Both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae hold a combined worth of $5T in held mortgages. Should we still bail them out?

Question

It really disturbs me that our government is even *considering* such a ridiculous move! Why should Corporate America get the red carpet treatment when we have Americans left and right swaddled in debt and foreclosures?

Whatever the h**l happened to caring for US?

This just makes me *sick*.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080711/wall_street.html

Answer 1

No.  I work in the real estate industry, so I am directly affected by all of this.  My belief is that people learn nothing if they get bailed out.  They only learn if they have to dig themselves out of the hole they caused.  

The lenders gave loans to people who could not afford them and the PMI (private Mortgage insurance) companies approved them.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are PMI companies.   Let them learn their lesson.  

Also people many times got into loans that stretched their budgets.  People should pay attention and be wiser about the debts that they are getting into.  

The only way we are going to learn from this is to let the other shoe fall.  just wait it out and see what happens.  The economy will bounce back it always does.

Answer 2

We should bail out the millions of Americans who can't pay their bills because they have to spend all of their money on gasoline to get to work. Freddie Mac Mae kiss my Fannie.

Answer 3

Neither Freddie Mac nor Fannie Mae should be bailed out. They ignored their own loan principles when they gave out mortgages to people who could not afford them. Private citizens who bought well beyond their means also do not deserve a bail out.

The governments function is to give money to corporation or individuals who make poor financial decisions.

Answer 4

No one should be bailed out.  If you acted irresponsibly, you have to pay for it.  Under certain circumstances, like out right fraud, which I understand was the case for some borrowers, than yes.  But the banks in NO way, should be bailed out.

Answer 5

I mean its a tough call, I usually don't support bailing out companies, but consider the consequences on the economy as a whole if we let them go bankrupt. Their stock shares fell another 30% or so today, which further illustrates the dominoe effect which is coming into play with big investment companies. Anything to de-accelerate the downward spiraling stock market is fine in my book.

Of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't have bailed out the millions of Americans facing foreclosure. The fact that the entire Congress let the foreclosure bill sit while they took their week vacation for July 4th is completely absurd.

Answer 6

No.

Just because they have 5 Trillion in combined mortgages doesn't mean that's how much is in default. Probably about 1 to 4 % at most....or between  50 to 200 billion at most.  

They can deal with it.

Answer 7

Especially after what they did to bankruptcy laws a few years ago.

Answer 8

I agree.  It is unreasonable using tax payer dollars to bail out these two companies enormous debt from it's continued mismanagement.  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

Secondly, the government will be hard pressed to take on this kind of financial burden.

The average Joe is having enough troubles trying to manage a standard of living with rising food and gas prices.  

http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/24/news/eco...

The budget is already in a bloated deficit, piling more debt onto it is going to weaken the dollar even more.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/con...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22981657/

  

Both these companies should be left to their own devices.

Answer 9

Fukc no !

Answer 10

Do Americans really want our government to bail every industry out? Where in the constitution does it give Congress the right or obligation to do such things.? We are going broke because of politicians' failure to manage our affairs. I knew the first time I heard the offer to borrow 125% of your home value that it was a crock. These should have been shut down by the states 15 years ago. Taxpayers again will flip the bill for this. We can't go to the US Supreme Court because 4 of them have never heard of the constitution.