Alex J. Pollock

Fannie and Freddie's profits depend on having their obligations backed by the U.S. Treasury. Therefore they should have to pay a sensible price for this backstop — just like big banks.

Anywhere in the world, if you had $55 billion in capital, and then lost $55 billion, your capital would be zero. But under the Fed’s own special accounting rule, if it lost $55 billion, its capital would still be $55 billion.

One of the most important government actions affecting the farmland bubble goes back to before it was inflated.

Last year's repeal of the final remaining vestige of Regulation Q, the prohibition of payment of interest on business demand deposits, at long last completed a pro-competitive process which began with the Monetary Control Act of 1980. The repeal was and is a good idea.

"Out of the river there came up seven cows, sleek and fat, and they grazed among the reeds. After them, seven other cows, ugly and gaunt, came up out of the Nile...And the cows that were ugly and gaunt ate up the seven sleek, fat cows." - Genesis 41

The Mystery of Banking The bank has ten billion this year, But the money is simply not Here--

What thoughts should guide ongoing Congressional consideration on housing finance? Let's start with this one: "It is increasingly clear that the Fed and the U.S. government's entwinement with the housing market is one of the greatest economic distortions on earth" (as the Lex Column of the Financial Times wrote).

National Mortgage News (December 19) asks, “Can Regulators Prevent the Next Systemic Risk Crisis?” Probably not.