Uncle Sam Eats Cousins Fannie, Freddie (Cliff’s Notes)

So Uncle Sam just ate cousins Fannie and Freddie.

With that, the we enter a new and uncharted phase of the mortgage crisis, potentially saddling American taxpayers with billions of dollars in losses from home loans made by the private sector.

Bush and the gang argue that the cost of doing nothing would be far greater because of the toll on the economy of falling home prices and defaults in the $11 trillion U.S. mortgage market.

While others (see videos below) say we’re only making things worse, and that the big picture solution MUST include Fannie and Freddie going belly up first.

Whether it ends up helping or hurting, I honestly wonder how in the world our government can get away with doing something like this for a couple of private companies like Fannie and Freddie, while leaving other companies to their own end (think IndyMac, Bear Stearns, etc.)

Anyway I don’t pretend to be an expert on the economy or even how this will ultimately affect our real estate markets. There are much smarter folks than I out there who’ll (also) get it dead wrong.

But as investors, we DO need to have our heads wrapped around this.

So to that end, here’s a handful of articles and videos I’d recommend to you as sort of a “Reader’s Digest” or “Cliff’s Notes” version of where we are now. I think if you take just a few minutes to take this in, you’ll be up to speed and may even have (dare I say it) an…INFORMED OPINION! 🙂

I’ve also included a couple of other videos from the very near past (last couple of months) that will be particularly interesting to you in light of what just happened.

Enjoy…

Current Articles Worth A Dang…

Reuters: Fannie and Freddie Bailed Out (Video)…

Cory Boatright: Fannie Mae Freddie Mac Real Estate Bailout…Short Sale? (Video)

And now here’s a handful of videos from the very near past (think, last month or two) that are VERY interesting in light of this. You should find them more than a little interesting…