Which is a plus, because neither do John McCain and George W. Bush.
Speaking before voters in Colorado Springs, the Republican vice presidential nominee claimed that lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.” The companies, as McClatchy reported, “aren’t taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. The takeover may result in a taxpayer bailout during reorganization.”
Economists and analysts pounced on the misstatement, saying it demonstrated a lack of understanding about one of the key economic issues likely to face the next administration.
“You would like to think that someone who is going to be vice president and conceivable president would know what Fannie and Freddie do,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “These are huge institutions and they are absolutely central to our country’s mortgage debt. To not have a clue what they do doesn’t speak well for her, I’d say.”
Maybe Palin can go to one of McCain’s eight houses and study up before she tries to play with the adults.
On the other hand OW, she does hunt moose in the morning. What more can you ask?
OW: “play with the adults.”
It’s gotta check you. That’s code. Maybe you should be more concerned about how you appear to be dismissive of Sarah Palin and sexist than Biden.
“play with the adults” is code for putting a woman in her place – “silent,” too childlike and simple-minded to understand like a man. Your statement was demeaning and sexist.
No, not sexist no. OW would never say that about Hillary Clinton, for example. You know why? Because Hillary Clinton knows the purpose of our key financial institutions. Sarah Barracuda evidentally doesn’t.
Shame on sexist economists for calling her in it. Everyone knows you can’t be a Bush Republican if you are not given free reign to oversimplify how government works.
Play with the adults means go from being Mayor and Governor for five minutes to running the biggest economy in the world. I don’t care what she’s got between her legs, rather than what’s between her ears.
Oliver,
Funny, I thought Joe Biden said John McCain had oinly seven kitchen tables. Did he pick up another one in the last couple weeks?
Or are you counting the one he’ll move into in January?
McCain has anywhere from 7-10 homes. The Obama campaign was being charitable in lowballing the estimate of houses he didn’t remember he owned.
“Play with the Big Boys” == sexist
“Play with the adults” != sexist
Or is any criticism of Gov. Palin sexist now?
There they go again, playing the Sex Card.
McCain has anywhere from 7-10 families. The Obama campaign was being charitable in lowballing the estimate of houses he didn’t remember he owned.
Jesus Christ! What a crumbum!
Boo hoo. Palin is just not qualified no matter what kind of genitals she has.
If Sarah Palin understood economics I wouldn’t trust her nearly as much, because that would mean that she had spent time reading books and thinking and stuff like that, and that would make her a pointy-headed elitist who thinks she’s better than all us Real Americans who don’t read books or think. And as everyone knows, we Real Americans are better than everybody else, particularly better than those on the east side and the west side and in Massachusetts and New York and San Francisco and Chicago and all the other big nasty cities, which aren’t really part of Real America.
Plus, as the last 8 years of President Bush’s adminstration have shown, everything goes swell when the country is run by normal joes who are totally ignorant of economics and foreign policy.
being a Christofascist is the only skill repubs require for public office
Question: How much has it cost the taxpayers for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to have access to low interest loans from the Federal Reserve and for the Treasury Department to purchase GSE’s stock?
Oh and while they don’t receive direct taxpayer funds doesn’t mean they don’t cost the taxpayers.
Read and learn:
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=13&type=0
Tell women that they are not ready to “play with the adults” is code.
Regardless of what anyone who posts here thinks or knows this is code language that has clearly been identified in Feminist and Women’s Studies. Zora Neale Hurston, classic work, in “Their Eyes were Watching God” -running theme was “children, chickens, and women” – how the men in the town looked down on women and thought so little of women (in that hierarchical order – children a more important than the chickens and women last).
