Tag: Freddie Mac

Anyone Remember the GOP Meme on the Wall Street Crisis?

You know the one – that the financial crisis was the fault of poor people and the Democrats because they pushed affordable housing and protected Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from being regulated because of all the money they gave Democrats?

When the election is said and done such sheer idiocy (especially on part of non thinking ditto heads) may well be the epitaph on the grave stone of McCain and his loyal supporters on the fringe right. Pot meet kettle:

Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse. Continue reading “Anyone Remember the GOP Meme on the Wall Street Crisis?”

Wall Street Meets Lameuse Street

The Peoples Bank has announced the size of their Freddie write-off. The writeoff is small compared to the bank’s size and will not hurt them badly but the news has traveled this coast faster than the Gustav Jim Cantore rumor.

Here is the PR newswire press release courtesy of Yahoo Finance:

Peoples Financial Corporation (the “Company”) (Nasdaq: PFBX – News), parent of The Peoples Bank, today announced that it expects to record asset impairment losses as of September 30, 2008. These losses relate to a non-cash other-than-temporary impairment charge on its investment in Federal Home Loan Mortgage Company (“FHLMC”, or “Freddie Mac”) preferred shares and to a non-cash charge to provide for potential losses on loans. Continue reading “Wall Street Meets Lameuse Street”

Oops, cats out of the bag – Swiss Re & Munich Re holding chunk of Freddie/Fannie

Raise your hand if you’re surprised! I caught wind of the official announcement on our link to Sam Friedman’s blog.

European reinsurers in total have billions of dollars invested in the troubled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage finance companies, according to a study by Highline Data.

Highline–a unit of Summit Business Media, the parent of National Underwriter–reported that Munich Re Group, as of the first quarter, had combined Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac investments of some $4.9 billion, representing 27.5 percent of the carrier’s bond holdings.

Highline also noted that PartnerRe Group, with European headquarters in Dublin, has Fannie/Freddie investments of $911 million.

According to Highline, Zurich-based Swiss Re had combined Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac holdings of some $255 million, which represented 18.9 percent of the carrier’s total bond investments.

Swiss Re, after disclosing its involvement with the two lenders, saw its stock drop today by 2.3 percent in Zurich trading.

There was no “unofficial announcement” just an educated guess that some of those “cats” I’ve been writing about were “house cats” in a manner of speaking. Continue reading “Oops, cats out of the bag – Swiss Re & Munich Re holding chunk of Freddie/Fannie”