Saw an article in the Washington Post on-line this morning, regarding mortgage giant Fannie Mae. The government-controlled company said it lost $7.6 billion in the third quarter because low mortgage rates reduced profits and declining home prices caused more defaults on loans it had guaranteed. It's asking the federal government for $7.8 billion in aid to cover it's losses in the July-September quarter.
The government rescued Fannie Mae, and sibling Freddie Mac, in September 2008 to cover mortgage loan losses and since then a federal regulator has controlled their financial decisions.
But here's the part that interested me most: Taxpayers have spent about $169 billion to rescue Fannie and Freddie, the most expensive bailout of the 2008 financial crisis, while government estimates that the figure could reach up $220 billion to support the companies through 2014 after subtracting dividend payments. Fannie itself has received $112.6 billion so far from the Treasury Department, the most expensive bailout of any single company.
However, in the meantime the president unilaterally decided to give deadbeat students and others a break last week by reducing the term and interest rates on their outstanding government loans and other borrowing obligations. At the time, the president said his generosity would cost taxpayers nothing.
Now, aside from the fact that it's impossible for taxapayer's to suffer no financial impact because they're the one's who ultimately pay the government's bills, how many of these situations are taxpaying folks supposed to tolerate? Because in every single case they're paying for gross financial mis-management by unskilled bureaucrats, the ignorance and/or nonchalance of government appointed officials or simply paying the cost of those who are flat-out buying votes.
On the other side however, in yesterday's elections, except for a case or two, Republicans did quite well. So, maybe that's another confirmation of things I've been typing about for months and months. Because it seems that at this stage, even the most ardent Dem's understand that if things remain unchanged at the top, they too will soon be broke themselves.
That's it for today folks.
Adios
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