we will freddie, fannie mae have more information. we can tell you a lot about how mortgages perform in any economic circumstances in markets all overthe united states. but to be honest, brokers analysis of the various options proposed it seems to me we ought to be very careful not to have a proposal ourselves. so we are prepared and have been prepared in discussions with the administration and the congress to consider any option from one end of the spectrum of putting everything into a huge federal, to we go away and you have a private sector solution. thus far, it's worked well and people have been comfortable that we will give them a straight answer as to the pros and cons of any permutation on those themes across the spectrum. what's clear in the politics of washington and has been for some time, there won't be much movement on the question until after the presidential election. which means we have another two years to go. even the republicans talking about l.e.t. get rid of family and freddie have a footnote that says we shouldn'

fannie and freddie have a combined ceo chairman. so when zakaria calls and asked me to come in and restructure the board and to go for the company as they went into conservatorship, the regulator asked them that they wanted to segregate the title for the first time so you will see the determination and the chairman of the board the vana executive chairman which is i'm not the ceo, the executive leadership of the management is the ceo, chief executive officer. the, executive chairman is an independent board chair who actually controls the operation of the board of management. i've never seen the term either until i was one to be on was the chairman of the board which is what i normally see people and don't know we might the ceo or just the chairman of the board soon on executive is in fact diminutive and i am just the chairman of the board. >> what do you think about reverse mortgages offered to senior citizens? >> well reverse mortgages to the senior citizens are attractive, a little like the trademark phenomenon. you've got an equi

freddie carter is not only the vice-president, superintendent on this job, he was our first local higher on this job. he is -- this is his local library. i will not tell you what his address is, but he can walk home after this is done. if anybody is going to get this library done right, with people from the bayview benefiting from it, it is going to be freddie carter. what we did is rather than award one big contract that other folks could be competitive for, we broken up into a lot of pieces so that we could maximize opportunity for local business. we have a large number of local businesses. i think we already have tens subcontractors from the bayview who are going to be working on this project. one of them already started and cleared the space here. we want to give a shout to

. >> standard & poor's shifted its focus today to the debt of fannie mae and freddie mac the mortgage finance companies were lowered one notch from triple a to double a plus. s&p said the loss of the federal government's triple-a status was directly responsible for the downgrades. don't forget the two companies have depended on uncle sam's support for nearly three years, when they were seized during the financial crisis. >> reporter: fannie and freddie own or guarantee more than half of the nation's $11 trillion in mortgage debt. so it's no wonder that homeowners and potential homebuyers are nervous. but, experts point out that today's downgrade of fannie and freddie applies to their corporate bonds, not their mortgage-backed securities. that may be why mortgage rates today remained at historic lows, although experts say the rally in government bonds was also a factor. mortgage rates take their lead from the 10-year treasury bond. still, interest rate strategist mike schumacher says the downgrades are unlikely to move mortgage rates. >> now they're really wards of the state, so if the

you saw me smiling this morning as i embraced this man, freddie carter. he is part of the construction team here. freddie was certified when i was the director of the human rights commission. he had a joint venture. it was a small firm, and they had to get some beer projects, and i remember, you went out and bought yourself a red truck. do you still have that truck? freddie is part of the kck general contractors team that formed the property bid on the dpw and library bid process. they ultimately won the right to build this. and guess what, he is local, right here in the bayview. that is important to me, personally, it is important to the city. that is why the library director works so hard with dpw, our human rights commission, to do it right. this is the right way to do it. i know reverend walker knows that. it is so important to this community that we not only buildings for the future, but in a way that everyone in the community participates. so that they know that we, as a city, as a community, built this library. not some contractor or a department t

expanded as fannie mae and freddie mac began issuing mortgage-backed securities. this market has evolved, and today it is one of the deepest and most liquid markets in the united states with average daily trading volume in excess of $320 billion, a market second only to the markets the united states treasury securities. naming the market to be announced comes from the way the market functions. unlike a traditional marketplace, investors did not know the specific collateral or pools of loans they are agreeing to purchase until months later. accordingly, the collateral is designated to be announced at a date in the future. the ability to lock in an interest rate by the closing mortgage. eight securities in the market, guaranteed by fannie mae, freddie mac, the tva also services as the benchmark for privately issued securities, relative to the cda price. -- adjustable-rate loans and a jumbo loans. as we continue to explore different approaches, it is important that we understand how this market works and what impact reforms would have on this market. how will any cha

