Saturday, July 12, 2008

Lawrence Yun Sounds a Bit Confused

Does it matter if the government takes over Fannie and Freddie?

I do not have enough information to evaluate fully. Right now, I do not think it matters over the short term. The long-term impact could be the "inefficiency" of a non-profit organization running a mortgage business - and somewhat higher cost of mortgages.

Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist for the National Association of Realtors 7/10/08

What? Excuse me?

Lawrence seems to of have gone off track.  The basis for the commentary is that there are concerns that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ARE running inefficiently currently, as for profit companies.  The classic neoliberal assessment of a potential government takeover of a failed for profit institution to betrays your bias and at the same time almost invalidates it.

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