Fannie & Freddie (No, this is not a TV soap opera)

So far this year, the AP reports that “Fannie and Freddie spent $170 million on lobbyists.”

What did you expect from these clowns that are paying themselves huge amounts while raiding the treasury?

Like any good corporation, they knew it didn’t hurt to have friends in high places and that in Washington it takes some "grease" to get what you want.

But the two mortgage companies had the deepest pockets in town – generously paying fees and expenses for a long list of former members of Congress and Capitol Hill hacks. The $170 million paid to lobbyists was just the beginning.

Executives of the firms were also among the biggest contributors to political campaigns and to politicians’ pet programs and vanity charities.

What a glorious scam!

The two pretended to be important parts of private enterprise...partaking in the grand scheme of risk/reward along with all other capitalist businesses...but they had the world’s biggest government standing behind them all the time.

For Fannie and Freddie it was all reward and no risk, right from the beginning. They could funnel millions in profits from homeowners to politicians. Then, when they got into trouble, lay the losses onto shareholders and taxpayers.

So the question is who is dumber: the public voter or the public shareholder?

I guess we shall soon find out.

The Best Money Guy