Replies to post #619953 on Fannie Mae-No Politics (FNMA)

[kthomp19]

Which for everyone means the court can rule on issues not brought up by either party. SCOTUS could gut FHFA in totality.

Technically, yes. I could also technically win the lottery if I went out and bought a ticket. Something being possible should not be confused with it being probable. From reading the Collins plaintiffs' briefs and the Supreme Court's Selia decision, there is no reason to believe that the Supreme Court will take such a drastic measure. Believe it or not, the Supreme Court quite often actually does follow its own precedent.

You should also be very careful what you wish for too. The Supreme Court "gut[ting] FHFA in totality" is nowhere near guaranteed to be a good thing for current shareholders. As long as we're talking about unlikely possibilities, the Supreme Court could, for example, rule that FnF really were insolvent when the original SPSPAs were signed and that all current shareholders get wiped out. Or any other number of negative things. If you bring up the possibility of the Supreme Court making huge changes to FHFA and the conservatorships, you must also acknowledge their power to take actions that end up being negative for current shareholders.

I haven't argued that the Supreme Court doing more than the minimum amount to cure the constitutional defect is impossible, I have argued that it is improbable. Bringing up possibilities only refutes a strawman, not my actual argument.

Plus, in the Collins briefs, they refer to the coercive nature of the government forcing conservatorship on private companies that had sufficient capital to weather the great recession. It’s in the brief.

Which brief are you referring to? I did a search for "coer" (which would cover the words "coerced" and "coercion") in the Collins plaintiffs' petition for cert and got no results.