fannie and freddie have a combined ceo chairman. so when zakaria calls and asked me to come in and restructure the board and to go for the company as they went into conservatorship, the regulator asked them that they wanted to segregate the title for the first time so you will see the determination and the chairman of the board the vana executive chaian which is i'm not the ceo, the executive leadership of the management is the ceo, chief executive officer. the, executive chairman is an independent board chair who actually controls the operation ofhe board of management. i've never seen the term either until i was one to be on was the chairman of the board which is what i norally see people and don't know we might the ceo or just the chairman of the board soon on executive is in fact diminutive and i am just the chairman of the board. >> what do you think about reverse mortgages offered to senior citizens? >> well reverse mortgages to the senior citizens are attractive, a little like the trademark phenomenon. you've got an equity bu

fannie and freddie were a partner in that. and as much as fannie and 79 for ipods in many ways the investment banks in the private market, they also had a partnership with them. so what you saw was fannie and freddie was innovating blowdown permit programs in the move from traditional underwriting, were you talking to the bank in your community, but if you are in the face. he was a pitcher credit history and your employment history. he would look and think about the regional economics of the community in which you were byerly and where your job was than he would make a loan decision. fannie and freddie decided in instant gratification world we could move to automatic underwriting and appraisal processes. we could really change the structure and dynamics of the housing and mortgage finance system. and they did. and were here. and so even now as we are watching the discussion about under dodd-frank, there is a real risk protection, were any securitizations, the issuer and with the originator are supposed to hold a proportionally

this one showing freddie mac, $79 billion. but you point out, steve, 90% of the loans at least touched fannie and freddie in some way. give us a number. $5 trillion, $6 trillion, $7 trillion in loans if things would potentially go south. a lot of money on the hook. >> you're exactly right. what's frightening about this is these numbers that you just talked about. that $6, $7 trillion of exposure. that's not even included, steve or eric in the national debt numbers so we have huge exposure to these and one of the things that really infuriated me, eric is we continued to allow these very low down payment loans to be initiated and then guaranteed by taxpayers. haven't we learned anything, eric, about what went wrong in 2008 and 2009? >> doesn't sound like it. >> no kidding. here's the problem. these two organizations, quasi government as eric actually put it, they're responsible for about half the mortgages in this country. if they had been downgraded, that means for all of us who are going to buy a house in the future, and utili

you had fannie and freddie what guarantee how much? guarantee $5 trillion in home loans in the united states. that is a real impact. you can be dismissive of the s&p but if moody's make statement they reaffirmed august 2 the a.a.a. rating but not guaranteed it and it's suggest to change. spending cuts must happen. we must deal with the $4.5 trillion deficit. we haven't done it yet. >> bob: true they back up the $4.5 trillion. but it's set mortgages. it's mortgages down the road. if you want to get freddie and fannie to back you up. even in the fraudulent standard & poor's was to see a big deal, 4 $4.5 trillion deficit deal. i come back to this which you conveniently forget. barack obama put real cuts on the table with john boehner in entitlement programs. to the point where the left was screaming top of the hill. boehner agreed to some tax increases. he went back to the caucus. the tea party wouldn't let him do it. i'm not sure that obama could have got it but two of them tried. nobody else tried. except for paul ryan. >> dana: i want

the debate is fannie and freddie as fannie and freddie or the mortgage banks as the next. i think really is the question is should either of those groups be the mechanisms for social policy delivery, or should they really be nothing more than mortgage market structure, financial market intermediaries to the mortgage finance system? and, you know, the likelihood that fannie and freddie at this point is going to come out the other side, it seems. not with the same names or structure. i think some of the franchise value will be retained. it still unclaire as to what matter. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, gretchen and josh. it was a marvelous evening. >> coming up next. >> this weekend, holiday weekend on booktv. former new york's mayor of the storms after the storm. harvard law professor looks at the influence of racial politics on the first african-american president. and live sunday, three hours in depth. former editor and columnist on race and the media. look for the complete booktv schedule at booktv.org and sign up for booktv alerts, weekend schedules, in your inb

