From Peter Wallinson:
It’s a favorite government trick to announce bad news on a Friday afternoon, so it appears in Saturday’s paper, the least likely edition to be read. By Sunday and Monday, it’s old news. The Obama Treasury just went one better, announcing on Christmas Eve that they were uncapping the amount they believe will have to be invested in Fannie and Freddie. The Bush Treasury first estimated the government-sponsored enterprises’ (GSEs) losses at $100 billion each. The Obama administration, which has been using the GSEs to stabilize the housing market by reducing their underwriting standards, upped the ante to $200 billion each. Now the administration has thrown in the towel completely, and dropped a large lump of coal in each taxpayer’s stocking—it won’t even try to estimate the total losses of Fannie and Freddie.
The phrase “capitalism on the way up, socialism on the way down” comes to mind.
Tags: deficit, fannie and freddie, peter wallinson, treasury
