Whose Fannie to Kick
Would Franklin Raines, the disgraced, disgraceful ex-Fannie Mae chief, dare crawl out from under his ignominy to defend Congressional Democrats' insistence on sheltering Fannie and Freddie from their own beloved financial reform bill? You betcha. The Wall Street Journal responds:
Mr. Raines is signaling the coming political debate when he says “that Wall Street and the commercial banks have virtually abandoned the mortgage market.” But this is like murdering your parents and demanding clemency because you’re an orphan. No private bank can compete with the federal government’s borrowing costs, so no one can afford to compete with Fannie and Freddie. It was hard enough to compete when the two companies had to maintain a (subsidized) profit margin for their shareholders. Now that they’re being run at an intentional loss, it’s impossible.
Read Tim Carney for the last word:
Fannie Mae was a slush-fund for the politically well-connected — mostly Democrats. Its money came from fraud, and from an implicit government guarantee, which is now an explicit subsidy. In other words, our ballooning debt today is financing Franklin Raines’ life as a millionaire.
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Comments :
Jun '10
Re: Whose Fannie to Kick
Private profits, public risk. It's nice work if you can get it.
May '10
Re: Whose Fannie to Kick
So long as clowns from the Barney Frank School of Economics can discuss the mortgage GSEs anywhere without being booed into silence, that industry will be squid-infested waters. Crooks like Franklin Raines operate in plain sight on our dime, and that's far worse than any Madoff scam in the grand scheme of things.
In a sane world, Fannie, Freddie, and the USPS would be all the proof anyone would need that D.C. should have less power. Alas, here we are...
Jul '10
Re: Whose Fannie to Kick
I suspect that when the history of this age is written, the immense craven corruption of Fannie, Freddie, Barney and Chris will read like Teapot Dome. It stinks to high heaven. The masking of it ought to be a scandal of the highest order.
May '10
Re: Whose Fannie to Kick
We have pumped $140+Billion so far in these two, with no end in sight. The logical thing to do (my opinion) is to let them go bust and have the market restructure to accomodate Govt. non involvement. It will be interesting to see whether our GOP leaders do this, or continue on with the same old same old.
Aug '10
Re: Whose Fannie to Kick
Sadly, I highly doubt there are or ever will be a large enough group of politicians that would have the courage to take on corruption let alone entitlements and other junk that the government has no business having their grubby paws on.