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Dodd, Frank, Fannie & Freddie: the Axis of Evil Headed for your Wallet
Right now, we’re all on the hook for the $145 billion sunk and gone into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. A lot of people blame Barney Frank — among others — for the slovenly and derelict and unethical stewardship of Fannie especially, which is sort of unfair: a government bank, backstopped by the American taxpayer, was eventually going to get into trouble.
The best version of Frank’s complicity is here, by the excellent and always thoughtful Patterico.
So now it’s a $145 billion wash — soon, according to the CBO, to be a $400 billion wash. And maybe, if housing doesn’t pick up, a $1 trillion wash.
Luckily, though, we’ve got this new Financial Reform bill on the way. That should take care of some of this, right? I mean, it’s over 2300 pages.
So how many pages are devoted to Freddie and Fannie?
Zero. Dodd-Frank doesn’t cover Fannie, or Freddie. And why should it? You’re covering Fannie and Freddie. So am I. So is every other taxpayer.
Published in General
Democrats in Congress are the stupidest “champions of the poor” there ever were. If you really want to punish poor people, make them feel like dirt, incentivize America’s banks to give them loans they can never afford to pay back. That’ll do it.
Every time I see a photo of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd surrounded by microphones, I’m struck by the overwhelming urge to start buying coffee so I have something convenient to bury my money in.
As usual, Congress has to pass the bill to find out how it’ll work – but we don’t have to read it to know that it won’t. Sacred cows keep grazing away while productive businesses and lenders feel an even tighter government squeeze.