The Murder Weapon Is Covered With His Wife's Fingerprints -- We Better Arrest the Butler
I am a bit late to this but from Arnold Kling:
The further into this crisis we go, the greater the share of subprime loans and mortgage losses are turning out to be located at Freddie and Fannie. Even one year ago, if you had asked me, I would have told you to expect at least 2/3 of the losses to be at companies like Citi and Bear, with less than 1/3 at Freddie and Fannie. It now looks quite different. Conservatively, 3/4 of taxpayers losses will be at Freddie and Fannie. Perhaps as much as 90 percent of taxpayer losses will be there.
Given the large role of Freddie and Fannie, it makes sense for politicians to create as large a diversion as possible. Hence, the brouhaha over bonuses at bailed-out banks.
Incidentally, the debate over the "public option" in health reform also can be viewed as an exercise in symbolic politics and diversion. The point is to divert attention away from the bankruptcy of Medicare.
Ian Random:
I kept hearing from callers, the host always let it slide, to various shows that those wonderful CDO's were "laundered" through Freddie/Fannie, otherwise no one would've bought them without that implicit government guarantee.
"Currently, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac control about 90 percent of the nation's secondary mortgage market. "
http://hnn.us/articles/1849.html
November 12, 2009, 12:23 am