James Leveque
On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 9:29 AM, socialismorbarbarism < socialismorbarbarism at gmail.com> wrote:
> "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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