Herb Allison, Fannie Mae Chief, Tapped To Run Bailout

Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is expected to tap Fannie Mae Chief Executive Herb Allison to head the government's $700 billion financial-rescue program, people familiar with the matter say.

In choosing Mr. Allison to head the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the administration is turning to an experienced manager at a time when it is having trouble filling key finance posts. Mr. Allison, 65 years old, is the former chairman of investment company TIAA-CREF and was a Merrill Lynch & Co. executive for years. In September, he agreed to run Fannie Mae after the U.S. took over the mortgage giant and its sister firm, Freddie Mac.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[Jazzman323]

Isn't he the guy from That Seventies Show?

[Caliwoman]

401k down 45%, no home equity left, cosigned on daughter's college loans. Complete indentured servitude of the middle class. Real wages have not gone up in ten years and now we are at double digit unemployment. So we put a guy who at Merril helped cover for Enron in charge of TARP?

[dems08]

Please link to your source about Allison and Enron.

[Independent voter]

There's a lot out there. Here is an example:

http://www.forbes.com/2002/09/19/0919topnews.html

[Badfickle]

Actually overall wages have not gone up in 28 years.

[JakeMontero]

there is no Enron connection.

[violet13]

Put Al Franken in there. Many of you seem to think very highly of him. LOL.

[JakeMontero]

Please Stewart Smiley out of this.

[jamalc]

Herb Allison looks like Uatu, The Watcher.

[dems08]

I've asked this question several times with no response.

How, exactly, has Herb Allison contributed to the mess the booshies/pubs left us?

(ps - he's been in charge of Fannie for only 8 MONTHS)

[destruct1]

yup....everything is Bushes fault...we got it.

[dems08]

So you cannot name Allison's contribution.

Got it.

[ddDinah]

This is the stuff that is getting O in trouble. Keeping the fox in the hen house AIN'T gonna WORK. Signing on with Bush BY NOT SIGNING AGAINST the kiddnapping of people, IS A VERY SERIOUS
MISTAKE. Surrounding himself with NAFTA enablers is ANOTHER BIG MISTAKE. Apparently HIS KIND OF CHANGE MEANS repackaging or moving crooks around BUT NOT OUT...STILL NO ACCOUNTABLITY.

[Social Construct]

Sign on the Whitehouse:

We Have Moved! You Can Now Find Us At Our New Wall Street Location.

[Independent voter]

Funny.

[edwcorey]

This tears it for me. Allison's a Bushman all the way. His judgment and ethics are below street level.

[primeelite]

Also remember when he was at Merrill Lynch he helped spread money around to help cook the books for Enron. Also was McCains adviser for the economy and I think that speaks for itself.

[dems08]

He was McCain's financial advisor in

the 2000 ELECTIONS.

Please link to you enron/allison claim.

[melponeme k]

Par for the Course

Note to Public - The President will only advocate for us if we put pressure on him and of the rotten DC tribe. Their noses are too far up the butts of the criminal money men.

Only we can put a stop to that.

[ToL1]

You've got to be kidding....wait never mind this is Obama.

[roseau]

This appointment is the least of our problems. As the article mentions in passing, there are hundreds of unfilled positions. This problem is the same as trying to install a new government in another country - all of the 'qualified' people are part of the old system. Experience and ethics have become mutually exclusive. This is what we get for letting the foxes run the henhouse for so long. Now, we have to find the least foxy of foxes and watch them like a hawk (metaphor meltdown) while we try to find enough trustworthy and talented folks to help move recovery along. Obama is doing his best to work with a broken system. The real question is when are we going to hear anyone articulate a new economic paradigm? Every time I hear someone talk about recovery having started, just because the stock market rallies a little, I flinch. All of our economic indicators are part of a failed system. Our success needs to be measured in the quality of our citizens' lives, people fed/employed/cared for/productive, rather than a GDP figure that does not remotely relate to my family at all. We have let the bankers define the terms. Just as much as new leadership, we need a new set of measures.

[JonathanStuartLeibowitz]

As much as I agree with the last part of your comment ("the real question..."), I have to disagree with your presumption that experience and ethics have become mutually exclusive. It's hard to imagine that there are no people with integrity left, even amongst bankers. We just shouldn't watch out for people who have been 'successful' (in he definition of the "old system", as you call it). Don't take it from me, take it from someone with a little more insight than me:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.html

Highly recommended.

I still think that Obama believes in these people to be the ones who can fix the system they helped create or at least perpetuated. But at the same time I think he's somehow...well, ill-advised in his choice of people.

[mergina]

Now he is tapping the very source of many of the problems to run things? Obama what the hell are you thinking? None of these people should be allowed anywhere near solving the mess they've created.

[cardineau]

This is putting the Fox in charge of the hen house!

[I once had a Crysknife]

Exactly what I was thinking.

[claylandg]

Agree 100%

[higgins1990]

Fannie Mae - ground zero of the current meltdown. Allison has done a great job keeping a low profile, while changing absolutely nothing at FM - the Fannie/Freddie gravy train continues to fatten members of Congress. So now let's put Allison in charge of TARP, the biggest gravy train ever. Accountability? Transparency? Yeah, right.