Fannie Mae-No Politics (FNMA)

[philipmax]

Nice research.
Let's review where Fannie came from. FDR established the Federal National Mortgage Agency in 1935 in order to save the banks by buying up their nearly defaulted inventory of home mortgages. He saved the banks and the economy. For the next 38 years Fannie has backstopped the banking industry and stabilized home ownership in America. In 1973, President Nixon was struggling with stagflation. There was much ado about the national debt running amok. the solution, at the time, was to 'sell' Fannie to the public and turn this agency into a private corporation. The net effect of this machination was that about $50 Billion was remove from the national debt and transferred to the private sector. Everyone was happy with this arrangement as there was also a salutary side benefit of raising substantial sums for the Treasury in the IPO. Then...in 2008...you all know the rest.

Anyway, Freddie came along a little later to give the impression that Fannie was not a monopoly. Today the combined assets of these giant firms are in the hundreds of billions $s and they still provide an incomparable value to our national wealth and stability.