Re: A Letter to America



Nebulous wrote:

Try this one.

http://www.sundayherald.com/oped/opinion/display.var.2446165.0.were_in_a_new_era_now_but_labour_havent_noticed.php

particularly this part:-
"A year on from the nationalisation of Northern Rock and the foundations of
capitalism seem to be crumbling in the very epicentre of the free market:
Wall Street. Another huge financial institution, Lehman Brothers, is going
under as I write. Last week, the US government effectively nationalised the
huge mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which between them
account for half of all mortgages in America - over $5 trillion worth. This
is the biggest state takeover in history, and makes the nationalisation of
industrial firms like British Leyland and British Steel in the 1960s and 70s
look like an exercise in municipal subcontracting.

FNMA _was_ a government agency for the first thirty
years of its life (1938-1968) before it was split into
GNMA and FNMA (the corporation)...returning it to
government control is no more than admitting that
hitching profit motives to social objectives (or if you
prefer, privatising gain and socialising loss) doesn't
work terribly well.

Neb...do you understand the history or chartered pur-
pose of FNMA (or GNMA)? Or are you so desperate to
seem superior that you're willing to overlook the 70
years of social benefit because of recent ill-conceived
mortgage lending? (It's not as if the UK real estate/
mortgage market it anything to brag about...the rate
of savings is so low it's amazing any firm has funds
to lend.)

Deirdre
.