[lbo-talk] Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and the GOP?

[socialismorbarbarism]

Michael Pollak: "    So why does the GOP keep going back to Fannie and Freddie?
Doug summed it up, but it goes even farther: they need the Fannie and
Freddie explanation.  Of all the possible explanations, it is the only
one that fits with their worldview.  It makes government the problem,
rather than the solution.  And it makes forced redistribution to poor
black people the problem, rather than massive redistribution upwards
to rich white people... It is also utter nonsense."

Well, sure, it's utter nonsense that Fannie and Freddie can be the
*cause* of the collapse, and there's little doubt that they are the
target for ideological reasons. But... they *were* part of the
problem. They were wallowing with the rest of the pigs. Maybe they
didn't get the nice deep squishy mud in the middle, but that was real
dirt on their backs.

Alyssa Katz ("Our Lot"), whom Doug H interviewed a while back, spends
some pages on Fannie. For example, see: "Fannie Mae, profits from
loans to low-income people, 49", on when Fannie was a darling of Wall
Street; and elsewhere.

On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 10:09 AM, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 24 Apr 2010, James Leveque wrote:
>
>> So why does the GOP keep going back to Fannie and Freddie?
>
...