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

socialismorbarbarism socialismorbarbarism at gmail.com
Sun Apr 25 01:29:14 PDT 2010


"Sure. But (a) it didn't come from the government forcing them to lend to poor people (any more than they forced private banks) -- they were volunteering, and (b) the obvious cause of F&F problems was that they were half private, and the obvious solution is that they should be entirely nationalized. In that case this wouldn't have happened."

All true. But the point is, the right's attack on Freddie and Fannie is rational. Their tactics are rational. Fully nationalizing F&F is not on the table, so there is no downside for them. Why not attack F&F, which even in its not-really-public, not-really-progressive form is abhorrent to enough of the right's supporters, and one might 1) make it even harder for poor people to get housing credit, 2) distract from the real failures of the wondrous private sector, 3) tie their opponents up in knots as they defend an F&F that stinks to high heaven? It's win-win.

On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 6:56 PM, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 24 Apr 2010, socialismorbarbarism wrote:
>
>> 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
...



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