By FITSNews || Twin government-owned mortgage behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are asking for an additional $19 billion in public funds to stay afloat after posting sizable losses during the first quarter of 2010.
Fannie is asking for $8.4 billion, while Freddie wants $10.6 billion. The “companies” posted a combined $21.1 billion loss from January to March of this year. Fannie Mae has already received $76.2 billion from taxpayers, while Freddie Mac has received $50.7 billion.
Originally, bailout money for Fannie and Freddie was supposed to have been capped at $200 billion, but Congress voted in December to remove that restriction.
SPEAKING OF BAILOUTS
Taking a page out of the Federal Reserve’s book, the European Union has approved a $1.08 trillion bailout for its ailing “Eurozone,” which has been rocked by the collapse of Greece’s ailing economy as well as the sorry financial footing of several other member nations.
The bailout was welcome news on Wall Street, where stocks soared nearly 400 points in morning trading.
But still … somebody’s gotta pay for all that money, right?
Right?
For an interesting take on Europe’s version of TARP, click here.
UNION PAYBACK CONTINUES
President Barack Obama’s payback to union bosses continued on Monday when the National Mediation Board – which governs labor relations at airlines and railroads – changed a decades-old rule in an effort to make it easier for airline employees to unionize.
Under the new rule, unions would be required to gain a simple majority of votes from workers who cast ballots – as opposed to the old rule, which requires that unions receive votes from a majority of workers who are eligible to vote.
Unions spent more than $100 million supporting Obama and Democratic candidates during the 2008 election.
Read more on the story by clicking here.
By Elmo May 10, 2010 at 3:10 pm
One might wonder why the hell the federal government is in the home loan making business in the first place. Other than paying off politicians and mastering the bonus pool, these managers have no clue how to run a real business. Why not just let the private market make crappy loans to unqualified borrowers?
By Just a thought May 10, 2010 at 4:25 pm
To continue to give money to banks and failed lenders is the most foolish thing that can be done. This is simply the continued extortion by the bankers. Close the banks, create national banks and get on with restructing the global and domestic financial markets. Citizens can not tolerate this constant deception by both the governments and the banks. When systems fail, both politically and monetariarly, there is no need to keep maintaining that system. Resturcture the economy and the financial markets or this will be a constant state of extortion. Bankers have failed, the political system has failed and it is time for a change. We cannot assume this kind of taxation solely to maintain the corrupt political and banking system. This is just another indication of how detached they systems are from the people who actually have to pay for them.
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By flipnut May 10, 2010 at 10:34 pm
So people call the guy warning of hyper inflation a quack, but then we hand FM2 $21B and no one thinks anything of it. This is how $21B is added to the money supply outside Federal Reserve control.