Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Scandals: Maybe Not a Scandal, but Pretty Scandalous

Six of the top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will receive about $35 Million in bonuses for the year.  One, Freddie's Handleman, will get $5.5 Million.  Given that these two GSEs control 90% of the countries mortgages and have received $170 Billion in taxpayer bailout money (and now asking for $15B more), and the housing market is still severely slumped, what exactly are these guys doing to earn all this money?

Sure, these numbers are similar to a lot of private companies, but with private companies the shareholders get to approve bonuses.  At Fannie and Freddie, no one seems to approve the scandalous spending of "other people's money."  And they they don't seem to have any downside to whatever they do, because they are essentially guaranteed that Washington will cover any losses.  At House Oversight Committee today, the presidents seemed proud that they have rented about 1 Million of the homes they have in foreclosure.  Gee shucks, isn't that nice?  Now how about figuring how to stop the taxpayer bleeding by actually fixing the market?

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