Talk:Federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

External links

Why is there such a large list? According to WP:EL, firstly "Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum. A lack of external links, or a small number of external links is not a reason to add external links." Federal Home Financing Agency (successor to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight) --> the links on the first page in regard to the event don't work. At any rate, what are there "Official websites" for? This is not about any of those organization. They must have their own wikipedia page. Even this "http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/business/08takeover.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all" doesn't link to a unique resource beyond the scope of the article were a featured article. It merely states what could quite easily be cited within the article itself. The second link seems relevant in this early stage as news progresses (though in due course it should be removed)

Perhaps a website dealing with the directive or the details of the takeover. Some legal document is appropirate here. Lihaas (talk) 23:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

• I intentionally put the links there pending integration into the text of the article via footnotes. This is good practice for a fast moving topic such as this. The links are active placeholders for readers and editors looking for more background not reflected in the article. Please do not delete these, until they show up as footnotes to appropriate text in the article. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 14:10, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Another "reaction" to the federal seizure might be widespread disdain at the taxpayers being on the hook for all of these billions of dollars? I'm sure it won't be hard to find a reliable source for this reaction. As it is, the page makes it sound like everybody is all hunky-dory about this, when the implications of this deal are far-reaching and not necessarily positive. MisplacedFate1313 (talk) 00:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I have added a new section on the national debt implications. I believe the point has been made in a neutral manner. Deet (talk) 01:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Other important liability holders are foreign central banks who have been investing heavily in Fannie and Freddie, e.g. the Chinese sentral Bank with about US$400 billion and even the Russian central Bank with US$100 billion. This is discussed in the Asia Times Online article which I have put in the external links section. This is also something that we should integrate into the article. __meco (talk) 14:19, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Historical background section

This is completely lacking and is needed for readers unfamiliar with the subprime mortgage crisis and the housing bubble and the fiscal biographies of Fannie, Freddie and all the GSE instruments. This section would include mention of the 2008 GSE support plan. __meco (talk) 08:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

THe GSE support plan text has been brought into this article, and it has been converted into a redirect. The topic has been bypassed by recent events. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 14:12, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Technical

this article is too techinal simplyify it for common man.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Yousaf465 (talk • contribs) 13:59, September 9, 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I have problems understanding much of the technical-economics jargong here. I suppose the problem here, as it is in computer science and other technical disciplines, is that the people who really understand all of this aren't used to communicating this information to non-technical "lay" people. Nevertheless, that is what we must attempt to do here, at least in summaries. __meco (talk) 14:15, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

In particular, one problem I had was: what is a CDS spread? The article says "The 5-year credit default swap spread for U.S. treasuries had risen to 18 basis points". But what is this a spread over? Neither here or in the CDS article is spread defined. --Quentin Durward (talk) 12:20, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Reading the source cited in the text may give you some insight.
 • Kopecki, Dawn (2008-09-11). "U.S. Considers Bringing Fannie, Freddie on to Budget". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2008-09-11.
This blog may also give you some background:
 • Newman, Rich (December 9, 2007). A Beginner’s Guide To Credit Default Swaps.
And some more fishig around should give you enough understanding to improve the articles here on wikipedia.
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 00:02, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Complete footnotes please

The article in the last day has accumlated 10+ blind or incomplete citations. It is good form to indicate fully the sourcing. It is useful and important as a quality measure and demonstration that the sources are reliable to state:

Author(s), Date, Date accessed if online, the Journal or Source name, the Title of the Article or web page.

Best form is to use the citation template which is an aid to get the information into the footnote. And it's useful to name the citation in a uniform manner. Since these names can get lost, it's best to have them relate to the content, so if necessary, they can be re-found by searching. Here I suggest the form of the name:

'Journal Name-Author-DateYYYY-MM-DD'

Here is the most useful citation template {{cite news}}, put in a form that you can copy and paste, embedded in reference tags and ready to use:

<ref name='+++'> {{cite news | first = | last = | coauthors = | title = | date = YYYY-MM-DD | url = | work = | pages = | publisher = | accessdate = YYYY-MM-DD }} </ref>

-- Yellowdesk (talk) 15:03, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

---

"Federal takeover?"

The name of this article should be "Natioanlization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Winterus (talk • contribs) 17:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

• The present article title is descriptive, without being tendentious and can encompass that view, and a number of other views as well. The text of the article makes clear the many of the details involved in the change, and the reader can draw their own conclusions -- Yellowdesk (talk) 00:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC).
  • Agreed. Deet (talk) 00:08, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
• But it certainly does need the term "nationalization" because that is precisely what happened. It is not "tendentious" (to use a really pretentious term) it's accurate and more user-friendly. Rush242 (talk) 09:55, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• • It is not precisely or even imprecisely what happened. The non-court conservatorship is a regulatory action authorized by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 to keep nearlyinsolvent GSEs out of bankruptcy.
    The corporation continues, the shareholders continue to own their shares, no shares of stock were extinguished, the title to a previously existing asset was not extinguished or transferred to the government or its agency.
    The conservatorship is a step away from bankruptcy, for nearly insolvent corporations that are unable to obtain equity capital from the capital markets. A large part of the statutory capital reserves of both organizations ares the illiquid "tax loss carryforwards" which have no value when the corporation needs actual cash today to meet its obligations. The insolvency of Freddie Mac, is based on its failure to obtain, after manifestly energetic and repeated efforts to get something like 5 billion dollars in additional equity from the markets in the last year plus. The failure of Freddie Mac immediately puts Fannie Mae in the same bind, as the markets would not continue to fund Fannie's past and anticipated losses via equity infusions subject to extinguishment via insolvency and bankruptcy that the Freddie Mac corporation would quite publicly go through.
    The Federal Government is an equity source of the last resort in this case, stepping in before actual insolvency arises, and providing capital where no one else would.
    You would not be arguing that all bankrupt corporations have been nationalized; the financial support committed (and not actually undertaken as of this date) is the selling of new shares to the Treasury in exchange for additional senior preferred stock. The claim that there is a nationalization, or non-nationalization is an interpretation and reaction to the detailed actions undertaken. When a nationalization occurs, the assets become titled in the name of the government. No such titling has occured, as of this date.
    The various reacions indicating that the action is metaphorically a nationalization are appropriate for a section detailing the particular issues involved, be they a "reactions" section, or about "national debt" or similar. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 16:24, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

New bail-out

Anyone know if there is an article started on the new $500 billion bail-out announced on Sep 19 (not directly related to freddie/fannie)? Deet (talk) 03:23, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

• No, but this one will likely list it. Financial crisis of 2007-2008
  Yellowdesk (talk) 15:25, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Previous Attempts for GSE Reform

I dispute the neutrality of this section. This section deliberately leaves out information that makes it appear as though it was the fault of Congressional Democrats who were at fault for this problem. Specifically, citation number 12, a quote by prominent Democrat Barney Frank. I read the entire New York Times article and that quote is the only mention of Frank, the focus of that article was on the new regulations proposed, and basically bureaucrats who supported it. Citation 13 leads to a website which at one point had a summary of the bill that was proposed; however, as stated on the website, that section was removed after that session of Congress came to an end. Therefore it can no longer be used to verify, for instance, who ACTUALLY voted yes or no to the bill. At the time (2003), Republicans had control of Congress, and therefore this Bill must have been defeated in a bipartisan manner. This section makes it appear as though it was the Democrats acting alone. Particularly, the last sentence of the first paragraph appears to be solely the opinion of the author, and nowhere in the citations above does it state that those proposed regulations would have prevented the current crisis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.238.196.2 (talk) 15:46, 23 September 2008 (UTC)