So now Rubin has driven Citibank’s stock down to single digits from more than $50 a share, and he is advising Obama on how to fix the mess he and his cronies have made.

And to make matters worse, Rubin has just given $20 million of the stockholders’ money to the Mets for billboard rights.

How surprising (not) that the main media was not hammering away at which two senators received the most lobby money from Fannie Mae. Yes, president-elect (it staggers me to even write the words) Barack Hussein Obama and his fellow Democratic Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut.

How ironic is it the Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Congressman charged by his committee to oversee Fannie Mae, had a gay lover at Fannie Mae whose role it was to regulate the creditworthy regulations and guidelines.

Imagine if some conservative or Republican Congressman happened to be the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Imagine if he had a gay lover (or a straight lover, for that matter) directly controlling the lending rates of the nation’s largest mortgage holder. Imagine how the media would crucify them to the front page day after day. But for a far left liberal democrat? No news in that. Right. Just business as usual.

Keep it up Bostonian. Your are a bright light in a dim world.

Home Skillet

As the judge would say to an objecting attorney: “You introduced the subject, counselor.”

Please stop muddling blogs with your political ramblings…

Here on HOFN we have now a blog about baseball and the economy. Since Major League Baseball is not only the major leagues of the national pastime, but big business with all the protections of government, tying cash and cleats together is legitimate.

But back to the big lie. In Don Gilbert’s blog, he cites Wall Street greed as the reason for our current financial crisis. That would be Dr. Goebbels’ big lie. Although corporate greed in the financial sector had a part, such hunger was not the cause of the money meltdown.

The antecedent cause was familiarly known as toxic debt. This debt – numbering about four million poisoned mortgages – were loans granted to parties who were consummately credit unworthy. Their income, history and other assets were so flimsy that no responsible loan officer would ever grant such a loan. And for several generations that was the rule. Home ownership was the reward of hard work, savings, planning and some good luck.

But enter Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the intimidation of the Community Rehabilitation Act and groups such as ACORN. Under the Democratic leadership of Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd – both charged with regulation of Fannie and Freddie – this pair of government mortgage underwriters gutted any reasonable requirements for home ownership. Home ownership became a quasi right, not a privilege.

Bullied by lawsuits from groups such as ACORN and directives from federal regulators, private lending institutions followed suit, lest they be charged with minority discrimination. As one of my sources at Fannie Mae told me, “We’d give a mortgage to a ham sandwich.”

These loans to the unqualified are the poison. Granted, Wall Street packaged and bundled the toxicity like arsenic in a box of chocolates. Wall Street greed concentrated these millions of deadbeats into the healthy tissue of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, et al. And we see the result.

But make no mistake: Without the insanity and corruption of Freddie and Fannie, and without the capitulation of private banks to the pressure of ACORN et al, none of these mortgages would ever have been granted, and the key ingredient to the disaster would never have existed.

Blaming the financial meltdown on Wall Street alone is akin to blaming a forest fire on dry conditions while ignoring the arsonists and gasoline in the woods.