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65 Comments
- pinkpackrat, on 09/08/2008, -3/+31They are taxpayer funded now--that's for sure.
- inactive, on 09/08/2008, -7/+22In her defense, the housing and mortgage industry hasn't really been in the news this year. ... oh, wait.
- davdev, on 09/08/2008, -11/+25I really hope if McCain wins, he lives for a long long time. This woman is a complete imbecile.
- inactive, on 09/09/2008, -2/+14well, they are now
- dreicher, on 09/09/2008, -4/+14Private institution?
1. Created by a government program with an "implicit guarantee" against any losses.
2. Exempt from state and local taxes.
3. Receives $6.5B per year in "stuff & services" from the taxpayers for nothing.
4. All liabilities assumed by taxpayers as soon as going gets tough.
5. Allowed to borrow money directly from the Fed at the "discount window" rate.
Private, my ass. No cost to taxpayers, my ass. - garryw, on 09/08/2008, -10/+18Who do you think will pay for the bailout?
A) Taxpayers
B) Santa
C) Tooth Fairy
D) Other
If you choose A then you must agree with Palin, if not, seek help. - jepaco, on 09/08/2008, -7/+14We should be grateful Palin made an error. Most things she says are simply lies.
- PDAIsAOk, on 09/09/2008, -0/+5Or you could just goto Fannie Mae's website...
http://www.fanniemae.com/faq/faq8.jhtml?p=FAQ
"Is Fannie Mae a private company or is it part of the government?
First established in 1938 as a government agency, Fannie Mae in 1968 became a private, shareholder-owned company with a charter from Congress requiring the company to support the housing finance system. It is a financial services company serving the American home mortgage industry. The company offers banks and other mortgage lenders financing, credit guarantees, technology and services so lenders can make more home loans to more consumers. Fannie Mae's stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (FNM/NYSE)." - BaseballGuyCAA, on 09/09/2008, -3/+8As of this weekend, she's right.
- afruff23, on 09/09/2008, -3/+8I don't support McCain or Palin (or anybody) but her statement was factual. Fannie and Freddie are GSEs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_sponsored_ ...
They are costing taxpayers money in several ways:
1. Increased risk due to a lower assets/capital ratio (meaning federally-backed insurance is more likely to be used)
2. The bail-out
3. Lending to subprime people with high-risk (some private banks weren't hit by the subprime crisis). - rcook18, on 09/09/2008, -1/+5Those actually being saved are the financial institutions who made fraudulent loans and then got Bush to stick the mortgage insurer with the rap.
- inactive, on 09/09/2008, -0/+4Amazing how many far right and far left ***** sticks I have buried, and put on ignore today. My ***** tolerance has gone to zero.. Congratulations on being the latest idiot to get flushed.
- superkendall, on 09/09/2008, -2/+5But they are. They are so big the federal government has NO CHOICE but to back them up when/if they fail, which is what is happening now.
If you follow the news at all you'll realize Palin is right. For all intents and purposes, FM^2 are federally funded.
It's funny how stories like this show more why the average Digger should not be a presidential candidate than turn out to be anything actually negative about Palin. - ScienceDoc, on 09/08/2008, -9/+12She has the brain of a Pit Bull to go with her lipstick. I keep thinking that I will wake up and find out this is a joke. Who could vote for these people?
- Newzworth, on 09/09/2008, -0/+3/*/ Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 /*/ signed July 24, 2008
It authorizes the Federal Housing Administration to guarantee (insure) up to $300 billion in new 30-year fixed rate mortgages for subprime borrowers and isexpected to serve approximately 400,000 homeowners"
"[Fannie and Freddie] were not taxpayer funded. They had taxpayer guarantee,
Okay, Glad to know Im backing something with my tax dollars that I have no explicit right to own, or benefit from.
Nobody can legitimately disagree that the government HAS NO SOURCE OF REVENUE, other than that which is generated by taxes (people/businesses)
So from what source of money do they back (insure) anything? Every dime they spent is off the back of American working class and businesses.
The Government has no businesses creating additional GSE's or Government Sponsored Enterprises. Each has pie, in the sky hopes and promises, but fail from Government bureaucracy an lack of free capital market sense. They are created for people like OBAMA to make promises that the government (according to the CONSTITUTION) have no business making in the first place.
EDUCATE YOURSELF!
Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac origin - http://hnn.us/articles/1849.html
GSI - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_sponsored_ ...
Housing & Reocvery Act of 2008 - http://www.asiaing.com/summary-of-the-housing-and- ... - st00f72, on 09/09/2008, -1/+3totalling 200B
The Treasury Department said it was prepared to put up as much as $100 billion over time in each of the companies if needed to keep them from going broke...
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstech ... - afruff23, on 09/09/2008, -1/+3"Because they are too big? No, there's no relationship."
There is plenty of relationship. Imagine a farmer who plants only one crop. When disaster strikes, he will be left with little. On the other hand, the farmer who diversifies his agriculture will not face doom because a single disaster (in this case: mistake) will not cause everything to go to nothing.
"We're in this mess because of the idiotic subprime morgage crisis"
Subprime mortgage crises happen (in essence) ALL the time in everyday business. But they happen on much much smaller scales. These mistakes are a natural part of business. The subprime mortgage crisis is obviously not a small mistake (and it's not a natural part of business); it's too big of a coincidence for this many people to be making this many mistakes at the same time. For something on this massive scale to occur, external influences would have to be present. In this case, it would have to do with the Fed's monopoly on credit.
"We're in this mess because of the idiotic subprime morgage crisis... which Bush did nothing at all to prevent."
That's like saying the murder occurred because the murderer didn't prevent the murder. The government (now under Bush's control) has maintained the stranglehold on capital markets, preventing diversification (like a smart farmer). Of course, some did diversify (Bank of America for one) but nobody seems to be asking "how do we act like Bank of America and not let something like this happen again (at least on such a large scale)?" - Prophasi, on 09/09/2008, -6/+8Let Ron Paul give you hippies a little lecture on how government intervention and subsidizing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac costs taxpayers:
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2003/cr09 ...
This post aimed high and hit the dirt quick. That's another one down -- when's the next Palin conspiracy post due...oh wait, there it is. I forgot, this is Digg! - inactive, on 09/09/2008, -1/+3What really spins my up on all this isn't whether she is right or wrong (it IS going to cost taxpayers a lot of money).
It is that you can point directly to the changes that Phil Gramm put into motion 9 years ago, with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, for why we got into this mess. The same Phil Gramm who McCain had as his economic advisor, until Gramm said something else stupid (his forte).
Now, the Republicans are using their own ***** as campaign fodder? Am I just supposed to pretend I don't see the hypocrisy? - Ajajadude, on 09/09/2008, -0/+1Yes there is: if you like the way things are going right now. And, if you do, you might also have too much money.
- inactive, on 09/08/2008, -9/+10This woman is awful.
- jimrin, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1I am still curious, though. How would breaking the Fed down into smaller entities, which by the way, was not the topic of Palin's statement as Fannie May and Freddie Mac are privately owned while being government sponsored enterprise (GSE) of the United States which is quite different than the Fed is is the central banking system of the United States and is a quasi-public (government entity with private components) banking system.
So how would your idea to break the Fed into smaller entities have prevented the subprime mortgage crisis when it was all the private banks and mortgage institutions which were making these types of loans to the public? - jimrin, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1Amazing. Maybe you should submit these ideas to McCain / Palin so they can start promoting this on their campaign tour...
PS. I'm glad noone has proposed to do something like that... but if anyone should, it should be McCain. - inactive, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1Thank you for setting them straight... I get tired of the lefties shoving their hand in my wallet and then claiming they didn't do it.
- Prophasi, on 09/09/2008, -1/+2Obama was pretty bold when he voted for the $400 million bridge to nowhere, too. Always thinking of helping the victims, that one, never how he might further his political career by rubber-stamping earmarks so that he can be guaranteed of his own.
And yeah, the money was for Palin and Alaska, of course. They're all dogs, with few exceptions. If you want to insult and smear one of them, fine. But don't pretend you've found a "good" one, because you haven't. And definitely don't do yourself the intellectual disservice of pretending good and bad fall along party lines (lest you be guilty of the black-and-white, non-nuanced thinking Bush has long been accused of).
Obama doesn't know the first thing about sound economics and thinks throwing more and more money at every problem will solve it all. And like the rest of the political class, he's wrong. - rootnik, on 09/09/2008, -1/+2I can't agree more. Focus on real issues.
