Daniel Mudd, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive, and Robert Levin, the company’s former chief business officer, testified before a panel examining the roots of the financial crisis.

Levin said company executives were concerned about losing relevance as Wall Street companies issued mortgage securities and stole market share.

“It posed a number of threats to the company,” Levin told the panel, adding, “Could we really sit out? Would we be permitted to sit out? That’s what we were grappling with.”

As the market turned down, Mudd noted “virtually every other housing sector investor fled the market.” Fannie and sibling company Freddie Mac “were specifically required to take up the slack.”

Both executives left Washington-based Fannie Mae after it was seized by regulators in fall 2008. Also scheduled to appear Friday were James Lockhart and Armando Falcon, both of whom headed up the federal regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The inquiry is being held by the congressionally chartered Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Congress created the commission last year to examine the causes of the crisis. The panel’s goal is to get an in-depth understanding of decisions that inflated the mortgage bubble and triggered a financial crisis that tipped the economy into the longest recession in 70 years. Its report is due Dec. 15.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK:  Ex-Fannie Mae execs try to defend track record – Yahoo! News.

“No new testing, no new warheads,” Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pledged in a Pentagon briefing.

Yet officials said later that the policy could allow them to bring back older, tested warhead components and designs to build what would be, for all practical purposes, a new weapon.

The administration’s hedge on the warhead issue was but one example of the caution built into a policy portrayed as a groundbreaking effort to reduce U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons.

Although Obama campaigned on a pledge to overhaul nuclear policy, administration officials listened closely to the more conservative advice of Pentagon officials in a yearlong study, said people close to the discussions. And they were sensitive to the need to win Republican votes in the Senate for ratification this year of a new arms control treaty with Russia.

The nuclear weapons policy sets limits on the use of U.S. warheads, declaring some countries off-limits even in wartime, as a step toward reducing U.S. reliance on its most destructive weapons.

The new policy came two days before Obama travels to Prague, Czech Republic, to sign the new arms reduction treaty with Russia and the week before he holds an international nuclear summit in Washington.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES:  Obama’s nuclear policy walks careful line – latimes.com.

Tax breaks were created, or in some cases expanded, for autos and home purchases, as well as for certain residential improvements. Uncle Sam now pays more of some educational costs. Some workers get bigger tax benefits to offset their commute to work. Folks who no longer have jobs at least get some tax relief. Even how you pay your IRS bill could turn into a deduction.

Here’s a look at some popular tax laws that could come in handy as you work on your 2009 tax return.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK TO BANKRATE.COM7 new tax laws to know.

Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.

Many regulators say that violations are widespread, but that it is unusually hard to mount a major enforcement effort because interns are often afraid to file complaints. Many fear they will become known as troublemakers in their chosen field, endangering their chances with a potential future employer.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES: Growth of Unpaid Internships May Be Illegal, Officials Say – NYTimes.com.

A majority disapprove of both political parties, their leaders and most members of Congress, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.

Attitudes are reminiscent of those in 1994 and 2006, when control of Congress switched from one party to the other.

The favorable rating for the Democratic Party has fallen to its lowest level since Gallup began asking the question in 1992 —its standing has dropped 14 percentage points since President Obama’s election — but the Republican Party fares no better. Three of four Americans say they are dissatisfied with the country’s direction.

The good feeling that welcomed Obama with the departure of President George W. Bush seems to have dissipated amid continued concerns about the economy and a growing willingness to hold the new president responsible for the nation’s travails.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR USA TODAY:   USA fumes over politics – USATODAY.com.

Tucson, Arizona (CNN) — Last week during the day, some kids in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, were playing soccer in a park when a car slowed down, guys got out and executed a 13-year-old boy. And then they drove away, unmolested in a city with 11,000 army and police officers.

The Mexican government repeatedly states that 90 percent of the deaths in the current drug war are of people who are dirty; that is, criminals involved in the drug business. The killings of reporters and of innocent women, men and children continually belie that statement.

The child was not a cartel member in disguise. Nor were the 15 high school kids killed at a party in a small house in a poor barrio. Their parents had made them hold the celebration of a sports victory at home because it was too dangerous to be out in the city.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR CNN

U.S.-Mexico ‘war on drugs’ a failure – CNN.com.

The unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent. That’s the first time the nation has gained, rather than lost, in jobs since late 2007, with the exception of November 2009, which many economists saw as a fluke.

Reversing the unrelenting jobs decline has been a central goal of the Obama administration, and it has been politically crucial for Democrats to demonstrate progress on the jobs front ahead of the midterm elections in November.

The news will not have an immediate effect on the stock market, where the Dow has been surging toward the psychologically important 11,000 marker this week because Wall Street is closed today for Good Friday.

The employment number was not high enough to beat expectations of many economists who were looking for a gain of 200,000 or more.

Many economists say that about 150,000 of the new jobs can be explained away by the combination of a bounce-back effect from the February snowstorms, as snowed in workers got back to their job sites in March and by massive temporary hiring by the U.S. Census of as many as 50,000 canvassers.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR POLITICO: Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35325.html#ixzz0jxGzqGUQ

Jobs up, good news for President Obama – Eamon Javers – POLITICO.com.

Of the 26 percent of people who described themselves as “angry” about the new law in a recent Washington Post poll, virtually all also said the country was on the wrong track. In follow-up interviews, many went beyond health care as they spoke of their deep misgivings about the country’s leadership and the changes taking place around them.

“I grew up in the ’50s,” said Hugh Pearson, 63, a retired builder from Bakersfield, Calif. “That was a wonderful time. Nobody was getting rich, nobody was doing everything big. But it was ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ days, ‘Leave It to Beaver’-type stuff. Now we have all this MTV, expose-yourself stuff, and we have no morality left, not even by the legislators.”

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR MSNBC. Post poll shows anger over health-care debate – Washington Post- msnbc.com.