The key to understanding the saga of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- the newly nationalized twin government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that dominate home financing -- is this: They were created -- intentionally -- to distort the housing and mortgage markets. That is, government planners were not content to let voluntary exchange and spontaneous market forces configure those industries unmolested. So -- holding the taxpayers hostage -- they intervened. Make no mistake: the collapse of Fannie and Freddie is government social engineering predictably gone bad.
The rest of this week's TGIF, "Bailing Out Statism," is at the Foundation for Economic Education website.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment