The Road to Financial Hell

UNTIL very recently, an economist who wrote an op-ed about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would get only yawns for his trouble-typically from editors saying, No thanks. But in mid-September, economist Kevin Hassett (an NR contributor) got 1,500 e-mails, most of them nasty, in response to his Bloomberg News column on the subject.

Hassett wrote that these “government-sponsored enterprises,” to use the term of art, are at the heart of the financial crisis. “The economic history books will describe this episode in simple and understandable terms: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exploded, and many bystanders were injured in the blast, some fatally.” He added that these enterprises were able to explode only because Democrats had, in 2005, blocked reformers such as John McCain from defusing them.

About the Author

Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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UNTIL very recently, an economist who wrote an op-ed about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would get only yawns for his trouble-typically from editors saying, No thanks. But in mid-September, economist Kevin Hassett (an NR contributor) got 1,500 e-mails, most of them nasty, in response to his Bloomberg News column on the subject.

Hassett wrote that these “government-sponsored enterprises,” to use the term of art, are at the heart of the financial crisis. “The economic history books will describe this episode in simple and understandable terms: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exploded, and many bystanders were injured in the blast, some fatally.” He added that these enterprises were able to explode only because Democrats had, in 2005, blocked reformers such as John McCain from defusing them.