, which is that this is coming from the same person who figured that the Lamberth opinion would have broken the other way. So take that for what it's worth. :)
rpadebet Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 Thanks once again merkhet.. The reason I am hanging my hat completely on a legal remedy (if possible) is opposite of what you alluded to.. Democrats love the net worth sweep because it funds their spending programs as long as they want. Republican administration would also love it once in power because the reduced deficit allows them room for increased defense spending or pay for tax cuts. (Dems did it already during the payroll tax cut) Politically, the crisis is in the rear view mirror. Employees at F&F keep getting paid well. 30Y mortgages are still being issued. Given the deficit reduction "powers" of this sweep amendment, its secretly attractive to both parties to continue the status quo. The "owners" here have been conveniently labelled as "greedy hedge funds"...so turning public opinion towards ending conservatorship is incredibly difficult.
merkhet Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 The administrative reforms I think the GOP dislikes are the parts that help poor people. That's what the Democrats don't want reversed.
Mephistopheles Posted February 4, 2015 Posted February 4, 2015 One positive is that after seeing all the documents thus far in Discovery, Berkowitz did buy more, and apparently got back into the common as well.
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