Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Stock Market Brief in Count Down to US Election Result 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Gold Stocks’ Winter Rally 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Why Countdown to U.S. Recession is Underway - 3rd Nov 24
Stock Market Trend Forecast to Jan 2025 - 2nd Nov 24
President Donald PUMP Forecast to Win US Presidential Election 2024 - 1st Nov 24
At These Levels, Buying Silver Is Like Getting It At $5 In 2003 - 28th Oct 24
Nvidia Numero Uno Selling Shovels in the AI Gold Rush - 28th Oct 24
The Future of Online Casinos - 28th Oct 24
Panic in the Air As Stock Market Correction Delivers Deep Opps in AI Tech Stocks - 27th Oct 24
Stocks, Bitcoin, Crypto's Counting Down to President Donald Pump! - 27th Oct 24
UK Budget 2024 - What to do Before 30th Oct - Pensions and ISA's - 27th Oct 24
7 Days of Crypto Opportunities Starts NOW - 27th Oct 24
The Power Law in Venture Capital: How Visionary Investors Like Yuri Milner Have Shaped the Future - 27th Oct 24
This Points To Significantly Higher Silver Prices - 27th Oct 24
US House Prices Trend Forecast 2024 to 2026 - 11th Oct 24
US Housing Market Analysis - Immigration Drives House Prices Higher - 30th Sep 24
Stock Market October Correction - 30th Sep 24
The Folly of Tariffs and Trade Wars - 30th Sep 24
Gold: 5 principles to help you stay ahead of price turns - 30th Sep 24
The Everything Rally will Spark multi year Bull Market - 30th Sep 24
US FIXED MORTGAGES LIMITING SUPPLY - 23rd Sep 24
US Housing Market Free Equity - 23rd Sep 24
US Rate Cut FOMO In Stock Market Correction Window - 22nd Sep 24
US State Demographics - 22nd Sep 24
Gold and Silver Shine as the Fed Cuts Rates: What’s Next? - 22nd Sep 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks:Nothing Can Topple This Market - 22nd Sep 24
US Population Growth Rate - 17th Sep 24
Are Stocks Overheating? - 17th Sep 24
Sentiment Speaks: Silver Is At A Major Turning Point - 17th Sep 24
If The Stock Market Turn Quickly, How Bad Can Things Get? - 17th Sep 24
IMMIGRATION DRIVES HOUSE PRICES HIGHER - 12th Sep 24
Global Debt Bubble - 12th Sep 24
Gold’s Outlook CPI Data - 12th Sep 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Nature of the Fannie Mae Bailout

Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008 Jul 12, 2008 - 02:35 PM GMT

By: Mike_Shedlock

Stock-Markets Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleI strongly believe that GSEs are part of the problem and no part of the solution. Government has no business promoting housing over renting and I would abolish HUD, the FHA, and end government sponsorship of the GSEs as quickly as practical. Ron Paul has advocated the same.

Has anyone even bothered to look up the Mission Statement of Fannie Mae ?


We are a shareholder-owned company with a public mission. We exist to expand affordable housing and bring global capital to local communities in order to serve the U.S. housing market.

Fannie Mae exists to expand affordable housing . Clearly Fannie Mae has failed its core mission. All government sponsored corporations fail their mission. The very nature of promoting housing makes prices go up, until the final blowoff top which we are now on the backside of, having reached Peak Credit .


In a surprising statement Treasury Secretary Paulson said Financial Institutions Must Be Allowed To Fail . My Translation is "This mess has finally gotten too big for the Fed to bail".

That leaves taxpayers on the hook as Fannie and Freddie Waterfalls Are Too Big For Fed to Bail .

I posted the most likely form of a bailout would come in the nature of nationalization. Inquiring minds will want to read We're All Homeowners Now, Nationalization of Fannie, Freddie Unavoidable .

The Covered Bond Proposal

Minyan Peter, former treasurer for a major US bank discusses a Continental Illinois style bailout and a conservatorship situation in conjunction with covered bonds. Let's pick up the discussion in Fannie, Freddie Expecting Bailout .

With the rumors swirling on both Fannie (FNM) and Freddie (FRE), I would offer the following thoughts:

The US Government will not explicitly guarantee the debt of Fannie and Freddie, but rather will either inject capital (super senior preferred stock subordinated debt a la a Continental Illinois style bailout) or provide a “make-whole” guaranty on the assets of both companies (a la an FDIC/RTC style failing bank resolution). The choice of the former suggests a “going concern” for the GSEs, while the latter suggests an orderly wind-down.

