Burned Investors Call for Government Bailout
Washington, D.C., July 16, 2008—With the recent collapse of IndyMac
bank in California
and billions in losses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac piling on top of the existing
subprime mortgage meltdown, financial managers are understandably jittery. The
more opportunistic of them are now jockeying for more government money,
subsidies and loan guarantees to prop up their failing investment decisions.
Many of these “solutions,” however, and exactly want helped precipitate this
crisis in the first place.
The
policy experts of the Competitive Enterprise Institute have been tracking the
credit crunch as it has spread to mortgage lenders, hedge funds, investment
banks and government sponsored financial enterprises. They’ve also been
weighing in on the proposed solutions, most of which have called for more rules
and government power rather than elimination of the perverse incentives which
helped cause the problems in the first place.
CEI has long proposed phasing out government support for Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac.
Recent Publications
John Berlau on
OpenMarket.org (7/14/08):
“Fannie-Freddie
Warnings from Fred Smith in 2000 and Beyond”
Hans
Bader on OpenMarket.org (7/14/08):
“Bigger
Than Enron: Bailout for Fraud-Ridden Fannie Mae”
Hans Bader on
OpenMarket.org (7/12/08):
“Massive
Bank Failure While Congress Pays off Special Interests”
John Berlau and
Eli Lehrer OnPoint (4/10/08):
Press release (4/3/08):
“Senators Investigate
the Credit ‘Crisis’: Bear Stearns – JPMorgan Chase Deal under a Microscope”
Press release (3/31/08):
“CEI Opposes Broad New Powers
for Federal Reserve: Praises Streamlining Effort Among Agencies”
Eli Lehrer and Matthew Glans OnPoint (1/6/08):
The Subprime
Crisis in Historical Perspective
CEI study (1/9/07):
“The Liberal
Congress Went to Market: A Bipartisan Policy Agenda for the 110th
Congress”
Older Material
Fred L. Smith congressional testimony (6/15/00):
“On The Future Of The GSEs: Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac”
CEI Experts Available for
Interviews
John Berlau
Director, Center
for Entrepreneurship
202-331-2272
Eli Lehrer
Senior Fellow
202-331-2283
Wayne Crews
Vice President for
Policy
202-331-2274
Hans Bader
Special Projects
Fellow
202-331-2278
CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan
public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited
government. For more information about
CEI, please visit our website at www.cei.org.