The election is over and as the nation advances toward the “fiscal cliff” many assume that the mortgage and financial crises are over. Some review is clearly in order. In September 2008 the federal government took over the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. During the 2012 election campaign, the U.S. Treasury Department…
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Corbett Daly at Reuters reports that having lost another $8.7 billion in the first quarter of 2011, Fannie Mae is now seeking another $8.5 billion in bailout funding from taxpayers, in addition to the $100 billion already received since Barack Obama became president. Mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae on Friday said it would ask…
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Central to the federal government’s creation of the sub-prime mortgage bubble and the subsequent economic collapse and recession, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (“government-sponsored enterprises” or GSEs) are now the target of a massive new bailout by the Obama administration of $153 billion and counting, all in the name of winding these agencies down….
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In a January 19th article in the Wall Street Journal, “What Congress Should Cut,” former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey and FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe propose abolishing “the Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development, end farm subsidies, and end urban mass transit grants, for starters.” The primary economic challenge today is…
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In an article from Reuters, David Lawder reports that a new U.S. Treasury report of cash holdings, “The Financial Report of the United States,” shows that the U.S. government went into greater debt in fiscal year 2010 to the tune of additional $2 trillion. Unfortunately, the report does not include the massive land, minerals,…
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Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert Higgs examines the serious problem of “regime uncertainty” being created by the feasting of federal spending programs starving (crowding out) the private investment needed for recovery from the recession: “Private saving and investment are the heart and soul of the dynamic market process. Together they provide and allocate the…
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