Monday, January 18, 2010

Fannie and Freddie con't

I just read an oped in the Wall Street Journal and it was too validating not to reference and quote. The piece is called the "Responsibility Tax" and they say this about who is exempt from the tax. "Also exempt are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which operate outside of TARP but also surely did more than any other company to cause the housing boom and bust." In sure signs of continued insanity ...."The White House wants to tax more capital away from profit-making banks to offset the intentional losses that the politicians have ordered up for Fan and Fred." This all is making me nuts...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Stay calm! All is Well!

Okay so that ain't exactly true. I love how the government tells JP Morgan that they are taking $25B of TARP money (no questions asked) and that after paying it back - plus profits to the government in the form of refunds - they now get hit with a tax for the next 10 years to pay for others poor judgments. Crazy world.

Every time I see Barney Frank interviewed it makes me nuts. You never hear the press explain how his decision to lower mortgage standards at Fannie and Freddie did as much to get us into this mess as anyone.

You never hear people say that crazy accounting (not mark to market) at the banks allows the to pretend that the loans on their books are good - and yet you take a guy like Goldman - who does mark their book - and tax them for the next 10 years.

Nuts

Maybe when the Democrats lose the Kennedy seat tomorrow, things will change when they can't just ram this stuff through.

One can only hope so!

(Of course then we will get the double dip as all of the excess cash gets sucked back into the system) Oh well.

Remain Calm!