Leviathan's leviathan takeover (Michael Rozeff)

Michael Rozeff on the costs of the disastrous takeover of Fannie and Freddie:

The costs of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac takeovers will rank right up there with Iraq War and World War II. Taking over these moribund giants and tapping the U.S. taxpayer for the bills is a truly massive financial disaster. It crowns the previous disasters of creating and force-feeding these obese monsters by which the federal government socialized the entire industry of financing home purchases.

The tragedy will now continue indefinitely. These institutions will be funded and expanded in 2009, we are told, by something like $300 billion more! They are supposed then to be wound down starting in 2010. No way. There is no concrete action that lends any credibility to that promise. Expect the opposite, inasmuch as politics are now even more involved than before.

Initial costs of $200 billion are just a start. Expect much higher budget deficits as the sun sets on the American Empire.

The hidden costs of such huge financial drains are huge. They include American lives lost and shortened by money drained into sustaining home building and house prices rather than spent on health. Standards of living will be retarded as the Empire devolves into increasing chaos.