On Fannie/Freddie's debts not sovereign debts...

I was reading Wall Street Journal (WSJ) today on Tim Geithner's comments, that Fannie, Freddie's debt isn't sovereign debts. I was thinking out loud, on the kind of voodoo that economists, or politicians, still practice. Maybe Geithner, the embattled Treasury Secretary, thinks that, by repeating something untrue often enough, people will accept it as truth. How would anyone thinks that, underwriting someone's debts is not the same as taking the debts on, should s/he defaults, is simply beyond me. Even my 7-year-old understands that to be the same thing.

Well, it's too bad for him, because that won't happen. That's even more so, with an audience like the WSJ crowd, as evident in the readers' comments on the news report, that almost every single one of them regards Geithner's comments as all BS.

I don't think Geithner is a stupid man, and I have no doubt that he knows he's going to get deep-fried for coming out in front of the crowds, double-talking like that. But when you are charged to do the impossible, all one can do is to try to keep a straight face while lying through one's teeth. Regardless, it's truly shameful.