patrick.net

It is obscene that Fannie Mae is selling foreclosed houses (not homes) in bulk to investors.

This is crony capitalism at its worst.

Any person that does not already own a house should be allowed to buy a foreclosed house from FN, with priority ahead of any other buyer. Otherwise the houses should only be sold in an open auction.

You, the taxpayer is the owner of FNM (the stock symbol no longer exists). You, the taxpayer is losing money and enriching the crony capitalists that engage in this ultra-slimy scheme to defraud all taxpayers and to exploit those taxpayers that refused to participate in the housing bubble.

Homeboy, you are right. Voting for Romney will only make this obscenity WORSE.

E-man says

The sad thing is that we don't own Fannie & Freddie

Yes we do. We, the taxpayer, in effect own 79.9% of FNM and FRE. We just need Obama to act on behalf of us, the owners, rather than the cronies on Wall St.

From Wikipedia:

On September 7, 2008, James Lockhart, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were being placed into conservatorship of the FHFA. The action was "one of the most sweeping government interventions in private financial markets in decades".[42][43][44] Lockhart also dismissed the firms' chief executive officers and boards of directors, and caused the issuance to the Treasury new senior preferred stock and common stock warrants amounting to 79.9% of each GSE.

If you have to do real work for your money, or once did and you managed to saved some, it's time for you to bend over.

E-man says

What makes you think Obama will act on it?

I didn't say Obama would act on it. I said Romney would make it WORSE.

Can you imagine a leveraged-buyout specialist like Romney in the white house? He will concoct the most insanely immoral scheme to sell the taxpayers property to his cronies at a deflated price, then turn around and try to flip it back to the very same taxpayers at obscene profits.

This is basically what Romney did for a living, only this time it will be on a massive scale never before seen in history. Be very afraid.

justme says

Yes we do. We, the taxpayer, in effect own 79.9% of FNM and FRE. We just need Obama to act on behalf of us, the owners, rather than the cronies on Wall St.
From Wikipedia:
On September 7, 2008, James Lockhart, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were being placed into conservatorship of the FHFA. The action was "one of the most sweeping government interventions in private financial markets in decades".[42][43][44] Lockhart also dismissed the firms' chief executive officers and boards of directors, and caused the issuance to the Treasury new senior preferred stock and common stock warrants amounting to 79.9% of each GSE.

Like father, like son. Bush 1 had a HUD and bank scandal, and now it seems as though Bush 2's banking and housing scandal has finally been completed. Mission accomplished.

E-man says

First of all, that's your speculation about Romney. Second, I think leveraged buyout is pretty cool as long as everyone wins.

The sum of various parts of a company with some parts worth far more than others means there's areas that are over/under utilized. Is a business model based upon maximizing those valuable parts using other entities' money and ditching debt because you can, ethical or even moral?

E-man says

Real estate has cycle.

I do agree with your statement, but the cycles that I've seen were somewhat different because of locations and other factors. One thing that I've noticed is that the recovery back never quite gets to the old standard, as the new standard is slowly being lowered. Whatever gains forward that are achieved are minimal at best, and more like a new version of old.