Remember this onion video? It nails both the extreme right and left right on the head. It really gets good towards the end when they start talking about people debating issues on blogs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viVAAy_qkx0 - bobhiggins, on 09/09/2008, -4/+5It functioned quite well until the republican deregulators took control and removed all restraints on the thieves of our business class.
- inactive, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1Thanks for setting them straight.... I'm tired of the lefties shoving their hand in my wallet and then claiming they either didn't do it... or that they arrogantly believe they have the right to my hard earned wages.
- Prophasi, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1@FTW, Obama's plan:
"Guaranteed eligibility. No American will be turned away from any insurance plan because of illness or pre-existing conditions."
"Affordable premiums, co-pays and deductibles."
"Comprehensive benefits."
If he has grace periods or limitations on eligibility or affordability, he doesn't state them anywhere. That means that if I'm 20 and opt out (no mandate keeps me from it), I can stay out for the next 25+ years and not pay into the system during the years that traditional (i.e. profitable) insurance companies make money off me that will be diverted to payouts for the older/ill customers. Once I'm 45 and discover I have cancer, I opt in and start paying "affordable" premiums/deductibles for treatments more expensive than what I've paid in.
And as we've seen in all of economic history, price controls (i.e. "affordable" care) result inevitably in shortages of the good controlled (gas, housing, health care, etc.). The more artificially affordable it is, the more people will use it when they otherwise wouldn't, and there's an imbalance between costs and desires. When it can't be rationed with money, it will be with quality or wait times.
Fundamentally, the concept of a "right" to health care is the premise of the entire plan, which is unethical from the first, since it presumes a claim on a doctor's time, an insurance company's profits, and my tax dollars. How you have any natural "human" right to something that someone else has to produce for you is beyond me, and one of the most patently ridiculous concepts in the history of philosophy, political or otherwise. - inactive, on 09/09/2008, -0/+1If you still have stock in either of them, you're probably *****.
- webXL, on 09/25/2008, -0/+1they are now!
- akphidelt, on 09/09/2008, -1/+2How about we focus on the real issues. Let's face it you really don't have to be smart to be VP, they have plenty of experts in all the fields making the decisions for them. Sometimes I hate being on the left side and I can see why people on the right despise us and no matter how bad this country gets they will never come to our side. Stop acting like such pansies, are you really going to act like this for every single thing she says? Let's focus on her and McCain wanting to continue this war in Iraq and cut more taxes and force religion and pro-life down our throats.
- inactive, on 09/09/2008, -0/+1Palin didn't say anything like that. She said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have "gotten too big and too expensive for taxpayers."
How is that they are getting "too expensive"? - superkendall, on 09/09/2008, -1/+2Bush and the Democrats you mean. There are no heros in Washington over this.
But honestly what choice does the country have? I blame neither for saving them, only letting them get to a position where the government was forced to do so. And there are a lot of fingers in that pie, Democrat and Republican alike. - akinapb, on 09/09/2008, -2/+3She doesn't know what she is talking about. McCain doesn't know anything about economics. McCain has a lead why? Because people are blinded and manipulated into supporting the candidate because of race, creed, or "experience." Little to no-one cares about the issues which affect our nation anymore, down from the Iraq war, to the economy, education, to a serious discussion about alternative energies and global warming. Instead, we place sanctimonious issues in place of those vital to our nation, and the Republicans make the entire election into a dog and pony show.
But whatever, what do I know, I'm sure many people believe they can always rely on their religious beliefs to guide our nation back on track...
- afruff23, on 09/09/2008, -1/+2"So trying to get into details, you seem to be saying that the problem is due to the monopoly the Fed has. Is this what you're saying?"
Yes.
"So the solution is to break he Fed down into smaller entities?"
No, the solution is to allow competition with the Fed by getting rid of capital gains taxes.
"And how would this have prevented the subprime mortgage crisis if someone would have had the insight to have done this years ago?"
It would prevent the manipulation of an entire credit market by a single entity which never received permission from those it steals from. - superkendall, on 09/09/2008, -1/+2Actually if you'd been paying attention to the news, you'd realize the answer to your OWN POLLL is now A. I guess because you have the laughably simplistic understanding of these institutions as home mortgages only...
- jimrin, on 09/09/2008, -1/+2I know you feel like you're making sense, but you talked in generalities, which is not useful when trying to address a specific problem... So trying to get into details, you seem to be saying that the problem is due to the monopoly the Fed has. Is this what you're saying? So the solution is to break he Fed down into smaller entities? Or are you saying that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be broken down into smaller entities? And how would this have prevented the subprime mortgage crisis if someone would have had the insight to have done this years ago?
