The potential of Sarah Palin for our industry

[Kathe]

It is all over the MSM. The woman whose trademark glasses are sold out all over America and whose updo hair is being copied at hair salons is a fan of tanning. So much so that she owns her own tanning bed in her home.

Do you realize what an impact this is going to have on the tanning industry. Already the ITA is having their comments of yesterday broadcast on air and in print talking about the benefits of someone tanning in a positive light. This woman is going to do more positive for indoor tanning than any organization has done to date. She is what we have been waiting for.

Even democrats are saying behind closed doors that this woman can do no wrong in the sight of the average American. She is a breath of fresh air, not without her faults, but then that just makes her more like the rest of us. We all have our faults.

What are you going to do with this information? I know that I'm going to be talking to everyone I can about it. This IS good for our business. Finally something positive! The derms must be going nuts!!

[The Freshness]

better than sunset tan, at least...

[InternationalTan]

what about mccain? didnt he have a bout with melanoma? i remember someone saying he would be harmful to our industry if elected, thankfully she is a tanner herself

[BellaSole`Tan]

Republitanner here!

[SteveMiller]

Sarah Palin only success is providing an indispensable distraction from the wreckage of the Republican Party. They have controlled the Congress for 12 of the past 14 years. They have controlled the White House for the past seven and a half years. But the Palin distraction has allowed McCain to pretend that somehow he and his party are not responsible for their disastrous policies.

[TonyG]

Originally Posted by SteveMiller

Sarah Palin only success is providing an indispensable distraction from the wreckage of the Republican Party. They have controlled the Congress for 12 of the past 14 years. They have controlled the White House for the past seven and a half years. But the Palin distraction has allowed McCain to pretend that somehow he and his party are not responsible for their disastrous policies.

Like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, started and run by democrats, and now bankrupt and bailed out?

If it is so bad, why haven't the democrats who have run congress the last 2 years proposed any legislation to fix things??

The best part is that Ohio will never give its electoral votes to a (half) black man, and you have to live with that. Ha Ha.

[Kathe]

OH Yeah! And in 2005 McCain stood up on the Senate floor and tried to put through legislation to reform Fannie and Freddie and the dems would have no part of it. Look at who the top 5 people are that benefited millions from Fannie and Freddie....all Dems, one is Hilary Clinton, another is Barney Frank. All at the expense of us, the taxpayer. Why would they go for reform when their pockets were getting lined like that???

AND on 9/11/2003 the NY Times wrote an article on how BUSH wanted reform and they voted them down and bashed him saying there was NOTHING wrong with it! New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - New York Times

[Kathe]

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - New York Times



By STEPHEN LABATON

Published: September 11, 2003

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

''There is a general recognition that the supervisory system for housing-related government-sponsored enterprises neither has the tools, nor the stature, to deal effectively with the current size, complexity and importance of these enterprises,'' Treasury Secretary John W. Snow told the House Financial Services Committee in an appearance with Housing Secretary Mel Martinez, who also backed the plan.

Mr. Snow said that Congress should eliminate the power of the president to appoint directors to the companies, a sign that the administration is less concerned about the perks of patronage than it is about the potential political problems associated with any new difficulties arising at the companies.

The administration's proposal, which was endorsed in large part today by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, would not repeal the significant government subsidies granted to the two companies. And it does not alter the implicit guarantee that Washington will bail the companies out if they run into financial difficulty; that perception enables them to issue debt at significantly lower rates than their competitors. Nor would it remove the companies' exemptions from taxes and antifraud provisions of federal securities laws.

The proposal is the opening act in one of the biggest and most significant lobbying battles of the Congressional session.

After the hearing, Representative Michael G. Oxley, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, and Senator Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, announced their intention to draft legislation based on the administration's proposal. Industry executives said Congress could complete action on legislation before leaving for recess in the fall.

''The current regulator does not have the tools, or the mandate, to adequately regulate these enterprises,'' Mr. Oxley said at the hearing. ''We have seen in recent months that mismanagement and questionable accounting practices went largely unnoticed by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight,'' the independent agency that now regulates the companies.

