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Index
Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac)[Top]
- Freddie Mac: A Mercantilist Enterprise
- Paul A. Cleveland and Michael D. Tucker, March 14, 2005 [Mises]
- Fannie Mae Gives Raines the Boot
The two top officers of embattled mortgage giant Fannie Mae were fired yesterday for bungling their books in a massive US$9 billion loss undermining Fannie Mae's soundness. - Paul Tharp, December 22, 2004 [E Commerce Times]
- Fannie Mae is Corporate Turkey of the Year
- Tom Finnigan, November 24, 2004 [Citizens Against Government Waste]
- Fannie Mae: Rogue Entity?
Fannie Execs Defied Standard Accounting Principles in Order to Hit Bonus Bonanza. - October 6, 2004 [Citizens Against Government Waste]
- The Crumbling of Fannie Mae
- Bill Bonner, September 28, 2004 [LewRockwell.com]
- Fannie Mae Strikes a Deal
- September 27, 2004 [CATO Daily Dispatch]
- Monetizing Envy and America’s Housing Bubble
- Eric Englund, July 19, 2004 [LewRockwell.com]
- Housing: Too Good to be True
Given the government's encouragement of lax lending practices, home prices could crash, bankruptcies would increase, and financial companies, including the government-sponsored mortgage companies, might require another taxpayer bailout. - Mark Thornton, June 4, 2004 [Mises]
- Who Made the Fannie and Freddie Threat?
- Frank Shostak, March 5, 2004 [Mises]
- Fed study: Freddie, Fannie do little to lower mortgage rates
- December 24, 2003 [Billings Gazette]
- Statement of FM Policy Focus Chairman J.C. Watts regarding OFHEO’s Report on Freddie Mac’s "Inappropriate conduct and improper management of Earnings"
- December 10, 2003 [FM Policy Focus]
- Fannie and Freddie
The connection between the GSEs and the government helps isolate the GSE management from market discipline. This isolation from market discipline is the root cause of the recent reports of mismanagement occurring at Fannie and Freddie. - Rep. Ron Paul, MD, September 10, 2003 [LewRockwell.com]
- Housing Bubble, Mortg*ge R*tes, and Spam
- Gary North, August 20, 2003 [LewRockwell.com]
- Thugonomics 102: 'Significant Volatility'
Budgets Have Busted, and Bubbles Have Burst
Freddie and Fannie are both built on the incursion of debt, and so their earnings can be construed in part as an expression of the public’s willingness to take on such large-scale debt as is needed for the average person to buy a home. - Shelton Hull, July 5, 2003 [LewRockwell.com]
- Fannie Mae Distorts Markets
...the net result of Fannie Mae’s actions in the credit markets is a nightmare of resource misallocation and massive systemic risk. - Robert Blumen, July 1, 2002 [Mises]
- The Residential Real Estate Bubble
- Gary North, March 5, 2002 [LewRockwell.com]
- The Redistribution of Risk
One of Franklin Roosevelt's many schemes to "save capitalism from itself" in the 1930s was the creation of the Federal National Mortgage Association, known today as Fannie Mae. Created in 1938 as part of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, Fannie Mae's original mandate was to purchase Federal Housing Administration loans. - David Barnes, October 2001 [Mises]
- Statement from CEI President Fred Smith Regarding New CBO Report on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
The latest figures from the Congressional Budget Office indicating that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac receive more than $10 billion in subsidies exemplifies the significant “moral hazard” posed by government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). - Statement of Fred L. Smith, President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, May 23, 2001 [CEI.org]
- Fannie and Freddie: Fiscal Frauds
Those who fear that undue accumulations of power are destabilizing the American economy always seem obsessed with 'market power' concentration. Witness the persecution of Microsoft. But proponents of government antitrust intervention should look closer to home. Some of the most serious threats are posed not by private firms, but rather by the strange entities known as 'government sponsored enterprises' (GSEs), specifically the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation and the Federal National Mortgage Association. - Fred L. Smith, Jr., August 31, 2000 [CEI.org]
- CEI President Fred Smith Testifies on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac
Questions the Need for Federal Subsidization of Housing Capital - CEI Staff, June 21, 2000 [CEI]
- A Microeconomic Analysis of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
The most important public policy issues raised by government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (F and F) revolve around their charters and the perception of government support that goes with the
charters, giving them 'embedded options' not available to most other businesses. These options mostly take the form of con-jectured guarantees and conjectures about conjectured guarantees. The options affect prices and provide incentives. They can be viewed as either subsidies or tools. Of course they are both. Public policy should be about making sure that the options are structured and regulated so that the benefits of GSEs exceed their costs." - Robert Van Order, June 12, 2000 [CATO] (PDF format)
