Posted by
Neotrotsky on Saturday, January 31, 2009 7:29:13 AM
Dodd pulls a ‘Wag the Dog’ by calling out Wall Street bonuses to distract from Overspending on ‘Pork Bill’or In his pontificating to Wall Street, Dodd hopes you forget about his 'Wall Street bonus'
Sounding quite indignant Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd had this to say to executives who take home big bonuses: "If you do it, I'm going to bring you before the (Senate Banking) Committee."
To be fair, one can understand that when you are about to misspend hundred of billions of taxpayers’ money, you may like to have a scapegoat. Of course in Dodd’s case, his indignation is fake at best considering that he got ‘sweetheart’ deal loans from the same people he regulates.
In case you forgot, Countrywide Financial gave a VIP loan to Dodd, which would save the Banking Committee chairman $75,000 over 30 years. Of course, Bank of America bought out Countrywide Financial, the lender with the most exposure to subprime mortgages at risk of default.
According to Conde Nast Portfolio, which broke the story, Dodd refinanced his Washington townhouse with a loan of $506,000 and refinanced his East Haddam home for $275,042.The Conde Nast article stated that Dodd's 30-year loans were both designed to be at 4.875 percent, but the East Haddam loan was reduced to 4.5 percent and the Washington loan was dropped to 4.25 percent. Over the life of the loans, that saved the Dodds about $58,000 on their Washington home and $17,000 on the East Haddam home, according to the article. Countrywide also waived three-eighths of a point on one loan and one quarter of a point on the other.