Freddie And Fannie In Conservatorship

What a surprise. Hank Paulson should be applauded for taking the position that conservatorship is the only way the government would help these quasi-government institutions. I also applaud Paulson for taking responsibility for these organization's statutory ambiguities - something no prior politicians were willing to do. In other words, these organizations will finally be fixed and likely sold off in smaller organizations with no government backing or their structures will change with new clearly defined charters so the future chances of government involvement will be minimized.

Historically, similar circumstances unfolded in Japan and the U.S. when prior real estate busts took place. Similar moves by the U.S. government and the Japanese government actually cost the taxpayers nothing. In other words, this does not necessarily put substantial taxpayer money at risk. In fact, it may yield a profit over time.

On a final note, how wonderful is it that none of the news stations on television televised the entire announcement? Instead they had to get back to their infomercials and advertisers. CSPAN was the only channel I could find that carried the whole announcement.