- Zeitgeist101, on 09/09/2008, -1/+2there is not one single good reason to vote for McSame. NOT ONE
- armedangel, on 09/09/2008, -0/+1Whereas the Republicans views on almost everything are ridiculous, the Democrats are no better on the economy, they too are not getting out of Iraq or any war for that matter. Barak and Joe will also let your tax money evaporate into the Socialist black hole.
When it came to ending the funding for the war they added their own earmarks.
When has Barak or Joe mentioned the $10 trillion in debt that was run up on their watch as well. They run up debts to the central bankers and we pay the interest with our income taxes, of which, NOT ONE CENT GOES TO SERVICES OR INFRASTRUCTURE.
The Federal Reserve Central Banking system is NOT Federal and has NO RESERVE.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans will eliminate the wealth transfer mechanisms of the Fed. Central Banking is not provided for by the Constitution and we were warned at length by the founding fathers to not accept bills of credit as currency.
Educate yourself on this scam and resist the manipulatin of our currency by central bankers.
Vote third party and don't be fooled by the wealthy investment class elite that play both sides being forced onto you by the mainstream press.
For God's sake, kill your T.V. set too. - trix911, on 09/08/2008, -8/+8Rick Roll for presedent!
- Prophasi, on 09/09/2008, -2/+2Who, in fact, could profess to care about the founding ideals of this country and vote for Republicans OR Democrats?
- booksnmore4you, on 09/09/2008, -6/+6Who do you think pays the mortgages and stock holders and employees?
A) Taxes
B) Homeowners
C) Easter Bunny
D) Habitat for Humanity
If you choose B then you must agree that Palin is wrong. - dreicher, on 09/09/2008, -3/+3Really? So that's why Chris Dodd (D) had this to say about them less than 60 days ago...
"This is not a time to be panicking about this. These are viable, strong institutions...The economics are fine in these institutions and people need to know that. There's no reason to talk about failure...These two institutions are fundamentally, fundamentally strong."
So, when exactly in the last 60 days did the republican "crook thieves deregulators" take control and remove all restraints? Oh, and what party pushed through the bailout bill that allowed these two entities to raise the ceiling on mortgages they would back and take additional bad mortgages off the hands of banks that couldn't dump them on the open market? - FTWmovin2canada, on 09/09/2008, -1/+1See my reply to your complaint about a lack of a response below...
- lazerflesh, on 09/09/2008, -1/+1If they could keep their business open through the Holiday season- than maybe they'd be able to cover their assets with a pick up of business. Maybe that's what whatever financial adviser thought when they looked over Fannie Mays business record.
- Prophasi, on 09/09/2008, -3/+3Ermmm...it's "universal" in that it's offered to everyone. In the country. Without reservation. That's..."universal." None of this silly "market" stuff where we worry about whence come the doctors, the skills, the medicines, the money -- we just provide it all "for free" and don't worry about the rationing effect that prices would normally play in a free market.
If you have a non-discrimination clause that gives everyone equal costs regardless of their pre-existing conditions, enrollment HAS to be mandatory for the system to work; otherwise 20-year-old healthy people don't buy in, because they know they'll be voluntarily paying into a system for the next 20-30 years that probably won't do them any good, and instead wait till they've developed a problem in their 40s or 50s with no penalties. Allowing discrimination wouldn't keep people out; it would make prices vary (like they do now, and logically).
Get the economics now? - Ajajadude, on 09/09/2008, -2/+2Try getting personal health care coverage with any kind of pre-existing medical condition and then tell me we don't need drastic change in the industry. Let me guess, you're still covered by your mommy's and daddy's health plan.
- FTWmovin2canada, on 09/09/2008, -2/+2A set grace period for people to get insurance without penalties for preexisting conditions would resolve your issue. After that period a set fee to compensate for new people who weren't having wellness checkups would balance the risk.
I'm not sure what you're trying to argue. It sounds like you're trying to connect preexisting condition limitations with free market competition. The economics of the market would still exist, we aren't talking socialist single payer health care. There would still be competition. - FTWmovin2canada, on 09/09/2008, -1/+1@Aj, your assuming reveals your ignorance. The adults are talking now.
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