From the article: Did Fannie and Freddie Cause the Mortgage Crisis?
Did Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cause the subprime mortgage crisis? Some legislators propose eliminating Fannie and Freddie. Do you agree? Should Fannie and Freddie be eliminated? What Do You Think?
It is always the government's Fault
- Rupert Murcoch and the Koch brothers taught me that everything bad is always the government's fault. We should just eliminate the government and let the multinational corporations run things. They have our best interests at heart, after all we are the customers!
- —Guest Libertarian
Take away any link to USA
- US Govt. should not provide any implied guar. to a for profit company. Mgmt. took for profit risks and were paid large bonuses. Phase out these two over time and boost highly regulated and audited Ginnie Mae. Only lower middle clase and poor should receive mtg. help. Bush and others were idiots for raising the max. amount. Govt. has a role to help lower income segment. $720M mtg. is not lower income in ANY market. If it is, than move to another neighborhood.
- —Guest zebman
mis-guided gov attempt at soc enginering
- It is long past time for the government to stop trying to design and implement programs to affect changes in home ownership. The market forces of supply and demand are better able to provide solutions to address the declining values of real estate and the inability of some less than astute homeowners to handle the sub-prime issues that are forcing these same people into foreclosure. Stop throwing money at the problem- That only causes more problems.
- —taiflou
Crazy to think otherwise
- Its just lunacy of this author to say that F&F didn't cause the housing crisis. Legislators on the Democratic side ie Maxine Waters, Barney Franks and Greg (can't remember his last name and really don't care to) excoriated bankers and Republicans for having the gaul to say F&F are making bad loans to people who can't afford to buy.......but these Democrats did not see nor did they want to hear of the impending collapse. Yet here we are. Americans have lost their homes and almost 60% are underwater because of these legislators trying to control the FREE MARKET!
- —Guest Kim
The tail wagging the dog.
- It is not F&Fs fault. It is Congress. They should be eliminated and we should vote on legislation directly (internet/cell phones). Let's take a different slant on the Toxic Securities problem. Instead of TARP, why didn't our government (our representatives) just buy up all the close to worthless mortgage backed securities at pennies on the dollar, and then offer them to the actual mortagees at pennies on the dollar. For example, if a security had 10 home mortgages, then all 10 home owners could buy their loan back at almost nothing. This government is supposed to be "By the People, For the People". By the way, there should be only one US Bank owned by all of us. The Fed Reserve and private banks are here for the rich and we allow it. Why?
- —Guest EHartley23
F&F not at fault--a Victim
- F&f are stockholder owned corporations For profit. They buy mortgages from banks then sell them to investors at a profit They were limited to max of $300,000 Mortgage Banks made more profit bundling and selling in securities.. Banks wanted larger mortgages and they bundled and sold $500,000 + F&F lost market share and stockholders upset Bush increased max to 720,000.F&F got in on end of bubble Buyers got leery of Mortgage securities being toxic Banks unloaded the toxics on F&F. Hence Bailout. F&F at fault for not auditing the toxics more closely. Fed was catalyst. Cut interest rate from 6.5% to 1% which is free money. Huge increase in Money supply Wall Street pals here is free money plenty come and get it .Banks encouraged too big too expensive for middle class incomes Sub=Prime=Unaffordable In 2010 more homes over 1M were foreclosed than under 1M value. Crooks tried to blame poor or low income. Bull.
- —Guest clarence swinney
fannie freddie not accouantable
- in my opinion first and foremost the federal government has no business being involved in private enterpriise that is for the private sector and not the federal government. capitalism is designed to have a flucation in the market, its called business cycles, they are intended for the weak to fail and the strong to excell, when the government gets involved they distort the entire process. the term to big to fail has no place in the usa. the only thing the federal government does when it "saves" failed companies is to enable them to fail again and to allow the feds to mandate greater government intervention. what this country despartly needs is less government, taxes and regulations. eventuality the fed will expand to the point that they can't control what they are tring to accomplish (kinda like they are today) they will implode.
- —Guest walter watson
Agree with two other guests
- I agree with both Guests...John Comins and George Dale. Fanny and Freddie continues to be about CDO packages and pocketing millions. This will never change. Dismantle Fanny and Freddie or sure trouble down the road will re-occur.
- —Guest Steven Carter
Mr.
- Freddie Mack / Fanny May were mostly responsible for the subprime crisis, with toxi loans. It would be advisable for them to be dismantled for long term financial stability as they have the potential of causing more trouble further down the road, into the future ......!
- —Guest Willem John Cumines
Fanny and Freddy.
- I think anyone who watched "60 Minutes" last night realize who created the sub prime crisis.F&F could not supply Wall Street with enough mortages so they set up a shadow economy and didn't care who took them just so they could fill their CDO packages and pocket million dollar bonuses.F&F fell in line because they were losing business which did not help their bottom line.GREED is the new 4 letter word on Wall Street and I believe that these white collar criminals should be stripped of their ill gotten wealth and thrown in jail next to Madoff.Madoff just ripped off mainly his rich Jewish friends while Wall Street ripped off the hard working American taxpayers along with most other countries that used to trust the USA.The raters at Standard and Poor along with Moody's each deserve to be in cells with the other pirates.
- —Guest George Dale
Nothing Simple Will Work...
- ...like "eliminating" Fannie and Freddie. I believe replacing their directors with new professionals who are hired to streamline operations and improve the efficiency of Fannie and Freddie might be the better option.
- —bwshook
That Would Be too Easy
- Eliminating F&F might make some voters feel better, but wouldn't solve the problem. What about the fat cat bankers, who are still getting rich from taxpayer dollars?
- —Guest Cre8iveForce
