what could possibly go wrong when a known, convicted grifter appoints fellow felons to privatize two of the largest federal lenders? Billionaire Bill Ackman says he expects Trump to privatize the nation’s two largest government-owned lenders Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman has said he expects Donald Trump to privatize two of the nation’s biggest government-owned mortgage lenders. The Trump-supporting financier said he believes the president-elect will remove lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — formally the Federal National Mortgage Association and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation — from conservatorship during his second administration, he wrote in a post on X. The move would potentially make them private companies again, which Ackman said would generate “$300 billion of additional profits to the federal government” if successful. Ackman, a major shareholder of Fannie Mae, said there is a “credible path” to remove the companies from conservatorship in the next two years with Trump at the helm.
Privatize everything. Works great for schools (see Chile). Let the Billionaires eat cake and continue to get fat. One day even the dummies will revolt.
This is the problem with letting these selfish turds destroy the market and people's lives and then walk away without any punishment. (In fact, many walked away with more wealth after government bailouts.) When they break things, they don't have to deal with the consequences. But eventually, they will.
Not quite following here, are they owned by the government? If they are, how can Ackman be the largest shareholder? Or does the government own a percentage of both?
They were private companies that wrote government backed mortgages ... in the 2008 real estate crash the company failed, the government had to take it over. I didn't realize their shares still traded, though, so that's a surprise to me, too. I thought it would have been treated like a normal bankruptcy and the shareholders wiped out. Probably would not have been politically sound for the government to wipe out investors. fannie mae stock - Google Search
BTW, government conservatorship of Fannie Mae has been profitable ... by the 9th year, the government had recovered all it's bailout costs, built a 3 billion dollar reserve, and was paying a 10% dividend to the treasury ... just another example of Trump doing dumb shit that harms the US bottom line.
There are 2 levels of privatization for Fannie and Freddie. They both operate under government charters, until 2008 they had an oversight group in the government; but largely operated independently. They had stock they worked like any other company. After the crisis, they were wholly owned by the feds, their stock was delisted down to OTC, their profits went back to the government, and they basically had to ask the government for permission for any new products, get anything impacting risk signed off on etc. a couple of years ago, having more than repaid their loans; they were given authority to start keeping their profits again, to build back toward the day they go back to the pre 2008 model. The government charter that directs their business activity would still apply. The risk with this is that as LJ g as they are government chartered, there is an implicit government guaranty on their loans, which has large risk. The more extreme privatization model would be to take them off the charter entirely, remove the implicit government guarantee, and let them run as true private businesses. The risk with that is that the government would lose its say in housing largely, and with no guarantee lending rates would go up significantly. I didn’t read the article to see which one he was talking about, but most people have been expecting the former for a while.
