One of the two initiatives is the tax credit for homebuyers. It was rolled out last year in a bid to prop up demand for homes – and, initially, only first-time buyers were eligible.

But beginning in November 2009, repeat buyers could apply for the credit, too. It was hoped when the tax credits were authorized that the housing market could soon stand on its own, and lawmakers planned for the credits to expire on April 30.

But with the Federal Reserve’s mortgage-backed security purchase initiative slated to expire this month, questions are being raised about the strength of the housing recovery.

In that program, up to $1.25 trillion in MBS are being bought from lenders. The Fed’s purchases provide liquidity to mortgage servicers and help them provide new loans; also, by buying MBS, the Fed drives up their prices and pushes down the rates on the loans underpinning them.

It sounds complicated, but the MBS are simply bonds – and when bonds’ prices go up, their yields, or rates of return, go down.

In any event, some groups are calling for the government’s housing-support programs to continue. The National Association of Home Builders – which has an interest in ensuring that home demand remains strong – commissioned a poll that found a majority of Americans supports the government’s housing initiatives.

And, as Fitch Ratings reported last week, lenders could suffer greater losses on their loan portfolios when the government’s two programs expire. "Loss severity trends continue to be strongly dependent on home price trends," the ratings agency noted.

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Born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1930, Warren Buffett, the son of a congressman and stockbroker, is considered one of the most prominent investors in the world.

BACKGROUND

When he was young, irrespective of the background of his family, he delivered newspapers to earn money. That time in his life was said to be the start of his interest in the media, where he has completed several investments such as the Washington Post Company, a stock that made him known to the world, and one that he never plans to sell.

So full of determination to develop an exceptional entrepreneurial nature, Warren Buffett engaged in various part time businesses. However, it was only when he studied under Benjamin Graham at the Columbia Graduate Business School, after graduating from the University of Nebraska, that he found his calling in business.

CAREER

At first, Warren Buffett was unsuccessful in getting a position with Graham’s firm. When he did, he particularly mentioned that he learned so much about stock investment from his mentor. Upon Graham’s retirement, Buffett formed a partnership in Omaha using capital that was contributed by his friends and family. The business turned out to be a success and Buffett was said to have reached an annual rate of return for the partnership in excess of 23%, which was far more than that of the market.

After several years, Buffett ended the partnership, returning the investors’ capital and shares. He then bought an interest in the textile company Berkshire Hathaway. Despite going through some challenges, it eventually prospered as Buffett arranged to purchase two insurance companies from Nebraska. This marked Buffett’s interest in insurance, and likewise marked the beginning of his and the company’s financial success.

Later on in his endeavors, Warren Buffett met fellow investor and lawyer Charles Munger, who was eventually employed at Berkshire as Buffett’s vice chairman. He constantly acknowledges Munger’s contribution to the company.

Under Munger and Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway has turned into a large investment company that holds various successful businesses including See’s Candy Shops, Nebraska Furniture Mart and Geico Corporation.

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Paul Volcker is known for his service to the Federal government that has so far covered three decades and five presidential administrations. He is also recognized as the Federal Reserve’s former chairman of the board of governors.

BACKGROUND

Born in Cape May, New Jersey and raised in Teaneck, New Jersey, Volcker’s father was recognized as the township’s earliest municipal manager. He graduated from Teaneck High School, NJ.

Following his graduation from Teaneck High School in New Jersey, Volcker completed his undergraduate education at Princeton University, earning his degree in 1949. Two years later, he received his Masters degree in political economy from Harvard University Graduate School of Public Administration and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Later on, he had attended the London School of Economics between 1951 and 1952 as an ambassadorial fellow at its Rotary Foundation, under the Ambassadorial Scholarships program of the Rotary.

CAREER

He was selected as the Federal Reserve System’s chairman of the Board of Governors by former President James Carter in 1979 and was re-appointed by ex-US President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

After he resigned from the Federal Reserve in 1987, he served as an International Economic Policy professor at Princeton and was the J. Rothschild, Wolfensohn & Co chairman until 1996.