This has made me nervous. Someone needs to know these this that works for the Obama campaign. I’m not trying to tout any horns about how many degrees I have and the disciplines of study but one of them is in Women’s Studies. This is Code Language is one of the first studies 101. This is ridiculous and crazy at the same time that this is not easily recognized. Gender is going to be the major distraction more than record and qualifications of Sarah Palin
There’s no excuse or defense for using the word “uppity” referring to African-Americans. Trust me, marginalizing a woman candidate as a child is comparable. Who was it in the debate with Geraldine Ferraro that walked over to her to make his point in a debate. Women found that threatening and that was code too.
So Juhar, how does the campaign point out her ignorance without setting off a silent alarm?
It’s an interesting point you’re making. It seems to me a good use of some campaign cash would be to hire a woman’s studies expert, just to avoid any accidental mine fields of latent sexist language while going about the everyday business of the campaign.
Who was it in the debate with Geraldine Ferraro that walked over to her to make his point in a debate. Women found that threatening and that was code too.
Actually that was Rick Lazio in his debate with Hillary Clinton.
Jay, just saw your link. If I’m reading it correctly, it says they were privatized in 1996? Assuming that’s so, how, then, would their operation cost the taxpayers in the ensuing 12 years? How would they cost the taxpayers indirectly in those 12 years? The structure of Palin’s comment (the use of ‘had gotten’) leads me to believe that that has to be the time frame she’s talking about.
Oh and while they don’t receive direct taxpayer funds doesn’t mean they don’t cost the taxpayers.
Jay, that CBO paper never does identify a cost to taxpayers. The author’s formulation is this: because Fannie Mae is government-sponsored, it can borrow money at lower rates than it could if it was entirely private. The amount that Fannie Mae “saves” by not paying higher interest to borrow is a “cost” to the government.
That’s some mighty hapless logic.
The paper’s authors admit there’s no cash out-of-pocket from the government. The “benefit” of lower borrowing costs can’t be “spent” by the government elsewhere. So any “cost” is an illusion.
Palin went on in her remarks to say the McCain administration would make the two agencies more effective in providing help to homeowners who need it.
That’s just wrong. Neither agency provides direct assistance to homeowners.
Parthenon: “It seems to me a good use of some campaign cash would be to hire a woman’s studies expert”
I agree. I have been sending the Obama campaign double what I can afford every month. I was going to travel to Pennsylvania to help out on the weekends but for the amount of money I would spend doing that I felt Obama would appreciate the cash more and I will send that in in addition to my money committment.
I have been busy this afternoon after this post preparing some Women’s Studies research I have done outlining some key issues including code language. I will mail my research FOR FREE to the Obama campaign because I don’t want gender to become as you said an accidential mine field.
Thank you for your post because I can contribute to the Obama campaign in this way instead of going to Pennsylvania. I am going to go to contact some of my alumni and professors and send in as much material as possible to be used by the campaign.
The amount that Fannie Mae “saves” by not paying higher interest to borrow is a “cost” to the government.
That’s some mighty hapless logic.
How is it hapless logic?
Read:
Government-sponsored enterprises are costly to the government and taxpayers in that they receive a benefit for which others would pay a substantial sum. In addition, the GSEs are retaining a substantial share of that benefit for management and shareholders rather than passing it through to home buyers. That conclusion holds for a variety of estimating methods and assumptions. If one measures the costs of the GSEs as the annual change in the value of the government’s credit enhancement and the annual return on previously invested capital, then the average annual cost to the government–though highly volatile–averaged $7.8 billion per year during the 1993-1995 period. If measured as the estimated funding cost advantage that the GSEs receive, the benefit is currently worth $6.5 billion annually.
The “benefit” of lower borrowing costs can’t be “spent” by the government elsewhere. So any “cost” is an illusion.
Now THAT is hapless logic.
That’s just wrong. Neither agency provides direct assistance to homeowners.
They DO provide assistance to homeowners.
Palin’s gaffe balances McCain’s. When he learned that working citizens were supporting Social Security beneficiaries, he pronounced it “appalling,” never mind that’s the way the program was designed and always worked.
Oh the symmetry!
Can we make Poly Sci 101 mandatory for candidates? A written test, perhaps?