- Siblings Fat And Sassy
Now that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have ballooned into multibillion-dollar players in the nation's financial markets, critics say these government-created companies are too big and too powerful. - Julie Kosterlitz, May 12, 2000 [National Journal]
- America's Second Mortgage: Skyrocketing Housing GSE Debt
While our national debt decreases, government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) debt skyrockets. In 1999 alone, as national debt was reduced by $140 billion, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks increased their debt by $309 billion, making taxpayers responsible for a net increase of $169 billion in debt. - April 26, 2000 [FMWatch] (PDF format)
- The Mounting Case for Privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac [CATO]
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac preserve their privileged status through a multi-million-dollar lobbying effort that includes massive 'soft money' campaign contributions and the payment of exorbitant salaries to politically connected executives and lobbyists. The GSEs also protect their government-sponsored empire through millions of dollars of charitable donations to Washington advocacy groups." - Vern McKinley, December 29, 1997 [CATO]
- Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae:
Corporate Welfare King & Queen
They are two of the largest financial institutions in the nation, with more than half a trillion dollars in assets between them: Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. But few people can explain exactly what function those financial giants serve." - November 17, 1997 [CATO]
Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT) [Top]
Tennessee Valley Authority[Top]
Created in 1933.
- O Big Brother, Where Art Thou?
What the new Coen Brothers movie can teach us about California's electricity woes. The film's most deft maneuver may be its use of the Tennessee Valley Authority as a prime plot mover. - Tim Cavanaugh, March 2001 [REASON]
- Restructure TVA: Why the Tennessee Valley Authority Must Be Reformed
The Tennessee Valley Authority is a political creation facing its most serious challenge. The nation's largest electric utility suffers an enormous debt, mismanagement, and falling political support at the very time that lawmakers are restructuring the nation's electric utility industry and transforming the way consumers buy electricity. Sixty-five years after it was created, this giant federal agency can no longer justify its existence." - April 2, 2000 [NMI]
- Electrical Utilities: The Final Deregulatory Frontier
- Doug Bandow, November 1997 [FEE]
National Endowment for Democracy[Top]
- Neocon Central
The misnamed National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is nothing more than a costly program that takes US taxpayer funds to promote favored politicians and political parties abroad. - Rep. Ron Paul, MD, October 7, 2003 [LewRockwell.com]
- Loose Cannon: The National Endowment for Democracy
NED, which also has a history of corruption and
financial mismanagement, is superfluous at best and often destructive. Through the endowment, the American taxpayer has paid for special-interest groups to harass the duly elected governments of friendly countries, interfere in foreign elections, and foster the corrup-
tion of democratic movements. - November 8, 1993 [CATO]
- From Socialism to Social Democracy
- Lew Rockwell, July 1991 [Mises]
Legal Services Corporation[Top]
- Homepage
- Time for Congress to Hold the Legal Services Corporation Accountable
In the LSC's case especially, Members of Congress must be tenacious in seeking and obtaining the facts before spending more taxpayer dollars. The LSC's functions are carried out better and more appropriately by the states, localities, or private organizations. Until Congress can eliminate funding for this agency, however, enhanced congressional oversight is needed. - Virginia L. Thomas, September 29, 1999 [Heritage]
- How to Lie for a Profit
The LSC, on the other hand, needs to be put on a glidepath to elimination, with its responsibilities given to states, local governments or the private sector. - Edwin Feulner, September 26, 1999 [Heritage]
- Legal Services Corp. A Case Study in Lack of Budget Accountability, Study Says
Legal Services Corp. A Case Study in Lack of Budget Accountability, Study Says. - July 27, 1999 [Heritage]
- Despite Abuses, Legal Services Survives
...the agency has a history of turning away poor clients with valid legal needs in favor of concentrating on left-wing political projects, critics say. - July 31, 1998 [NCPA]
- Congress Continues LSC Subsidies for Left-wing Activists
In an interview with Martha Bergmark, President of the Federal Legal Services Corporation --- which currently spends $283 million per year, I asked her about a case in Georgia where a Legal Services attorney had reportedly helped a transsexual sue the state health department to pay for a sex change operation." - John Lofton, January 1997 [The Conservative Caucus Foundation]
- Abolish The Legal Services Corp.
