Word: deal
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Fannie Mae began life in 1938 as the Federal National Mortgage Association, a New Deal government agency, and was privatized in 1968 to get its debts off the government's books. Two years later, Congress created Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., in part to give Fannie some competition. The firms became odd hybrids--government-sponsored enterprises (GSES) accountable to private shareholders. And they got away with holding only tiny capital reserves to insure against losses in their giant portfolios--partly because of their quasi-governmental status and partly because mortgages were supposed to be safe...
...gained the most from this deal? The big beneficiaries were the owners of the $5.3 trillion in Fannie and Freddie bonds and MBSS. Therein lies a fascinating, and disturbing, story. For years, the governments of countries that have run big trade surpluses with the U.S.--mainly Japan, China and the oil exporters--put their excess dollars into Treasury securities. When budget surpluses from 1998 to 2001 began to shrink the supply of Treasuries, foreign governments looked to Fannie and Freddie debt as an alternative. When the U.S. returned to deficits in 2002, they kept buying Frannie debt because it paid...
...will this cost me? You and your fellow U.S. taxpayers are now formally on the hook for up to $200 billion in guarantees to Fannie and Freddie. That figure doesn't actually mean a whole lot--if housing prices begin to stabilize, Treasury could turn a profit on the deal; if the meltdown accelerates, it might not stop at $200 billion...
...knocking on wood because I’m petrified that the deal might not make it to the end,” said Gold...
...argued that the arrests don't justify the violation of constitutional rights. In implementing this curfew, Sklar says, "of course you find criminals, but you stop innocent people" - limiting their freedom of movement and in many cases employment possibilities, and penalizing all citizens just because a better strategy to deal with crime hasn't yet been found. Sklar points out that the 10-block, one-mile area covered by Helena's 24-hour curfew was predominantly "poor and black," suggesting that the curfew could be in violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. And Sklar says the problem...