Where's Robin Hood when you need him? For it seems the evil Sheriff of Nottingham hath returned to steal from the poor.
Earlier this year it was Bear Stearns that fell foul from policies of rampant pillaging and now it's the turn of Fannie and Freddie, guilty of doing the same and also seeking sanctuary on Capitol Hill. The government 'loan' of $30 billion helped Bear Stearns facilitate the purchase by JPMorgan Chase, those lovely folks who currently hold my mortgage, but ultimately the bailout will come courtesy of the great American tax payers.
Yes 'tis true, since 1968, that reliable old couple, Fannie and Freddie, were given a make-over and were cast into two lovely corporations. Now reinvigorated, like an old geezer loaded-up on a bottle of Viagra, they were ready to venture forth and screw everyone in sight. No longer a sagging, bloated government entity, they were free to operate as 'legitimate' independent corporations. They caught the real estate wave and all was right with the world. So then answer me this: why are they now going to get public money to fix their major f**k up? I certainly don't recall getting a 'thank you' card with a nice fat check enclosed back when they made their profits.
Sure, their creation in 1938 helped the US recover from the last Great Depression under the excellent stewardship of F.D. Roosevelt and his New Deal, but do me a favor, under this government it feels more like a case of the 'same old, same old' deal, never mind a new deal! The bad news is, we are told there will be more banks and institutions to follow. Over the past weekend it was IndyMac the newbie bank out of southern California for the same silly reasons: Lending money to people without checking their credit, without a down payment, without a job and most likely without a clue. Even Homer Simpson, paralytic on Duff beer, could see that this was a total "do'h! " The system is flawed. Really? Thanks for the heads up on that, Mr Bernanke.
Having the plush security blanket, wherein the government (ie: taxpayer) will always be standing by, ready to bail Fannie and Freddie out, is tantemount to a 'legal' protection racket. Let me get this straight—because that's the way I like to roll—Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae guaranteed to underwrite truck loads of dubious sub-prime investments across the nation with ridiculously high risks and potentially big fat rewards for all its stockholders. All well and good, but when it all goes mammaries-up, so to speak, they go off crying to the Federal Reserve like whining little babies? This sounds more like the behavior of a spoiled teenage brat running up huge credit card bills and then crying to mommy and daddy to bail them out.
Free market, my gluteus maximus, and no, that is not a reference to an over hyped Russell Crowe gladiator movie, though come to think of it, for it may as well be. For as I understand it, Mr Ben Bernanke, the esteemed Chairman of the Federal Reserve and his fellow wise men on the Hill, are going to request an investigation into future lending practices to prevent further 'dodgy loan' debacles, No s**t Sherlock, as my kids would say. Aren't there already laws and regulations against this kind of STUPIDITY? Truth is there are two set of rules out there. One where the government will reward, or sanction risky enterprises and then there is the law for the average citizen where you'll be lucky to get a tax refund that will barley cover the cost of a tank of unleaded gas.
First a 5 year war that has been waged on misinformation, and now this? How much more is the US taxpayer supposed to put up with? Do they think there is a tooth-fairy that is going to fix this unfeasibly apoplectic disaster? The reason these loans were approved in the first place was because all along Fannie and Freddie knew that the US government would stand by and bail them out. They always have, and they always will. This should be their motto. It's akin to betting in Vegas with someone else's money without them knowing. Now I can really begin to sympathize with those that refuse to pay their taxes. Period.
Fortunately for us, not all the US banks made the same stupdid mistake. Wells Fargo, for example, the only bank in the US to have the AAA stamp of approval from the S&P didn't make any 'investments' in the subprime loan market. Why? Because 42 year-old CEO, John Stumpf, said in an interview on National Public Radio recently, that he couldn't see any viable business model! Big surprise there.
The sooner the American electorate wakes up and smells the USDA Prime-grade BS, that is being served, the better. Roll on November, it is time to clean house. These two 'subsidized' idiots loaned vast sums of money to people, not because of some inspired notion of nationalistic altruism, no, it was because they thought that they could make a quick bundle off the people least able to pay them back, once the 'real' prime +++ rates kicked in.
The thousands of families forced out of their homes due to foreclosures were in essence a form of forced bankruptcy, so ergo should Fannie and Freddie follow. They should go bankrupt too, plain and simple, just as with any other failed corporation and hopefully serve as a lesson and warning for the next bunch of greedy 'Merchant Bankers.' (that's cockney rhyming slang, for the uninitiated).
You can hazard a guess as to what it stands for!