This whole thing sucks the worst for us hard working folk who pay our bills on time 95% of the time and don't carry more debt than we can afford, but may have missed one payment one time 5 years ago, because the banks and lenders see that I missed a payment and kick my ass because of it. The whole thing is ridiculous and shouldn't be allowed to happen. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be allowed to fail, because that 's what they did to themselves. Personal Responsibility for the win. I wonder how much I'm going to have to pay in taxes now...

Heard an interesting statistic on NPR yesterday:

95% of all Americans, who are paying such things, pay their rent or mortgage payment on time and in full every month.

So 95% of us are not affected by bad mortgages.

The same cannot be said for who is shelling out to Fannie and Freddie.

NPR tried to explain it all, and how it isn't that we are simply giving them a lump sum, but instead the government is extending them a huge-ass line of credit, and how there are certain stipulations that any homeowner who makes a profit from selling a house that had their mortgage paymets reduced would have to give that profit to the government, but I'm not sure I understood all that.

Thanks FTR, for explaining to us all why the free market concept is bullshit and more government involvement in the economy is the answer to our problems.

Good work but the greatest recipients of corporate welfare in america will forever be defense contractors and the exploiters (like oil companies) that benefit from the war.

The private banks that run the fed are also pretty good candidates for top US corporate socialist.

I'm not an expert on this, but aren't banks federally insured, so that when they do fail they are supposed to get all this money from the government?

I think (and I can admit to being wrong if I am) you are thinking of FDIC, which insures individual accounts up to $100,000. Which is fine if you have that much or less, but if you have more and your bank fails, you lose everything above that level.

As for insuring mortgage and investment bankers . . . I have no idea.

I don´t think I understood this correctly. Your government is bailing out those two banks but without nationalizing them in the process?
Are you really giving them money for free?

I think they are semi-government agencies . . . sort of.

It's okay, we don't really understand either.

It's slightly more complicated than that. It is possible to get more than the $100,000. I think exactly it works out is that it is figured on a bank by bank basis when its remaining assets are sold off. Something along those lines anyway, they were talking about it on NPR the other day.

I'm not clear why FTR thinks that any of this is socialism.

The government bailout of their bad business decisions essentially insulates them from "market discipline."

I concur. The goverment bail out of Fannie and Freddie is more a Big Goverment problem though, then a Free Market one. If Fannie and Freedie collapse, a more competent organization will have an oppurtunity to take their places.

Ah, OK; thank you; FTR chooses not to distinguish between "interventionism", "corporate capitalism" and "socialism". That's going to improve the quality of discourse here no end.

He's commenting on the role of the word "socialism" in American political dialogue. Conservatives often throw the word "socialism" at any liberal policy that includes any sort of financial assistance or government management for the benefit of the disadvantaged. To them, any part of the welfare state is pure socialism.

FTR is mocking them by showing the hypocrisy of the accusation (and the arbitrariness of the label).