F'd by Fannie and Freddie

Fannie May and Freddie Mac were supposed to help folks like me by a home. They were built to make the mortage market work for the good of average Americans.

The Fed has calculated that the implicit debt guarantee for the two is somewhere between $122 billion and $182 billion dollars.

Fannie and Freddie barely lowered the cost of borrowing for folks like me though. It seems that nearly $79 billion dollars was paid out in dividends to shareholders, rather than making it easier for working folks to get a loan.

Now it is bail-out time.

Do you suppose they will get much of that $79 billion back to fund this bail-out? Do you think that the subsidy Fannie and Freddie used to pay for lobbyists campaigning for a lack of regulation regarding their exploitation of margins between government-gauranteed borrowing and commercial lending income will be returned?

Or do you suppose that our great grand children will be paying for all of this?