60 minutes ran an episode on the GSEs shortly after they were put into c-ship, with Henry Paulson stating the companies were not nationalized, it was only a time-out. Paulson actually stated at a meeting with FNMA/FMCC employees within a week of the c-ship that that the Govt was not taking them over, only a pause to stabilize before returning them to there previous place.
Given that in August 2008, Paulson was trying his best to put them into receivership, but the Law firm they hired told Paulson they couldn't put a company with a positive net worth, positive cash flow, into receivership, the only thing they could do would be c-ship but they would have to prove that the companies had massive losses not yet recognized in order to do that.
2 weeks later, Paulson hired Morgan Stanley to value the assets of FNMA/FMCC in which essentially they completly nullified the valuations of the the then current regulator OFAEO which had stated they were adequately capitalized. So Morgan Stanleys team apparently saw things that OFAEO couldn't ? Strange to have assets be shown to have a valuation difference of $200 billion between two "regulators",,,1 paid for by Paulson, the other an unbiased independent regulator.
IN a recent interview with Maria Bartiroma, Paulson states they were nationalized. Funny how his story changes to fit the paradigm.
I have been hoping for years that someone at CBS 60 minutes might run a more in-depth story showing more of the elements of the truth, more details re-the takeover, how massive the write offs were yet also how massive the paybacks were and describe what "non-cash" write offs, write downs actually are, and the devising of the net worth sweep.
With the administration offering up it's own plan within the month, I am hoping that 10 years later, 60 Minutes does a follow up story and that is not from the left, but at least an unbiased, truthful follow up piece.