we just heard you mention fannie mae and freddie mac. clearly, a lot of conjecture about their future. but clearly, nick, the administration is treading carefully here as well, right? >> absolutely. in some ways, ironically, there is consensus on both sides of the aisle that fannie mae and freddie mac can continue any way, shape or form similar to their current structure. on the other hand the housing finance system and the housing market is so fragile, these entities are providing life support. they're between a rock and a hard place in determining how to proceed and when to proceed. >> is that what you see happening, guy? >> yes. in the first half of this year, we tracked numbers and fannie and freddy were accounting for 70% of all new mortgages being made. >> brown: still that high? >> still that high. >> brown: even after all these years of the problems. >> exactly. when they're doing that, you really can't talk about dialing them back or changing them dramatically. i think it puts a serious debate on that on hold for a year or two.

and i'm not pleased to learn that fannie and freddie have been downgraded as of today. that means investors are going to be very shake y very worried. when investors, are not investing money in mortgages, that means less jobs, less opportunities. so, this is something we all have to be concerned about. we have to do everything that we possibly can to create jobs. you're absolutely correct. the unemployment situation is out of hand. >> in fact, you're going to start -- >> african-american community -- >> you're going to start this eveland, but have you efforts all over the country. the goal, as i understand it, is to get 10,000 people hired, but when you look at what's happening right now, is that really possible in this economy? >> well, we think so. we think that there are a lot of employers out there that are looking for good people, a lot of good people are trying to get connected. so, we are all over the country. we start here in cleveland, but we're going to detroit and atlanta and miami and to los angeles, where the jobs -- unemployment numbers are off the scales.

a little bit different for fannie and freddie. the effect of the increase or the downgrade in their credit rating could actually have a material effect either in their ability to secure all of the money that they need to guarantee the mortgages that people get. >> right. >> or cause it to become more expensive so this is where the rubber starts to hit the road and where we might actually see a tick up in interest rates. >> what does that mean for us, ali? it will be harder to get a home loan now? >> well, this is one of these things that we've never been down this road before so we're learning as we go along moment by moment. we have not seen an increase in either treasury rates. we have not seen an increase in bond yields, the interest rate. we have not seen an increase in home mortgages, in fact, we've seen nothing, but a decrease. here's a short answer to your question. over time we than our interest rates whether it's for home mortgages or treasurys are historically low and likely to go up. if i were somebody taking a mortgage

and the krajina and freddie mac. he was informed before making a speech pretty also talked but the overall economy and housing market. it is a little more than an hour. minutes. >> thank you very much. i've often thought with that checkered employment career that i thought she was going to introduce me as a guy that has a lot of different jobs, but somehow manages to always get another one. [laughter] >> when i was asked to come and speak at chautauqau, i decided you are my kind of people. you started at 10:35 in the morning. i always thought the early bird gets the worm is told from the bird's perspective, not from the worm. on behalf of those who like to start later, i'm delighted to be here. things sure have gotten more interesting in the economy the last few days. i must admit part of this maybe is my fault. if you hang around washington long enough and in the private sector, you get to know people. i thought it might generate interest if a few friends of mine could shake things up. i think they got carried away

with them congress we've we've had ownership of freddie mae and freddie mac. since two thousand a sense tacit ownership in the government and we haven't done anything there have been plans that have been introduced in the house of representatives even in the senate but the republican leadership in the house refuses to take this on they want to go after obamacare with wasting their times they want to drag out this debt ceiling fight and the democrats have shown no leadership on that issue either so yeah that definitely doesn't sound like we're learning any lessons here does it now i ask you one more thing too like you said that obviously that's there's we're still going to the u.s. dollar right now but what could happen next in terms of this downgrade does that mean that u.s. banks are going to start having their credit rating downgraded then it does s. and p. in order to keep their credibility have to start taking a look at other countries and the ratings they give them some people have signaled that france might be next maybe they're due for a downgrade that

