On the hypocrisy over Fannie and Freddie...

Sometimes, I don't understand. Sometimes, I'm totally baffled. But mostly, I know it's just hypocrisy.

I'm talking about the capitalism practiced in America and the head-in-the-sand approach by everyone involved (particularly GOP) that we're anything but a capitalist society. Just look at the ridiculous situation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It buys nine out of ten mortgages in the market in US. It used to get implicit, and now gets explicit, backing and guarantee from Washington, thereby providing cheap credits for them to fund the capitalist systems we called "banking and mortgage industry." But executives get paid like they're private, Wall Street firms. When the times were good, everyone drinks cool-aid, as if the industry is really sustaining on its own. Everyone conveniently forgets (or looks the other way) about the "invisible hand" of Washington.

Now, the music stops. Housing market bubble bursts. And, Fannie and Freddie become state wards of Washington. Alas, at least it's coming out in the open, that they are now doing the biddings of Washington. The loan modification program championed by Obama is nothing more than instructions to tell them not to collect debts from deadbeats mortgagees, all in the name of helping the deadbeats stay in their homes. While I have sympathy for those who can't keep up with their mortgages due to loss of jobs, mostly these people are the same people who have been taking out (successive) loans on mortgage refi, as if their properties are ATM's. If Fannie and Freddie are private companies, they should act like one. At least the GOP has this right.

But then, the same GOP are also calling for help to the markets and all. I don't hear them yell that loud either, when Bush was still in office, who started all these deficit building/spending programs. Such are a bunch of pathetic hypocrits.

Why don't we come clean with Fannie and Freddie? Why don't we term them the way they actually are, which is a federal agency? That way, taxpayers would have saved tens of millions in ridiculous compensation to those bozo executives in the management ranks of Fannie/Freddie. And we know for sure that the federal government is standing behind the housing mortgage market. And we'll also know that, now ten out of ten mortgages will surely be backed and bought by the government, subprime or prime.

Oh, but wait, Americans want free market. They (particularly GOP) don't want governments in their life, even though they want government help in their mortgages. And if Fannie/Freddie become federal agencies, then I can bug my state senators to help me reduce my mortgage payments too, even though I'm in the highest tax bracket (?!).

In that sense, at least totalitarian governments like China don't even try to pretend to be something they're not. They operate with a very "visible hand." When the government moves, market responds. If that's the kind of certainty that the markets (like Wall Street) want, maybe they shouldn't lobby so hard to fight government regulations.

Aren't all these confusing to you? To say the least, it's disingenuous. But it's totally hypocritical.