David Moffett, featured in these motley pages some time ago, has deleted himself from Fred: WSJ Freddie Mac CEO Will Resign Freddie Mac's chief executive officer, David Moffett, announced his resignation from the U.S. government-backed mortgage company just six months after being installed in that p...

Today was a busy news day! President Obama administration’s 2010 budget proposes to limit the mortgage deductions on “higher income� households defined as making $208,850. per year. Quoting from the budget: “The Administration’s Budget includes a proposal to limit the tax rate at which h...

Freddie and Fannie aren't the only big loan investors who have been issuing massive loan "put backs" to their loan sellers. They've recently been joined by GMAC's Residential Funding Co., which, according to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, "has nearly tripled the number of lawsuits it’s...

Local executives are opening their wallets to help fund Barack Obama's inauguration festivities, but their rewards are far more meager than those lavished on contributors to the galas of previous presidents....

McClatchy Washington Bureau With its benchmark lending rate effectively at zero, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday, in a move without modern precedent, publicly laid out an aggressive agenda for the nation's otherwise secretive central bank and suggested that he's hardly out of ammuni...

I want to grind my teeth every time I think about the U.S. government bailing out banks, but this Washington Post article says the thing has worked: Sure, you can question how the money was used — many of us have — but you can’t quarrel with the fact that a financial meltdown has b...

SURELY ONE OF the least intuitively obvious federal laws is the bankruptcy rule that says a distressed debtor can ask a judge to reduce what he owes on a vacation house -- but not on a primary residence. You'd think it would be the other way around. But Congress meant to help home buyers: If......

This is Part Four of a series of articles on foreclosures. This article does not constitute legal advice. Foreclosure laws vary from state to state. Homeowners in financial distress should always hire legal counsel. Call your local state bar association for a referral.  Reduced or free legal aid ma...

Shortly before New Years Day, Housing Wire broke the story that the FDIC's negotiations to sell most of IndyMac to a consortium of Wall Street sharks private equity funds was being held up by mortgage loan buyback demands made by Fannie Mae. While one source stated that Fannie Mae often had a hard t...

White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley remember conferring with President Bush during the darkest days of the Iraq war, in 2005 and 2006, when violence was out of control. In daily 7 a.m. meetings in the Oval Office, Bush reviewed "blue sheets"......