http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article735638.ece

Don’t get too excited by the headline -- McCain doesn’t actually want to take taxpayers off the hook for Fannie and Freddie’s losses by repealing the asinine bailout bill that just passed Congress and was signed by Bush.

McCain begins his article by writing, “Americans should be outraged at the latest sweetheart deal in Washington. Congress will put U.S. taxpayers on the hook for potentially hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It's a tribute to what these two institutions — which most Americans have never heard of — have bought with more than $170-million worth of lobbyists in the past decade.”

Despite this strongly worded criticism of Congress, McCain goes on to explain that Fannie and Freddie were too big to fail and had the implicit backing of the government, so, we had little choice but to bail them out. He then writes that his ultimate goal would be to eventually privatize Fannie and Freddie so that they are no longer backed by the taxpayers.

This is just a cop out. Basically, McCain is saying that he agrees that the taxpayers should bail out these sleazeballs, even though we appear to have no legal obligation to do so since the investors were specifically told that their investments were not guaranteed by the government. Then, after all of the losses are transferred to the public (socialized), he’ll fully privatize the companies with a clean slate.

If you’d like to read for yourself just how sleazy the corporate executives at Fannie are/were, the following article contains a link to the report that resulted from an internal investigation of allegations of accounting fraud at Fannie Mae. It is a long report – over 2,000 pages. I didn’t read the whole thing, but the parts I read, including a whistleblower complaint from an employee who was retaliated against for repeatedly complaining that Fannie was violating GAAP, definitely shed a lot of light on the corruption going on behind the scenes. Bowyer: Feds nearly murdered Fannie http://www.cnbc.com/id/25918018

From the article:

“A whistle-blower in the company circulated an e-mail claiming that Fannie bought mortgages which were not financially sound, in order to bolster its minority-lending portfolio and resultantly, its political capital.

The report concluded that, indeed, Fannie had paid prices more consistent with prime mortgage values for loans that were closer to subprime in their credit characteristics. To add insult to injury, Fannie "capitalized" rather than expensed these premiums, and so doing exaggerated its earnings and the salaries of managers who received performance bonuses.”

Coverage of the Minority Lending Initiative described above begins on page 365 of the report.

On a related note, many Americans ARE outraged by the fiscal policies of the Federal Reserve, Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson, Congress, and the Bush Administration. These American citizens just don't have wealthy, high powered corporations and lobbyists spending billions of dollars to voice their positions to Congress or enough money to buy coverage from our corporate-controlled bought-and-paid-for "free press." Because of this, many Americans feel powerless to stop the many injustices they see occurring right now -- from the war to the loss of privacy rights to the theft of the fruits of their labor through the inflation tax and government bailouts for reckless banks and corporations. Despite their feelings of helplessness, a few brave citizens are speaking out to try and bring meaningful change to Washington. Many here have written to and called their Congressmen and President Bush expressing their views on these important issues. Yesterday, a small but defiant group of about 50 angry taxpayers from around the country gathered to demonstrate in Washington D.C., but you probably didn't hear about it or see it on the news. If you'd like to read more about the protest and see some pictures, I've posted an article on it here: http://www.breakthematrix.com/Economy/Update-Fed-Up-USA-Angry-Taxpayers-...

Thanks BTM for giving us an outlet to share the news not being covered by the msm!