Private Profit with Public Guarantee: The Real Issue with Fannie and Freddie

The NYT had a column by Jim Parrot and Mark Zandi on reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (Jim Parrott is a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and the owner of Falling Creek Advisors, a financial consulting firm. Mark Zandi is the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.) The article argues that the problem with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was that they were considered too big to fail. It therefore puts forward the case for ending their monopoly on issuing government guaranteed mortgage-backed...