Sun Editorials on Freddie and Fannie

Fannie, Barack, Freddie & John
July 14, 2008

As the woes of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weigh on the stock market and the entire American economy, let us just say readers of The New York Sun are not surprised.

When It Raines...
December 19, 2006

It will be illuminating to see if all the good left-wingers cheering on the effort of Eliot Spitzer's attorney general's office to get Richard Grasso to disgorge $112 million in back compensation will take the same position in respect of the effort launched to recover $91 million in back pay from Franklin Delano Raines.

Fannie and Justice
August 25, 2006

Fannie and Freddie are a classic example of the privatization of profit and the socialization of risk. The risk to taxpayers will only go away once Fannie and Freddie are privatized, but lawmakers have stubbornly resisted even stepped-up regulation to limit the size of the companies' portfolios, despite the fact that those portfolios enrich a few investors at the risk of all taxpayers.

White Collar Pay
May 24, 2006

A new set of corporate scandals is calling attention to executive compensation. Fannie Mae has just announced a $400 million settlement with the government to pay its debt to society for what is at heart an executive compensation scandal.

Schumer's Loan
September 30, 2002

The "F" in Fannie is for federal, and, though Fannie insists it's independent, you can bet it's the federal taxpayers who will be paying for an eventual bailout.

Housing Hazard
June 19, 2002

Fannie and Freddie protest that they aren't federally guaranteed, but any institutions that big with a name that begins with "federal" — that's what the "F" in Fannie and Freddie stands for — are not going to fail without a taxpayer bailout.