Friday, October 23, 2009

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac critics form lobbying group (FNM; FRE)

UPDATE: "Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac "The new GSE as zero meme – laying the assumptions bare – and a modest plan for Obama" (FNM; FRE)"
Original post:
Fannie's trading up a penny at $1.19, Freddie's down two cents at $1.35.
A follow-up to the post immediately below, "Freddie Mac's Delinquency Rate Rises for 29th Month (FRE)".
From The Hill:

A group of lobbyists that waged a nearly decade-long campaign to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is forming a new organization to have a say in how the firms are restructured.

The Obama administration and congressional lawmakers are headed for a major debate in 2010 over how to restructure both home loan giants, which almost collapsed last year under the weight of poor investments in the housing markets. Now under government control, the lenders have since received hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout support.

The lobbyists, who had long sought greater restrictions on Fannie and Freddie, have formed a new organization, the Housing Finance Alliance, and registered to lobby in October.
Many of the same lobbyists in the alliance were leaders in the earlier “FM Policy Focus” organization that disbanded last July when Congress passed restrictions on the giant home lenders, which operated as so-called government-sponsored enterprises. Critics of the lenders said their implicit government backing led to risky lending practices that occasioned their near-failure....MORE