IMF NEWS .... Short Takes: Kill Fannie and Freddie? What, Are You Crazy?
Yet Another Book About the GSEs / The Enron-Fannie Mae Connection /
Plaza Home Posts Record Originations / Two in 40. Who Are They?
By Paul Muolo, Sherry Muolo pmuolo@imfpubs.com, smuolo@imfpubs.com
With Democrats constantly trying to tap the guaranty fee income stream of Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac to pay for non-housing items,
it stands to reason that the two GSEs could be around for the rest of the century.
That might be an over-optimistic view, but as former Fannie executive Bill Maloni told us: ??anyone driving legislation to do away with them now has to worry about plugging in new revenue to replace them.? In case you missed it: Democrats in the Senate this week tried to extend a 10 basis point g-fee hike enacted a few years back to pay for future highway repairs?
Meanwhile, seven years (almost) after Fannie and Freddie imploded, authors keep churning out books on the two.
he latest is called ?Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the U.S. Mortgage Giants? by Bethany McLean. Published by Columbia Global Reports, an imprint out of Columbia University, the book is due Sept. 14. McLean also co-authored ?The Smartest Guys in the Room,? a 2004 book about the Enron scandal?
What do Enron and Fannie Mae have in common? During Fannie?s heyday, Fannie Chairman and CEO Franklin Raines tried to recruit Enron chief Ken Lay for the GSE?s board of directors.
Lay declined. Enron eventually failed. Fannie has been a ward of the government since the fall of 2008?
Plaza Home Mortgage, San Diego, funded $6.5 billion during the first half of 2015, its best six months ever?
Meanwhile, Inside Mortgage Finance Thursday afternoon publishes its exclusive second quarter ranking of the nation?s top 40 lenders. Of the 40, just two firms suffered a sequential volume decline. You?ll have to see IMF to find out which ones.
