now we payin fannie & freddie's bills too

in case you missed it ... us taxpayers who earn maybe $10 per hour (ok just me?) will be bailing out multi-billion dollar companies, fannie mae and freddie mac ... cuz nobody trusts their word that the loans they made to banks who used the money to lend to homebuyers will ever be re-paid ... or that's what they tell us ... is it coincidence that people who sit on the board of directors for fannie and freddie are second-cousins to g.w. bush? no.

but you are now confronted with a choice. you can find out what's really going on ... why are fannie and freddie so tied to our ENTIRE financial system? why do two companies control almost 50% of all u.s. mortgages? yes, i personally know the answer but ... do you? and now that it effects your pocket will you burry your ass in the sand and add fannie and freddie's bills to your own ... or will you inform yourself about what's really going on? cuz let me tell you ... us taxpayers outnumber congress. we outnumber fannie mae. if we refused to stand for this ... and acted collectively ... of course, something could be done. but what will you do now? ... keep surfing the web or sieze control of your destiny. it is a hard choice. and i love you no matter what but damn ... i'd really love ChANGE.

from cnn: Together, Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee more than half of the U.S. mortgage market - that's more than $5 trillion in loans.

Here's how they work: Banks loan money to home buyers. The banks then sell those mortgages - assuming they meet certain credit standards - to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

But without an "explicit" guarantee from the U.S. government, the stock of both companies continued to drop, and major investors - including the central banks of Russia and China - started selling Fannie and Freddie bonds fast. That made it harder, and more expensive, for Fannie and Freddie to raise money.

That guarantee that investors wanted is now explicit. The U.S. government is now in the business of buying and reselling mortgages, and Paulson and his cohorts hope that sends the message that Fannie and Freddie are safe.

The bad news - taxpayers could get stuck with a $200 billion bill for the bailout.

from bbc:The federal takeover is one of the largest bail-outs in US history.

"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are so large and interwoven in our financial system that a failure of either of them would create great turmoil in financial markets here and around the globe."

from the springfield sun-times: "The bailout will give the mortgage industry a stability that we haven't had in a couple of years," said Rich Cosner, president of Prudential California Realty. "But frankly no, it won't help (struggling borrowers) to refinance."