In either case there's considerable historical precedence. And either choice implies that the common stock of both companies is worthless and the preferred stock value is at best uncertain.

If Freddie and Fannie are placed into conservatorship and are wound down (the second choice), I expect that the US mortgage market will move quickly to the covered bond format that is common to the Europe mortgage market.

I believe that Hank Paulson began laying the public groundwork for this on Tuesday when he stated at the FDIC conference that “…as Treasury seeks to encourage new sources of mortgage funding in the United States, improve underwriting standards and strengthen financial institutions' balance sheets, covered bonds have the potential to serve these purposes and reduce the costs for first-time home buyers, and for existing homeowners to refinance.”

PIMCO offers a discussion on Bond Basics: Covered Bonds , for those who want to get up to speed.

Mother of all Bailouts

Noriel Roubini is discussing How to Avoid the "Mother of All Bailouts ".

The issue now is: what happens next to Fannie and Freddie given that they are effectively insolvent?

The conventional answer is that their shareholders get fully wiped out but that their creditors (those holding the $5 trillion of these agencies' debt and their other liabilities) are made whole as the U.S. government cannot afford reneging on the implicit guarantee of the liabilities of Fannie and Freddie and it cannot risk a collapse of the mortgage and housing market that defaulting on part of the liabilities of Fannie and Freddie would imply. Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom may turn out to be right; but it could also turn out to be wrong.

The hawkish rhetoric about the “moral hazard” the from implicit guarantees that Greenspan, Bernanke, Paulson, Bush and the administration peddled for eight years was thrown out of the window the moment the housing and mortgage bust started. Instead, for the last few months the GSEs – that were already bleeding and becoming insolvent on their own portfolio – have been used by the government to back stop the mortgage markets: their portfolio limits were raised, their regulatory capital was reduced and the limits to what conforming mortgages (that the GSE can repackage/insure) are were raised from $420k to over $720k. So much for barking in public about “moral hazard” and then going ahead and using already distressed GSEs to bail out the mortgage market and make them even more insolvent. Now this “the emperor has no clothes” farce has been revealed to be what it always was: a high-flatulin “moral hazard” farcical rhetoric with zero substance and credibility.

To minimize the financial cost of this farce the administration should stop pretending that these are private institutions and go ahead and take them over and nationalize them since they are going to bail them out anyhow.

Socialism For The Rich

In a long as well as interesting read, Roubini goes on to explain his position:

The creditors/bondholders of Fannie and Freddie should not be made whole, i.e. bailed out, once the insolvency hole of these institutions emerges . ... Will this optimal policy solution - an haircut for bondholders - be undertaken? Most likely not as the political economy of housing, mortgages and of “privatizing profits and socializing” losses may dominate the policy outcome.
...
Financial institutions love a system where they gamble recklessly, pocket the profits in good times and let the fisc (taxpayer) pay the bill when their reckless behavior triggers a financial crisis; this is socialism for the rich. That is why you already hear the whole Wall Street Greek chorus moaning for a bailout of the GSEs. But the financial costs of this financial crisis – the worst since the Great Depression – are mounting so fast that any bailout will become fiscally extremely expensive. Roubini Conclusion
If we fiscalize all of these losses the U.S. may fast lose its AAA sovereign debt rating and eventually end up like an insolvent banana republic. It is thus time to put a stop to the coming “mother of all bailouts” starting with a firm stop to the fiscal rescue of Fannie and Freddie, institutions that have behaved for the last few years like the “mother of all leveraged hedge funds” with their reckless leverage and reckless financial activities. "

Repeating my opening gambit, a position I have stated many times over the years: "GSEs are part of the problem and no part of the solution."

It is doubtful that Congress will see it that way. After all, Fannie Mae is one of the biggest campaign contributors around, stuffing the pockets of Congressmen everywhere.

By Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Mike Shedlock / Mish is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management . Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction.

Visit Sitka Pacific's Account Management Page to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

I do weekly podcasts every Thursday on HoweStreet and a brief 7 minute segment on Saturday on CKNW AM 980 in Vancouver.

When not writing about stocks or the economy I spends a great deal of time on photography and in the garden. I have over 80 magazine and book cover credits. Some of my Wisconsin and gardening images can be seen at MichaelShedlock.com .

© 2008 Mike Shedlock, All Rights Reserved

Mike Shedlock Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in