we have unique fannie mae and freddie mac and f.h.a. servicer guidelines, we have proposed risk retention under dodd frank which includes servicing standards. we have fhfa, fannie mae and freddie mac and ginny may setting a new compensation servicing model that reflects performing loans and nonperforming loans. we have the treasury undermaking home affordable offered recent directtives on a one-year forbearance plans, note that does not apply to fannie mae and freddie mac or v.a. loans. state attorneys general are under kfrl discusses to discuss practices and processes that will indeed lead to standards. the soon to be cfpb efforts and interagency guidelines are also being looked at to affect standards. all these efforts must be evaluated before any decisions made on any single uniform standard. just a quick note, i did visit a shop recently and wanted to see what they had implemented on the single point of contact. hundreds of people were being trained to handle the single point of contact rule, training lasted up for six weeks. once t

for sure right now izzy and she and he shares these thoughts about working alongside a frenchman at freddie mercury and reveals his own trader as a state's assist our interview is an hour right now. brain it's great to have you with us today sir thank you something so recently i was going through the glass of hassle and he writes about music and what he says about music is that except it's art it's also true power over nations and he felt and then many people say that exactly why music is compared to the sciences like math. i never really got that because i finished out a conservatory and i always failed my math class now you know as a man of music and science can you tell me how music is related with science or exact science like math for example and so hard question. yeah obviously there are mathematical things in music but ironically i think the most important things in music are be instinctive things so i don't equate how that works out except maybe gives you but yes i love pure science and i love music and they're not the same sure but. certainly throughout history there has been conne

. >> reporter: the housing market was looking at the down graded credit ratings of freddy freddy mac. today stocks on the new york stock exchange plunges and endicacies were down. all eyes have been on the market today and then the president held a conference addressing the credit rating. we spoke to an analyst who says president obama stressed the problems were solvable. cuts to defense and domestic spending are a step in the right direction but congress needs to extend unemployment insurance and payroll tax. >> effects everybody's life. mine included. some more than others. >> if you are thinking about buying real estate, one of the only games in town for investment, might make it pricier. >> reporter: those are just a few comments from folks we heard from today. the president made no mention of the mortgage situation. standard and poor's down grated fannie mae and freddy mac. the down grade may force anyone looking to by a home -- one said there is a bigger picture to consider. >> this is not the end of the world and remember america is still the gold standard. nowhere else to inve

obviously when you think queen and see you playing next to freddie mercury all those great hits come to my mind and then understand that when you reach that level of success with someone you definitely have a special law and you form a special bond and i've heard you in another interview say that you still see freddie in a strange way can you elaborate on that it's like a family member you lose them but you don't quite lose them because you take the review. and we were so alone forget it. you get that closeness from somebody particularly in the creative environment either through framers everything to do with who. even success but in the creative environment you learn to to know what somebody else might be thinking you might not always be right but you have a feeling for them and so i still feel and roger does as well in a particularly good applies more if we're working as queen and we think what would freddie say and further he would say this. you know he's part of the creative process because he's part of what we are because we really chiseled this thing out all together me pretty

the guy that will be working day to day with freddie, our resident engineer, garland wong. he will be living here and will not sleep until this library is done. he is supported by several wonderful people. lina chen is managing all of these projects. [applause] i also wanted knowledge of our other local hire, deputy director, muhammed nuru. always working for the baby. we are honored to be able to work on this for our community, who is so deserving and has been so patient. we are going to get people to work in the process and we are all going to be very happy here at the ribbon cutting and a little bit over by year. [applause] >> i think you can all see a pattern. this is all about local ownership. thank you for making this happen. i want to acknowledge and invite to the podium the leader of our library commission. no one demonstrates leadership better than jule gomez. [applause] >> thank you. it is my honor to serve the citizens of the city as the head of the library commission. i got lost on my way here. i asked two people. you ask one person and then you have to ask the