Some Good Posts Here
 

There seems to be a combination of confusion regarding "why this, why now?" here, righteous indignation, anger, etc. There is even an attempt to politicize this situation, which adds a little humor to a serious financial situation.

As a retired banker, I know that the Fed did what it had to do to stabilize the financial markets and particularly the housing industry. They are smart enough to know what the causes were and will likely plan some new regulations to address the causes in the future. Yes, I believe that regulation is necessary. Without it, or with inadequate regulation, the lure of money and simple greed spawns results such as this financial disaster, the S&L failures of twenty years or so ago, etc.

I'd guess that the people at the Fed are as angered at the lack of regulation and greed by those involved, all the way from the loan salesmen peddling the loans to the mortgage company underwriters to the Wall Street types who packaged up the mortgages and sold them as mortgage-backed securities to the investors who bought them and certainly including the executives at Fannie and Freddie who showed an amazing lack of judgement and greed while taking gobs of bonus money.

But in the end, everyone had to swallow hard and come up with the plan that was announced to stabilize things. The only statement made in the description of what was done that I found disingenuous was that the $100 billion wouldn't be an obligation of the taxpayers. C'mon. Where did the Fed get that $100 bil anyway? It certainly didn't come from the federal surplus--there isn't any.

Re: Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Bailout
 

I have read every post in this thread.

Boomer's favorite quote:

"Unrestrained greed is not only bad morals, it's bad economics."

I am thinking of having t-shirts printed up with that quote. Do you think that might help to spread the word? Or maybe bumper stickers. Yeah, that's it. Big, long bumper stickers.

Goodnight.

Boomer the Redundant

Re: Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Bailout
 

Today the Fed is trying to pedal off Lehman before they go down. The government is trying to do this without having to use public funds.... Even the Republicans are against this one.

Bear Sterns...public money
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae...public money
Lehman...public money???

http://www.cfrb.com/news/13/788335

Re: Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Bailout
 

As one of the earlier posts in this thread points out....the percent that is in default, foreclosure, et al is significantly over shadowed by the majority (85++%) that are legit and ongoing day in and day out.
If one could get a handle on the real number of speculators who got in, exploited the system's loose screening, then walked away from deals, I would venture to GUESS, the real foreclosures, bad loans, et al would be even lower.
There were those who were taking advantage of the system to build multiple homes, over reaching their capability when the bubble burst. Add to that the folks who are standing pat waiting to see what hand outs are coming...the ones who stop paying their mortgages, because of the new tolerances for non payment and the prospect of a bail out by somebody....breeds even more exploitation. These walk aways, and wait and see non payers distort the real measure of REAL foreclosures in the US.
It is a small % to start with.....smaller still if the real measure could be determined.
Like all other media and political views, the smaller % is the focus. They have a way of making a banquet out of a ham sandwich.

The mortgage default exploitation is no different than the price of oil exploitation by speculators.....as was said above....just follow the money!

BTK