October 6, 2008 9:33:14 PM CDT
(Newser) – Henry Paulson sought to reassure Americans today that US banking is "sound" despite a growing list of troubled banks, Reuters reports. He also said the economy will stay slow for months, but expressed confidence that Congress will shore up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before summer recess. "Congress understands how important these institutions are," he said on Face the Nation.
Source Reuters
Sep 19, 08 10:10 AM CDT Henry Paulson confirmed today that he is working on a "bold" plan to buy bad loans from banks, the Wall Street Journal reports. Such a plan would cost taxpayers “hundreds of billions of dollars,” Paulson said, but he believes it is necessary to stabilize the economy. “The ultimate taxpayer protection will be the stability this troubled asset-relief program provides to our financial system,” he said. More »
Sep 10, 08 7:01 AM CDT Barack Obama and John McCain are both railing against the excesses of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on the campaign trail, and promising to end the lobbyist culture in Washington that led to their fall. But both candidates and their parties have multiple ties to Fannie and Freddie, the New York Times reports, and both have taken campaign contributions from their leaders. More »
Sep 9, 08 5:45 PM CDT Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson saved Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but now he may have to worry about saving his own job: One Republican senator called his policies socialist and recommended that he and Fed chief Ben Bernanke resign, Bloomberg reports. “They have taken the free market out of the free market,” said Jim Bunning of Kentucky. More »
Sep 9, 08 11:33 AM CDT The Treasury’s rescue plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may be “superbly crafted,” Steven Rattner writes in the Washington Post, but it won’t solve the government-sponsored entities’ problems. Continuing as private-sector enterprises is a setup that “simply doesn’t work.” The GSEs had every incentive to abuse their government backing to profit private shareholders—and they did. More »
Sep 9, 08 9:21 AM CDT What Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae look like in the future—and whether they continue to exist in a recognizable form at all—depends on how Washington looks next year, the New York Times reports. The battle already has begun, with the White House and congressional Democrats blaming each other for the collapse of the mortgage giants, even as Treasury officials push their own plan. More »
Henry Paulson • mortgage crisis • Fannie Mae • Freddie Mac • banking • mortgage debt • IndyMac