Paul Volcker, who is the current chairman of the Economic Advisory Board of the President, was assigned to man an independent survey on the Iraqi Oil for Food Program of the UN in 2004. He was also given the responsibility of conducting a research on the anti-corruption program of the World Bank.

Volcker also spends his time as a board of trustees chairman of the Group of 30 (otherwise known as G30), which is a world organization that studies the effects of financial and economic decisions by the private and public sectors.

As the first National Commission on the Public Service chairman (also known as the “Volcker Commission”) in 1988 and the second Volcker Commission in 2002, he turned himself into one of the country’s most outstanding supporters for the public service renaissance.

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Paul O’Neill was born on December 4th 1935 and was the 72nd US Secretary of the Treasury in the administration of former US President George W. Bush. Before he was the Secretary of the Treasury, he worked as the chief executive and chairman of Alcoa, a Pittsburgh-headquartered industrial corporation. He was also the RAND Corporation chairman.

BACKGROUND

Paul O’Neill, although born in St. Louis, Missouri, considers Pittsburgh as his hometown. At Anchorage High School in Anchorage, Alaska, he met his wife and they both finished school in 1954. O’Neill lived with his parents in the military base and studied at the California State University in Fresno, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in economics. He also went to and received a graduate degree in economics at Claremont Graduate University in 1961, as well as a Master of Public Administration at Indiana University.

Paul O’Neill and wife Nancy have four kids and are doting grandparents to 12 grand kids.

CAREER

He started his public service career as the Veterans Administration’s computer systems analyst. He served Veterans from 1961 to 1966. By 1967, he was in the United States Office of Management and Budget, where he served as its deputy director from 1974 to 1977.

In 1976, Paul O’Neill held an executive position in New York City’s International Paper. From 1977 until 1985, he functioned as the company’s vice president and then served as the president from 1985 to 1987.

By 1988, former US President George H. W. Bush invited him to become the Secretary of Defense, but he declined the offer and recommended the position to Dick Cheney. Later on, Bush approached him again and offered the position of chair of an advisory group on education that had Richard Riley, Bill Brock and Lamar Alexander as its members. Under his headship, the group counseled unified testing standards and national standards.

From 1987 to 1999, O’Neill was the chief executive officer and chairman of Alcoa. By the end of 2000, he retired from being its chair. His tenure in the company was such a success that the company’s revenues rose from $1.5 billion in 1987 to $23 billion by 2000. O’Neill has a record net worth of $60 million.

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Bruce Wasserstein, born on December 25th 1947 and died October 14th 2009, was one of the most prominent investment bankers and businessmen in the United States. A graduate of McBurney School, University of Michigan, Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School, he was best known for being the chief executive officer and chairman of Lazard Ltd.

BACKGROUND

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York to parents Lola and Morris Wasserstein, he was one of the five Wasserstein siblings. His father, a Jewish immigrant from the pre-WWII Poland, moved to New York and established a ribbon business. Wasserstein’s maternal grandfather, Simon Schleifer, was a Jewish dramatist who relocated to Paterson, New Jersey and worked as a Hebrew school principal.

Wasserstein was predeceased by his two sisters: Sandra Wasserstein-Meyer, a businesswoman, and Wendy Wasserstein, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, whose daughter Lucy Jane he raised.

Bruce Wasserstein was married and divorced thrice. By January 2009, he had married his fourth spouse named Angela Chao, Elaine Chao’s sister.

CAREER

Since the 80s, he had helped broker over one thousand transactions that totaled $250 billion. Wasserstein, who had a record net worth of $2.3 billion in 2008, started his career as a lawyer at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, then went on to become the co-head of First Boston Corporation’s merger and acquisition practice.

