Fannie and Freddie aren’t typical public companies. Overall, the tab for this governmental failure is closer to $150 billion when you count in fines for executives, fines for the two organizations, accounting restatements, stock losses and bailout. “here is an outside chance the companies could call upon Treasury for more than $100 billion,” the paper reported before the bailout was approved.Įven that is just the beginning. And The Washington Post estimates that $25-billion bailout tab could go much higher. That works out to $114 million short – per day. And though other print outlets followed the Journal, the network news shows waited until a bailout was a foregone conclusion to do much reporting.Ī day late and a dollar short? Try more than 2,000 days. Most of Washington had their hands too deep in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac piggy banks to work on the problem.
But when The Wall Street Journal compared Fannie Mae to Enron in February, 2002, no one wanted to listen. In most cases, six years is ample warning. That’s how long it took for the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac crisis to grow from warning sign to $25-billion bailout.