Each year the National Book critics circles awards are presented to the best books published in the United States as voted on by 600 literary critics. Heres this years Award Ceremony from the new school in new york city. Its 90 minutes. Hello, everyone. Good evening and welcome. Im the director of the creative writing and we are happy to welcome back our friends. For over 15 years we have been honored to host this award in the auditorium. For the fifth year from the Creative Writing Program interviewed the finalists in a series of interviews can you hear me . Okay, the interview is posted on the blog and the website. You can check them out on book critics. Org. Organizing and posting over 30 interviews over a threeweek period is a huge job and one that couldnt have been job without kelly stewart, student interviewers and the others. Thank you to the Board Members and sylvan simon for all of their efforts and a huge thank you for the board i wonder if we can get a round of applause to t
Each year the National Book critics circles awards are presented to the best books published in the United States as voted on by 600 literary critics. Heres this years Award Ceremony from the new school in new york city. Its 90 minutes. Hello, everyone. Good evening and welcome. Im the director of the creative writing and we are happy to welcome back our friends. For over 15 years we have been honored to host this award in the auditorium. For the fifth year from the Creative Writing Program interviewed the finalists in a series of interviews can you hear me . Okay, the interview is posted on the blog and the website. You can check them out on book critics. Org. Organizing and posting over 30 interviews over a threeweek period is a huge job and one that couldnt have been job without kelly stewart, student interviewers and the others. Thank you to the Board Members and sylvan simon for all of their efforts and a huge thank you for the board i wonder if we can get a round of applause to t
Operating under those circumstances. Miss wertheimer has the opportunity today to inform us how she will handle these exceptional challenges. I look forward to hearing from each of ou nominees on these important issues and more. Thank you, senator. There is an 11 00 vote scheduled for them. Its the law of sufficient time to allow questions. We have agreed to limit Opening Statements to the chair and Ranking Member. All senators will welcomed to submit an Opening Statement for the record. Senator curnan will now introduce mayor castro. Thank you mr. Chairman and Ranking Member crapo. Its my pleasure to be with you here today to introduce a fellow san antonioian and texan mr. Castro. He has told me that hes glad to be here and looked forward to your question buzz he especially looks forward to being back in san antonio to help celebrate the victory of the San Antonio Spurs which that celebration is still going on and will for a long time. I know he will take the opportunity to introduce
11 10, but i apologize for this, but if you could abbreviate your questions. Senator toomey. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I will try to abbreviate my question. Good to see you both, and i appreciate the discussion we had in my office,s mayor castro. I do need to follow up on one of the topics we discussed. Many members of this committee alluded to the ongoing work to reform Housing Finance. While we have a range of opinions about how best to do that, i believe there is a unanimous agreement on this committee that however we do it, its got to involved bringing private capital into financing residential mortgages. At the same time we are having this discussion, as you know, there is a movement under way to attempt by certain communities, to attempt to use Eminent Domain as an argument to justify confiscating mortgages from private lenders at a discount some, who knows what discount to what theyre actually worth. First of all, i think its a blatant violation of contract sanctity if they do th
Ms. Wertheimer, please proceed. Chairman johnson, Ranking Member crapo, members of the committee, thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am honored to be president obamas nominee for Inspector General of the federal Housing Finance agency. And before i begin, id like to introduce my family, who has accompanied me here today. My husband, andy pincus, our daughter, kate pincus, my steadfast mother, sidelle wertheimer. My inlaws walter and ann pincus. With that, let me get to the meat of what id like to say in my statement. The fhfa plays a crucial role in our Financial System as the safety and soundness regulator of fannie mae, freddie mac and the 12 regional federal home loan banks. To ensure they operate in a safe and sound measure and serve as a reliable source of liquidity and funding for Housing Finance. And as senator crapo mentioned, since september 2008, almost six years now, the agency has acted as conservator for fannie mae and freddie mac, to pro