Later on, he developed the investment bank boutique Wasserstein Perella & Company, but sold it to Dresdner Bank for about $1.2 billion in stock in 2000. He exited from Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein—which was formed when Dresdner’s UK unit Kleinwort Benson merged with Wasserstein Perella—and was employed at Lazard Frères. In 2005, he completed Lazard’s IPO.

He headed Wasserstein & Company, a private equity business that specializes in investments in various industries, mostly media-related. Under his headship, the company acquired the New York Magazine in 2004 and sold American Lawyer Media to Incisive Media in 2007 for approximately $630 million in cash.

Apart from business, he also takes on philanthropic efforts. One of these is his $25 million donation to Harvard Law School.

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Democratic politician Mark J. Green was born on March 15, 1945 in Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of the Great Neck South High School in New York.

After finishing high school in 1963, Mark Green went on to finish his education at the Cornell University. In 1967, he attended the prestigious Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, Mark Green was actively involved in the production of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review as the editor-in-chief.

In addition to his political career, Mark Green is also a lawyer and a public interest author. Apart from this, Mark J. Green is also Air America Radio’s current president.

From 1990 to 1993, Mark Green served as the Consumer Affairs Commissioner for New York City. In the following year, he became the New York City Public Advocate.

He was elected twice and served in that position until 1997. Over the years, Mark Green also won a few Democratic primaries for the New York City mayor, the US Senate, as well as for the US House of Representatives.

As a public interest author, Mark Green produced a total of more than 20 books. Two of his written works, “Who Runs Congress?” and “The Book On Bush,” have become bestsellers. Along with Michele Jolin, Mark Green recently published a transition policy book for the current US President Barack Obama.

The book, which is entitled “Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President,” was co-produced by the Center for American Progress Action Fund and the New Democracy Project. Additionally, Mark Green also produced several of his published works together with the consumer advocate, Ralph Nader.

In addition to producing written works, Mark Green is a father of two children, Jenya and Jonya. He is happily married to Deni Frand, the former director of the New York City’s liberal interest group office.

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Earmarks are used by members of Congress to allocate spending to certain projects, but concerns about that lawmakers use the tools to reward campaign donors in their home districts.

As the New York Times reported Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee will no longer approve earmarks to for-profit entities like corporations. And, the Times said, 5 percent of earmarks to non-profit firms will be audited.

Wisconsin Democrat David Obey noted in a memo that the move will attempt to put an end to members of Congress supporting bills that had earmarks for their districts attached. "Instead of debating the policies and programs, members [of Congress] were expected to support the bills – no matter what – if they had earmarks included," Obey wrote.

As Obey noted, earmarks can have a purpose. They serve, he said, as "agreements between the executive and legislative branches about which specific construction projects will go forward."

It’s for that reason that the Appropriations Committee did not ban earmarks outright – but the nonprofit group Taxpayers for Common Sense argues that a thorough earmark ban is needed. Obey estimates that there were roughly 1,000 earmarks in fiscal year 2010, but TCS says there were more than 9,000. And, the group claims, time spent "combing through earmark requests" is time that could be invested in more pressing issues.

The announcement of a ban on earmarks to for-profit firms was lauded by both sides of the aisle, the Times said. But the enactment of a more-concrete earmark ban is contingent on a Senate vote. The Senate hasn’t been receptive to the idea of banning earmarks, and a final bill banning the instruments could take months to hammer out.

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Richard Fields is a renowned businessman whose expertise focuses on resort development, casinos, casino gaming facilities as well as thoroughbred horse racing. Aside from that, he engages in philanthropic efforts for the community.

BUSINESS AND PHILANTHROPY

Richard Fields acts as the current chairman of Coastal Development LLC, which sponsors and develops entertainment venues, resort properties, and casino gaming services. Through the company, Fields was able to form the Seminole Hard Rock Casino and Hotel in Hollywood, California and Tampa, Florida in early 2004, which are said to be some of the most sought after resorts in the US.

