Rating: Not rated
Tags: Economic History, Lang:en
Summary
In 1938, the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
created a small agency called Fannie Mae. Intended to make home
loans more accessible, the agency was born of the Great
Depression and a government desperate to revive housing
construction. It was a minor detail of the New Deal, barely
recorded by the newspapers of the day. Over the next seventy
years, Fannie Mae evolved into one of the largest financial
companies in the world, owned by private shareholders but with
its nearly $1 trillion of debt effectively guaranteed by the
government. Almost from the beginning, critics repeatedly
warned that Fannie was an accident waiting to happen. Then, in
2008, the housing market collapsed. Amid a wave of
foreclosures, the company's capital began to run out, and the
U.S. Treasury seized control. From the New Deal to the
administration of President Obama, author James R. Hagerty
explains this fascinating but little-understood saga. Based on
his reporting for the Wall Street Journal, personal research
and interviews with executives, regulators and congressional
leaders, Hagerty charts the course of Fannie Mae. With The
Fateful History of Fannie Mae, he explains the politics,
economics and human frailties behind seven decades of missed
opportunities to prevent a financial disaster. **