Freddie and Fannie

While I am not at all surprised that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were (illegally) seized by the US government over the weekend, I am disgusted. By seizing these mortgage companies, the US government has essentially bailed out a private company and the US taxpayer will have to pay the bill. Conservative analysts have put the debt at $200 billion dollars.

However, despite the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 that was intended to clean up Enron-style corporate corruption, rumors have been circulating that the accountants at Fannie and Freddie have been been more creative than a roomful of Seattle punk rockers on pot. A lot of analysts are now telling us that the "new" low number could be as high as $500 billion, and that when it is all told it could reach $1 trillion dollars of debt that is passed on to the American taxpayer. Our national debt has increased from $3-4 trillion dollars to $10 trillion dollars in the last 8 years. So, what's another $1 trillion dollars, really? Appaerantly, not much, by Hank Paulson's standards, the man largely responsible for this Constitutional violation.

I am outraged, but where could I constructively channel that emotion? This is not the first time this year that the government has gone far past the line... as they continually break laws, I know that the outrage will be numbed. It also has crossed my mind that not everyone is as obsessed with financial news as I am - probably a good thing. The point is... how many Americans even care that this has happened? How many Americans even realize how close we are to waking up one morning and finding ourselves in a socialistic/Communist-style regime (like China) or a fascist regime (like Britain in V for Vendetta)?

Something has to change. And, I fear, that we have perhaps waited too long. I fear that we might be past that place of no-return.