We need to get back on a real capitolist system that takes failed companies out of the way for new ideas to take over the empty spots.
Look how many times the public has bailed out the airlines and what do we have for it? Who cares if they go down someone will come up with a working plan but it can't happen if we keep letting the corporate cons to suck up our tax money everytime they make a bad decision.
WASHINGTON - The government is expected to take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as soon as this weekend in a monumental move designed to protect the mortgage market from the failure of the two companies, which together hold or guarantee half of the nation's mortgage debt, a person briefed on the matter said Friday night.
Some of the details of the intervention, which could cost taxpayers billions, were not yet available, but are expected to include the departure of Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd and Freddie Mac CEO Richard Syron, according to the source, who asked not to be named because the plan was yet to be announced.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and James Lockhart, the companies' chief regulator, met Friday afternoon with the top executives from the mortgage companies and informed them of the government's plan to put the troubled companies into a conservatorship.
The news, first reported on The Wall Street Journal's Web site, came after stock markets closed. In after-hours trading Fannie Mae's shares plunged $1.54, or 22 percent, to $5.50. Freddie Mac's shares fell $1.06, or almost 21 percent, to $4.04. Common stock in the companies will be worth little to nothing after the government's actions.
The news also followed a report Friday by the Mortgage Bankers Association that more than 4 million American homeowners with a mortgage, a record 9 percent, were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June.
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Comments: 14
Of course, all the haters will pin it on Bush. Same old story.
"''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''"
And we all know that was right on the cusp of the housing bubble where everybody was buying a house and prices were sky rocketing.
Jack, I like some of what you say but this is just silly...We as Americans buy what we cant afford from our neighbors the bankers, bankers and store owners. SAVE UP for the house etc you want and you wouldnt give a crap what interest rates are. All prices would be lower because the demand would be lower...we can not have it both ways.
Remember the Patriot Act and how it was supposed to protect America from the bogyman? now its used to shred the bill of rights, allow wiretapping of innocent Americans, torture innocent people at gitmo.
It seems that their are to many people still caught up in the neocon lies and their incessant propaganda.
I hope the do nothing public is ready for the soup lines that will be opening on every Main St. in America soon.
Business needs to pay their taxes in a way that they can't add it to consumer prices.
If Pelosi and other democrats had not sold us out Bush would be out of office now and this depression we are headed for would not be happening.
By getting rid of Bush we would have been able to get to Cheney and he is the key to stopping all this illegal activity.