''These irregularities, which have been going on for several years, should have been detected earlier by the regulator,'' he added.
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which is part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was created by Congress in 1992 after the bailout of the savings and loan industry and concerns about regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy mortgages from lenders and repackage them as securities or hold them in their own portfolios.

At the time, the companies and their allies beat back efforts for tougher oversight by the Treasury Department, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the Federal Reserve.

Supporters of the companies said efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under those agencies might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower-income families. This year, however, the chances of passing legislation to tighten the oversight are better than in the past.

Reflecting the changing political climate, both Fannie Mae and its leading rivals applauded the administration's package. The support from Fannie Mae came after a round of discussions between it and the administration and assurances from the Treasury that it would not seek to change the company's mission.

After those assurances, Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chief executive, endorsed the shift of regulatory oversight to the Treasury Department, as well as other elements of the plan.
''We welcome the administration's approach outlined today,'' Mr. Raines said. The company opposes some smaller elements of the package, like one that eliminates the authority of the president to appoint 5 of the company's 18 board members.

Company executives said that the company preferred having the president select some directors. The company is also likely to lobby against the efforts that give regulators too much authority to approve its products.

Freddie Mac, whose accounting is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and a United States attorney in Virginia, issued a statement calling the administration plan a ''responsible proposal.''

The stocks of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae fell while the prices of their bonds generally rose. Shares of Freddie Mac fell $2.04, or 3.7 percent, to $53.40, while Fannie Mae was down $1.62, or 2.4 percent, to $66.74. The price of a Fannie Mae bond due in March 2013 rose to 97.337 from 96.525.Its yield fell to 4.726 percent from 4.835 percent on Tuesday.

Fannie Mae, which was previously known as the Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie Mac, which was the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, have been criticized by rivals for exerting too much influence over their regulators.

''The regulator has not only been outmanned, it has been outlobbied,'' said Representative Richard H. Baker, the Louisiana Republican who has proposed legislation similar to the administration proposal and who leads a subcommittee that oversees the companies. ''Being underfunded does not explain how a glowing report of Freddie's operations was released only hours before the managerial upheaval that followed. This is not world-class regulatory work.''

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

''I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,'' Mr. Watt said.

[Kathe]

Morning Bell: The Left’s Crony Capitalism Exposed » The Foundry

In 2004, after a tip from a whistle blower who was later fired, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (Ofheo) issued a report finding that the government-sponsored entity Fannie Mae had engaged in Enron-like accounting machinations that allowed Fannie to overstate its earnings and underestimate the risk the company faced. The accounting wizardry Fannie engaged in was designed so that Fannie could meet profit targets to maximize bonus payments to company executives like Clinton administration deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick and Carter administration assistant director for domestic policy Franklin Raines.
For years, conservatives have been critical of how Fannie, and Freddie Mac, have leveraged their government-sponsored advantages (including exemptions from state and federal taxes, lower capital requirements, and the ability to borrow at rates well below those paid by private companies), to create a co-monopoly in the housing finance sector. When Fannie’s accounting scandal came to light in 2004, conservatives pushed hard for reforms to phase out Fannie and Freddie. Led by former Walter Mondale and Barack Obama campaign adviser James Johnson, Fannie and Freddie pushed back hard, raising millions of dollars for members of the relevant oversight committees and opening up “Partnership Offices” that funneled money into various housing projects in districts of key members of Congress.
Fannie also bought off activist groups such as the corrupt Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which has been indicted, multiple times across the country, for vote fraud (Obama worked closely with ACORN as a street organizer in Chicago). Fannie’s lobbying efforts paid off as liberal politicians such as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.) worked to kill any real reform of Freddie and Fannie. The Washington Post reports: “In an internal memo in 2004, Fannie Mae executive Daniel H. Mudd affirmed what the company’s critics had long contended: In the political arena, ‘we always won’ and ‘we took no prisoners.’”
Fannie was created during the New Deal to make homes more affordable for lower- and middle-income Americans. Freddie was added years later for the same purpose. Fannie and Freddie have long outlived their purpose as the market for repackaging loans as securities is now well developed. When the housing market is booming, they are not needed, and they have both gone well beyond their original mission and are now backing loans for wealthy (witness Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s continued efforts to raise the cap on the size of the loans that Fannie and Freddie can buy).
Many parts of the bill the Senate passed last week only continue the worst aspects of the crony capitalism at the hard of Freddie’s success. This is especially true of the Community Development Block Grant funds that have long been a goal of partisan housing activist groups like ACORN. There is an opportunity here to use the recapitalization the White House is now proposing to re-organize housing finance by breaking up Fannie and Freddie and creating several smaller truly private entities that can compete

[BellaSole`Tan]

Good job Kathe , it shut him up ! Go Republitanners

[BellaSole`Tan]

Not to include Ohbama wants to raise our taxes as small business owners.

