Today, an AfroSpear colleague, Yobachi Boswell, turned me on to an astounding bit of well-sourced, campaign-acknowledged information about Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, "Sub-prime Maggie" Williams:
WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton spends considerable time on the campaign trail bemoaning unscrupulous lenders who have left millions of Americans scrambling to keep their homes but all the while her campaign manager, Margaret "Maggie" Williams, has sat on the board of one of the nation's once-largest and now-bankrupt sub-prime mortgage lenders.Now, I know this comes from Fox News, but Fox News got it directly from the mouth of Howard Wolfson, one of Hillary Clinton's principal campaign spokespeople.Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told FOXNews.com late Sunday that Williams, a longtime Clinton ally, didn't join Clinton's Democratic presidential campaign as a volunteer until after Delta Financial Corporation -- for which Williams is a director -- went bankrupt in December 2007.
That's more than seven years after Williams joined New York-based Delta Financial in 2000. She became a director one month after a federal settlement was reached with the lender over discriminatory lending practices. More recently, Delta has been accused by consumer advocates of pursuing predatory practices throughout the housing boom and bust. Faux News
Yeah, I know this information about "Sub-prime Maggie" makes Hillary look terribly bad, and I know it comes from a source (Faux News) that hates Democrats, but I have an even more fundamental concern: Is it true? If so, I think it really does bring into question the future commitment of Hillary's people, particularly Sub-prime Maggie Williams to address mortgage lending in a fair-handed way.
Remember what happened when we elected a vice president who came directly from Halliburton Corp., which might just as well be known as "War, Corp."? That's right, we got TWO wars, neither of which is over yet. This is a good reason to doubt the wisdom of electing a president whose campaign manager, Sub-prime Maggie, comes from one of the sub-prime lenders that has caused a near melt-down in America's economy.
But as it turns out, Clinton’s top aide is on the board of what had been — until its bankruptcy — the ninth-leading sub-prime lender in the nation, handling almost $800 million worth of sub-prime lending in the third quarter of 2007 alone, according to National Mortgage News.Delta Financing — and subsidiary Delta Funding — made much of its money by turning around and selling its loans at a profit — either through securitization or straight sale. Financial statements and federal filings indicate that Delta made huge profits between 2004 and 2007 mostly by refinancing loans to homeowners with moderate and middle incomes in urban neighborhoods.
In 2006, it reported a net income of $28.8 million compared to $18 million a year earlier. It also originated a record $4 billion in loans that year, a 5 percent increase over 2005. In 2006, it had increased its line of credit by $500 million to a total of $1.75 billion. Te average interest rate on a 30-year mortgage is 6.25 percent. Financial sources and the company’s public records show that in the last decade Delta brokered thousands of fixed-rate refinancing loans with rates of anywhere from 11.3 to 13.6 percent. Faux News
A Chicago Tribune article on Sub-Prime Maggie's involvement with Delta makes it clear that she knew about Delta going in:
. . . the company charged relatively steep interest rates — 11 percent in 2007 — and levied higher-than-prime-loan closing costs. And Delta assessed prepayment penalties for borrowers who paid off before their loans matured — a practice Clinton frequently decries on the campaign trail. ( . . . ) . . . they were still the most aggressive company," said Matthew Lee, founder of the Bronx-based Fair Finance Watch, a nonprofit that monitors inner-city lending. Chicago TribuneYobachi poses some fundamental questions about the "Sub-prime Maggie" news:
Is that supposed to be a selling point here? So what's the argument; after bankrupting American families, Maggie helped run her business into the ground? That explains the Clinton campaign's financial woes.
How can we believe that Hillary Clinton's fighting for us when she's so tied to big money corporate interest? This revelation comes less than a week after Clinton's rich corperate donors threatened to destroy the Democratic Congressional Caucus if they didn't get their way from Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Leadership visa via the party nomination.
Is Maggie Williams going to be a part of Clinton's administration, as campaign mangers often are (i.e. Republican Dick Morris was Bill's top political advisor in the white house after being his campaign manager in '96). If so, how's she going to stand up to Wall Street and Financial predators, when one of those very predators is over policy. BlackPerspective.Net
I supported Hillary Clinton until January, but our "Concede Now, Hillary!" petition explains fairly concisely why I cannot and will not do so any longer.
Frankly, I'm glad I bailed on Hillary Clinton's campaign before this latest news about "Sub-prime Maggie" appeared, because I simply don't know how I could have defended this. It's indefensible from a progressive perspective.
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