Do American capitalists still exist?
All of this jargon, discussing the “greatness” the government bailout of Fannie Mae [[FNM]] /Freddie Mac [[FRE]], is making me sick and ashamed to work on Wall Street. As a matter of fact, I would like Hurricane Ike to make a quick turn and come up here (NYC), in order to wipe out the exchange. Wall Street needs a good category 5 hurricane to “clean up” the garbagio.
How is it a “good thing,” when the U.S. government is now the proud owner of your house? Directly, they now own more than 75% of the mortgages, implying they own the land too. So, has anyone thought through the long term ramifications of this? Anyone?
Abuse of powers, land grab, you name it—it stinks to high heaven.
On top of that, no one is going to want to work at Fannie anymore. From here on, Fannie and Freddie will be operated by the same bureaucrats who run welfare, medicaid and social security: fargin’ losers.
On top of that, President Paulson has subordinated the tax payers money to the GSE bond holders, such as Russia, China and oh yeah Bill Gross and the Pimco pimps. This all sounds like a grand idea, if you are a sovereign wealth fund or have a net worth north of 2 billion.
However, for the average Joey Bag o Mortgages, this is a disaster. In time, Fannie and Freddie will become so corrupt and so gay, credit will seize up—due to unavailability of loans. I wonder if the government will elect to tap the Fannie/Freddie surpluses (providing they will ever have one), just like they “tapped” our social security fund, over the decades?
Heck, if the government is right, and housing bottoms, they can make a fortune owning both agencies. With the profits, they can buy all sorts of stuff and fund exorbitant amounts of “pork barrel” projects.
In other news, the basic resource stocks are bouncing hard here. I am still “deeply out of the money” on my positions; but it’s nice to get a little respite, nonetheless.
I would not add to any basic resource positions yet. If anything, I’d wait until 3:30 to execute new positions.
Finally, the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. [[LEH]] news was so non-eventful I feel like shorting the stock again. They have nothing. They are trying to douse the flames; but it’s too late. Once LEH is out of the way, all guns will aim to Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. [[MER]] . Regardless of what Cramer says (he’s just a Thain jerker), MER blows.
Top pick: [[SKF]]
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