The $5 trillion mess - CNNMoney.com - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created by Congress to help more Americans buy homes. Now their shaky condition threatens the entire housing market. NEW YORK (Fortune) -- They own or guarantee $5 trillion worth of mortgages - nearly half of all the country's outstanding home loan debt - and they're crashing. Big time. If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac go under, it will wreak yet more havoc on an already wrecked housing market - making loans tougher to come by and possibly pushing hundreds of billions of dollars in cost on to U.S. taxpayers. Fannie has fallen 32% this week and 65% since the beginning of the year. Freddie plunged 47% so far this week and is down 75% since January. .................. Investors have lost faith that the companies can operate in their current incarnation without running into major problems.

If investors abandon these companies, what do we learn from this odd Frankenstein of a business model? "Nobody every believed that Fannie and Freddie were truly private and they never should have been," says Whalen. "Now we will all have to pay for a company that has gone astray." http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/11/news/economy/fannie_freddie.fortune/?postversion=2008071110

 

DETROIT, MI (NBC) - There is controversy for John McCain's campaign after one of his top economic advisors called this a "nation of whiners" when it comes to the economy............... http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8659674