Lawyers and lobbyists flock there to suck the lifeblood out of our economy. - F.R. Duplantier, Oct. 29, 1995 [America's Future]
- The real cost of the Legal Services Corporation: A two trillion dollar bypass of electoral accountability?
The total finanical burden imposed on American taxpayers by LSC activities during the past thirty years amounts to many hundreds of billions of dollars. - Howar Phillips, April 23, 1995 [The Conservative Caucus Foundation]
- Poverty, Politics, and Jurisprudence: Illegalities at the Legal Services Corporation
We are using taxpayers funds to sue taxpayers themselves, taxpayer funds to have class actions against governments, people, corporations, individuals, and so on, on behalf of special interest concerns that may or may not have been representative of the poor. - James T. Bennett and Thomas J. DiLorenzo, February 26, 1985 [CATO]
Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae)[Top]
From the Sallie Mae About us page ...The company primarily provides federally guaranteed student loans originated under the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), and offers comprehensive information and resources to assist students, parents and guidance professionals with the financial aid process. Sallie Mae currently owns or manages student loans for more than 7 million borrowers, and employs more than 9,000 individuals at offices nationwide.
All well and good, right? What does this government-induced (taxpayer funded) increase in the supply of students do to the price of college tuition? It increases it, of course. How will the students pay for college?
Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC)[Top]
About GSEs[Top]
- Tough Questions for Defenders of the New Deal
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the launching of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, so it's a good time to debate his policies, which have had an immense influence and which remain controversial. - Jim Powell, November 6, 2003 [CATO]
- Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 24: The New Deal and Its Critics
- Richard M. Ebeling, February 1998 [The Future of Freedom Foundation]
- The Burden of Government-Sponsored Enterprises: The Case of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation
Government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) are private
corporations that operate under congressional charter. They
are the epitome of good intentions gone awry. All have been
created to serve functions that, on the surface, are quite
worthy. Few would object to improving access to services
such as housing, education, and agricultural credit. Those
are three of the most sacred cows of our public finances, and
few members of Congress would vote against them." - James F. Gatti and Ronald W. Spahr, August 13, 1992 [CATO]
- The Financing Corporation, Government-Sponsored Enterprises, and Moral Hazard
The FICO legislation did not, however, assess any GSE. Instead, the banking industry was 'asked' to share the FICO bond interest cost with the S&L industry. In fact, banks picked up 85 percent of the total burden. This arrangement is a second-order moral hazard whereby the federal government passed the cost of GSE protection on to banks rather than to the beneficiaries of FICO bond protection. If this outcome is the consequence of the government offering implicit guarantees, then U.S. industry must be wary--in case the government is called on again to make good on an implicit guarantee, which industry will be obliged to pick up the obligation next? - Keith J. Leggett and Robert W. Strand [CATO]
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