With the success of his business, he was able to contribute to the community through the Fields Family Foundation, a community-giving organization that he established to help out other aid groups including the American Quarter Horse Foundation, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Good Shepherd Services. The group also promotes the University of Rochester Medical Center, which aims to fight muscular dystrophy.

HORSERACING AND RANCHING

Apart from business and philanthropy, Richard Fields is the owner of a ranching company called Jackson Rand Land of Cattle, a company situated in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

He was also the largest investor of a Massachusetts-based thoroughbred racetrack called Suffolk Downs in 2007, the iconic racetrack in New England that opened in 1935 and hosted horse Hall of Famers like Cigar, Whirlaway and Seabiscuit. He aims to expand into another casino resort and entertainment establishment pending gambling laws in the state.

In his spare time, Fields rides horses and is a horse sports enthusiast. Since he is the owner of Jackson Land and Cattle, he participates in horse competitions, particularly the western-style horse event called cutting, a timed horse riding competition wherein the rider and his horse work their way to cut one cow away from a whole herd.

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From 2001 to 2009, George W. Bush served as the United States’ 43rd President.

He was born on the 6th of July 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut.

George Bush is the eldest among four siblings, namely Dorothy, Marvin, Neil, and Jeb.

He and his siblings were raised by their parents, Barbara and George H.W. Bush, in Midland and Houston, Texas. George W. Bush is the grandson of the former US Senator from Connecticut, Prescott Bush. His father was the 41st President of the United States.

George Bush finished his high school at a boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts, the Phillips Academy.

During his high school days, George Bush was a baseball player and in his senior year, he served as the head cheerleader. After graduation, George Bush proceeded to finish a degree in history at the prestigious Yale University.

While working to finish his bachelor of arts in history degree, he became a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon. He was elected to become the president of the fraternity before graduating.

Apart from this, George Bush also became a member of the Skull and Bones Society during his senior year in college.

In 1973, George Bush started attending the prestigious Harvard Business School to earn his MBA degree. George W. Bush remains as the only American president to have received an MBA.

After receiving his MBA degree, George Bush worked for his family’s oil business.

Before he ventured into the political field, George Bush married Laura Welch in 1977. In 1994, George Bush won in the Texas gubernatorial election.

His victory came after he became a co-owner of the Texas Rangers baseball. Prior to winning in the US presidential elections, George Bush served as the 46th Governor of Texas.

Nowadays, he serves as a public speaker and keeps himself busy by writing a book about his presidency.

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Timothy Geithner currently serves as the United States’ 75th Secretary of the Treasury.

Prior to serving under current US President Barack Obama, Timothy Geithner was the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Timothy Geithner’s current position leaves him in charge of directing the Federal Government’s budget during the recent 2007-2010 financial crisis. This includes the allotment of the $350 billion budget for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Timothy Geithner continued to get involved with a variety of high visibility issues such as the Obama administration’s attempts to speed up the recovery of the country’s automobile industry and the mortgage market, its plans to restructure the regulation of the county’s financial system, as well as the current US administration’s tax changes and foreign relations.

In addition to his duties as a civil servant, Timothy Geithner also holds several memberships. He is a member of the Center for Global Development Board of Directors as well as the Council on Foreign Relations.

He is also a trustee of the Economic Club of New York, as well as a chairman of the Bank for International Settlements’ committee on payment and settlement systems.

Timothy Geithner was born in New York City on the 18th of August 1961.

However, Timothy Geithner spent most of his earlier years growing up in several other countries such as Thailand, India, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In fact, he completed his high school years at the International School Bangkok in Thailand.

After finishing his secondary education in Thailand, Timothy Geithner went on to finish his Bachelor of Arts degree at Dartmouth College.

Finally in 1983, Timothy Geithner received his AB degree in government and Asian studies from the same school. In addition to this, he also studied Mandarin at the Peking University two years before his graduation from Dartmouth.

Afterwards, he proceeded to earn an MA in international economics and East Asian studies at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

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