Fannie Mae-No Politics (FNMA)

[tetondon]

I don't get this article. doesn't sound good.

It doesn't sound very factual either.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have already cost US taxpayers over $200 billion.

1) They were LESS than $200 billion. 188 to be exact
2) They've paid all most all of that back, meaning they've cost the US taxpayer about $5 billion at the moment.

If Obama gets his way on mortgage writedowns, the GSEs estimate it would take another $100 billion. Since such estimates are always overly-optimistic by a factor of 3 to 10, I estimate the cost to taxpayers would be $300 billion minimum.

Translation: "I'm going to say these figures are usually off by some number, than use that number to inflate the real number to make it sound worse. And let's ignore I'm not accurately describing what's actually happening in the first place."