“It wasn’t until 1968 that Fannie was privatized….The main reason for the change was surprisingly mundane: accounting. At the time, Lyndon Johnson was concerned about the effect of the Vietnam War on the federal budget. Making Fannie Mae private moved its liabilities off the government’s books, even if, as the recent crisis made clear, the U.S. was still responsible for those debts. It was a bit like what Enron did thirty years later, when it used “special-purpose entities” to move liabilities off its balance sheet.” –The New Yorker via Greg Mankiw
Wow, this blog sucks.
Wow. Look how far back you have to go to find a President who was concerned about ANYTHING affecting the federal budget.
I think Charles Hutchinson is just another loony liberal or just someone who does not understand economics and will probably be buying lottery tickets till the day he dies penniless.