On the Warrants Post: well now, that's a bit of mess to deal with. Anyway, try this: copy the entire post into Word, execute a "ctrl F" search on "warrants". Word will let you step through them instance by instance, and you can poach the needles from the proverbial haystack.
Next, I have seen these before, and many people who have posted over the years in various forums have more or less paraphrased, mixed and matched, sometimes garbled, and most often botched the true value you find in these minutes first-hand. Many people in various forums are adamant that the warrants will, or should never be executed, and I suspect these minutes are the reason why; however, I would be cautious relying on these minutes for that end.
While, if ever taken to court after execution, I do believe these minutes would cast serious doubt, if not destroy any validity of execution, these minutes are not a legal agreement between any two parties. It would take an actual court case, the minutes being allowed as evidence, and then weighed against 15 years of subsequent actions. Furthermore, I suspect the real reason for all of the amendments, letter agreements, and other FHFA/TSY nonsense has been to obfuscate the initial actions as much as possible, create new means to roll the GSEs over until they could convince Congress to kill them, and riddle the entire c'ship with such man-made complexity as to create a Gordian Knot never to be disentangled.
In anycase, here is an interesting excerpt from Barron's post that should be shoved down the throat of anyone pushing execution of the warrants or their legality:
"Mr. Reid reminded the Board that the government owning the preferred stock with punitive dividend terms provides incentive for the GSE’s to work its issues out as expeditiously as possible. Furthermore, by design, the warrants were issued not to take ownership but rather to devalue the common stock.
Mr. Allen asked whether or not in an economic sense the government exercised the warrants. Mr. Reid explained that the government does not need to exercise the warrants to enter into conservatorship and that there is no economic reason to exercise the warrants since its rights are statutory in nature. Mr. Dacey concurred with this explanation as well as stating that the government has separate rights apart from the warrants.
Mr. Werfel then explained that it is important to understand the government’s intention. The intention was not to eliminate the ownership interests but to prevent current shareholder speculation resulting in speculators taking advantage of government intervention at the expense of others. Driving the stock market value to zero prevents this manipulation from happening. Further, timing is important since on September 7 when the conservatorship took affect the stated policy and intention was, and continues to be, that the conservatorship is temporary. There are published statements from the Secretary of the Treasury that the goal is to get the GSE’s back to a stable fiscal position so that they can go forward operating as they were operating before the conservatorship."
One can avoid reality, but one cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.