[SteveMiller]

The Republican Party controlled the Congress for 12 of the past 14 years. They have controlled the White House for the past seven and a half years. If the Republicans wanted anything fixed there was no way the Democrats had the control to stop it.

[Kathe]

OK glad you believe that but it's just not true. The congress has been filled with Bush haters the past 8 years and made it almost impossible to get anything through so he could say he accomplished something. Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Clinton, Obama and the rest have way too much to lose by changing much of anything unless it's to add more taxes to an already overburdened America.

[BIG AL]

If you want to see how the housing crisis really started.

http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/541234

[BIG AL]

Originally Posted by SteveMiller

The Republican Party controlled the Congress for 12 of the past 14 years. They have controlled the White House for the past seven and a half years. If the Republicans wanted anything fixed there was no way the Democrats had the control to stop it.

It takes 60 votes in the Senate to pass a bill. The Republicans have never had 60 votes. It always takes some from the other party to come over to get a bill passed.

[SteveMiller]

Originally Posted by BellaSole`Tan

Not to include Ohbama wants to raise our taxes as small business owners.

Middle class families will see their taxes cut – and no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase. The typical middle class family will receive well over $1,000 in tax relief under the Obama plan, and will pay tax rates that are 20% lower than they faced under President Reagan. According to the Tax Policy Center, the Obama plan provides three times as much tax relief for middle class families as the McCain plan.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden: The Change We Need | Taxes

[Kathe]

You are kidding right? As soon as the bigger corporations see their taxes increase, prices on everything is going to go up. It will trickle down to everyone, middle and lower class as well.

Not to mention his increase on small businesses like ours. And the increase in the minimum wage to 9.50+ per hour. That will put many small businesses out of business and has already affected the teenage work force.

[yamahaguy]

Amen Kathe!! Folks just don't get it.

[sunsally]

This "folk" gets that a handful of you see only good in McCain-Palin and evil in Obama-Biden and a handful of you see it the opposite. The vast majority see nuances somewhere in-between and dare not venture in to the debate.

Frankly - I'm pretty sick and tired of every thread on a tanning board turning into a political thread where those who don't agree are shouted down. "Pub" or otherwise - you have to weed through it all to see if there was anything of any interest of relevance to tanning. And frankly - the relative differences of McCain being a multiple melanoma patient, or Palin putting a tanning bed in the Alaska governor's mansion or Obama being male & black (so not a typical tanner demographic) or Biden appearing tan is a blip of insignificance on the real issues impacting the Indoor Tanning Industry.

November will come and what will happen will happen. I'm quite sure nobody here is going to change anybody else's mind - so enough already. The campaigning is nasty enough without seeing it all regurgitated here.

That's my opinion - not that I think it will stop the most egregious. But at least I got it off my chest.

[SteveMiller]

Debt of the United States from George Washington through Bill Clinton 5.7 Trillion Dollars, debt today 9.6 Trillion Dollars and adding 1.79 billion per day! (Thank You Republicans)

Unemployment rate rose to 6.1 percent this month, Unemployment rate 1/20/2001 4.2 percent. The number of unemployed persons rose by 592,000 to 9.4 million in August. (Thank You Republicans)

The number of homes repossessed in the first six months of 2008 leapt by almost 50 percent. (Thank You Republicans)

Current account trade deficit increased by 4.3 per cent to US$183.1 billion in the April-June quarter. Since
2001, the annual trade deficit has increased more than $300 billion per year, and 3.8 million manufacturing jobs have been lost. (Thank You Republicans)

Gas price in 2001 $1.80, today $4.00. (Thank You Republicans)

I'm sure if you like what has happened in the last 7.5 years you should vote for McCain, he's a Republican.