It’s total baloney, Jay.
Government-sponsored enterprises are costly to the government and taxpayers in that they receive a benefit for which others would pay a substantial sum.
Let’s say the New York Giants give you a ticket to a football game. That’s a benefit others would be willing to pay for. That doesn’t mean the other people who attend the game have incurred a “cost” because you got in for free.
The Giants incur a cost only if they could have made money by selling the ticket they gave you to someone else. In the instance of Freddie Mac, the government doesn’t lose anything by conferring its borrowing status on the agency. The feds can still borrow the same amount of money from the same sources at the same rates.
In addition, the GSEs are retaining a substantial share of that benefit for management and shareholders rather than passing it through to home buyers.
So? Suppose I can get you a 5 percent discount on a new car. Suppose also, that my source actually gives me a 6 percent discount, and I keep the difference for myself. How is that a “cost” to you?
Whoever wrote that report is desperately stretching the definition of opportunity cost.
That’s just wrong. Neither agency provides direct assistance to homeowners.
They DO provide assistance to homeowners.
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae provide direct assistance to homeowners?
Please explain.
Even simpler, how do Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae cost me, a taxpayer, so much as a dollar? Where do I lost that dollar?
There’s only one way to make that case: When the government lends Freddie Mac its standing in the credit markets, debt issued by Freddie Mac increases the amount of interest other institutions–and the federal government in particular–must pay to attract investors, and those higher borrowing costs hit ordinary taxpayers in the pocketbook.
But that’s not the argument the CBO is making in that report. They’re arguing that just because Freddie Mac can borrow at reduced interest rates, the difference must be a cost to the federal government and ultimately, the taxpayers. Yet the report studiously avoids telling us where I take the bite.
Looks like Palin wants to put the sexist card on the sideline for a bit. Otherwise, why would she read her speechwriters’ words so brutally? If she didn’t completely implode her brain, then we can only assume the campaign managers deliberately set her up. Can’t wait to hear what she has to say about being played by her team. She will correct this mess she created for her voters, right?
wikipedia is always useful for big concepts like Fannie Mae and Freddie mac.
I doubt Sarah Palin believes in wikipedia…she probably goes to Conservipedia.
w/o Fannie mae, significant number of Americans would have never been able to buy a house….but then when Conservatives took over governance they wanted it to be modeled like the other failing Savings and Loans, Major Banking and Brokerages like Bear Sterns, etc.
Obama’s correct that the deregulatary disaster wrought by Republicans such as Senator McCain and Gramm needs to be reversed.
couple this with McCain’s son’s involvement w/ the Nevada bank seized last week, and we’ve got some pretty good indicators.
And while I’m at it… what’s w/ the GOP and family members and banks? Neil Bush/Savings and Loan… McCain’s son/SilverStart
What, is it a hobby w/ these clowns?
ok, ok, I know half the world hates “modo” but she’s in fine form yakking up the Palin candidacy. I fear McCain might ride Moose slayer all the way to the White House where she’ll turn on him just as she did on others in her path to Greatness. Annie Oakley didn’t fare so well.
Let’s say the New York Giants give you a ticket to a football game. That’s a benefit others would be willing to pay for. That doesn’t mean the other people who attend the game have incurred a “cost” because you got in for free.
If they give away enough free tickets, they’re going to make up those costs elsewhere. They could charge more for concessions, parking, programs, etc.
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae provide direct assistance to homeowners?
I didn’t say ‘direct.’ You did. I’m not jcmcann and won’t get caught up in your usual displays of pedantry.
Yet the report studiously avoids telling us where I take the bite.
Actually it doesn’t. Try and read it a little more carefully. Read the section entitled Annual Costs of The GSE’s. It’s right there. Sheesh.
