I brought you part one on Friday. Here’s the sequel. (Bonus Bill Clinton moment at the end, where he has a little honest mea culpa moment.)
(And just to be clear, the problem that kicked this off was regulations demanding more home loans for unqualified borrowers. Poor judgment on the part of people who bought and sold mortgage backed securities expanded the problem, and they’re the ones who are being bailed out — and who shouldn’t be. And since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not, in fact private companies but government-chartered institutions, the call for more regulations on those two is not an endorsement of more regulation of the free market itself.)
The WSJ took Freddie and Fannie to task over two years ago for their bookkeeping practices. These same practices would have brought down the weight of the Federal government, vis a vis Sarbannes Oxley, had these two entities been publically traded companies. Yet they were protected by the likes of Barney Franks and Paul Sarbannes. It is a joke to listen to the indiginity of the elected officials. This group should be run out of office. They also opposed Bush’s call for additional regulation of Freddie and Fannie. I am appalled that the public is not getting the full story of how these two governement agencies were protected from being held accountable in the same manner any publically traded company would be.