07 September 2008

The Invisible Hand Meets Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

The US Government announced today that it was taking over the two mortgage giants. Together, they back five trillion dollars in home loans -- that's a whole lot of money. The Feds are hoping that under their careful watch, it'll get back on track. We'll see.

It'll be interesting to see if Adam Smith's modern-day acolytes protest. I'll bet it depends largely on whether or not their houses are paid off.

See? Socialization isn't such a dirty word.

Odd that we're so eager to bail out the corporate folks and not the least bit eager to help individuals who've been screwed to the floor by outsourcing or layoffs.

Link

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had these EXACT same thoughts. Those people are still out in the cold but heaven forbid banks/lenders be held accountable for poor decisions.

Russ said...

Yeah. While it was probably just politicking, I appreciated Obama's comments that we need to help Main Street as well as Wall Street.

Eric said...

Rampant consumerism and greed couldn't possibly be the underlying problem in this whole mess. No, of course not.