Jay, are you honestly asking us to believe that Palin was referring to certain (totally hypothetical) unrealized revenues that might come from privatizing the function of the GSE’s, rather than riffing on standard right-wing cant that all big government-related things are both too big and take too much money from wealthy taxpayers? You can’t honestly think that yourself, can you?
Personally I don’t believe that you can honestly think that. I think you’re too intelligent to think that. In other words, Jay, I think you’re a liar who is trying to distract attention from Palin’s gaffe by floating a clever, but utterly dishonest, justification ex post facto.
Got that Jay? You are a liar. You are lying. We’re done with not calling liars liars when they lie.
“Got that Jay? You are a liar. You are lying. We’re done with not calling liars liars when they lie.”
Thank god for that.
Peter Viles, LA Times:
“Palin was right: The very existence of a blank check means that Fannie and Freddie are too expensive to taxpayers.”
Stein himself:
“As O’Driscoll noted, both Fannie and Freddie “were hybrid institutions because they had private ownership but… an implicit government guarantee which people thought at the end of the day was explicit.” Meanwhile, as [Dean] Baker [co-director of the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research] noted, as of July the two lenders were being offered low market interest rates by the fed again, theoretically, at the taxpayer’s expense.”
I guess if you throw enough manure something is bound to stick…
Funny, when “the rich” get tax rate reduction, that “costs us money”, but when Fannie and Freddie pay incredibly low interest rates, and get a huge amount of FREE insurance , that “costs us nothing”
after a clause was added to his employment contract in mid-July, the Times reported
Frank, that’s the same kind of corporate mismanagement that’s been going on for at least the last two decades in this country. CEO’s get golden parachutes while the shareholders, employees, and in this case, tax payers, get screwed. It has nothing to do with the fact that Fannie and Freddie were able to offer low interest rates to first-time home buyers.
theoretically at taxpayer expense, william, theoretically. If you’re trying to get me to believe that Palin would refer to a hypothetical absence of revenue in front of a lay audience the way she did, all I can say is, tell me another.
The only excuse I can think of for you guys is that you’ve had to lie so much during the Bush years that you no longer know when you’re doing it.
“Funny, when “the rich” get tax rate reduction, that “costs us money”, but when Fannie and Freddie pay incredibly low interest rates, and get a huge amount of FREE insurance , that “costs us nothing””
Uhhh… Frank… I hate to break it to you, but all corporations above a certain size have free insurance.
If GM went under tomorrow, the Government would be forced to bail it out.
Oh, very well Jay:
Like I said. Somebody is stretching the definition of “opportunity cost” to the breaking point. The authors of the report are claiming that Fannie Mae can borrow more cheaply because it’s a government-sponsored institution. Therefore any savings should be considered a “cost” to government.
That’s just absurd. The report even provides a nifty example in a little text box that shows how ridiculous the idea is. If anything, the savings are a cost to investors and lenders. Fannie Mae pays less to investors to borrow money from them.
Yes and I did so from the start. You tried to ignore that word as you attempted to defend Ms. Palin’s entirely wrong notion that Fannie Mae provides “help to homeowners who need it.” Failing to defend the point, you have, as usual, turned to insults.
I was not registering surprise : If the government were to bail out GM — as it did Chrysler — would that not be perceived as “at taxpayer expense”? — as Chrysler’s was (by Democrats, as I recall)?
We were talking about whether or not Gov Palin had characterized the situation appropriately, were we not?
Please stop making every thread about me , lest Oliver blame me for it …
Please remember that it was our congress that approved of this farce many years ago. The reason the federal government had to take over was that they were already guaranting the loans. The only way to control the situation was to step in and take over. The real question is who decided get the federal government involved in providing mortages in the first place.
Yes, please, let’s repeal the fucking New Deal.
Assholes.
“Sarah Palin Doesn’t Understand Economics”
But it looks like Obama does.
The economics of campaign contributions, at least. Third highest recipient (right behind Kerry and before Hillary) of contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Yes, Obama is going to reform this financial trainwreck… just as soon as their last check clears.