If you’re like me, you could give two flips about the US takeover of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac — especially when it happens on the same night as the season premier of Entourage.
Nevertheless, your enemies in the finance and marketing departments are gonna talk about the subprime mortgage crisis and the institutional bailouts as if they are smarter and more informed than you are…
…and we can’t let that happen.
- You can hit The Wikipedias to find out more about Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac.
- USA Today has a good FAQ on Fannie & Freddie — and it’s written for normal people who don’t like jargon.
- Finally, I give you the Subprime Mortgage Crisis for Dummies (in powerpoint, no less). There are stick figures just like xkcd.
Michael VanDervort over at Human Race Horses will happily explain this mess to you in 100 words or less, too, if you don’t feel like deconstructing the really tough USA Today FAQ.
My advice? Get up to speed on the Fannie & Freddie debacle, HR peeps, so you can school the chumps in your company and impress the heck out of your bosses and peers.
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- Under the terms of his employment contract, Daniel H. Mudd, the departing head of Fannie Mae, stands to collect $9.3 million in severance pay, retirement benefits and deferred compensation, provided his dismissal is deemed to be
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I don’t need to read anything on this topic to know all of the problems started when they named the companies. Could they have sounded more like a 1920’s neighborhood kid that always got picked last for baseball?
How come no one has comments on Freddie Mac? Honestly, I thought someone would say, “Wait? I thought Bernie Mac was dead? The government owns him, now?”
1. Thank you for the links. I know nothing about Mr. Mac and Ms. Mae. They sound like the names of the elderly couple that live down the street.
2. Golden parachute = FAIL FAIL FAIL. These executives should get nothing or at least next to nothing. This really chaps my hide. Stoopid employment contracts!
WTF? How is my avatar a flower now?
Fannie Mae is the other primary tenant in my office building. There’s a more subdued atmosphere than usual around here. Bet the building management is nervous, as we’re moving out and Fannie Mae may be cutting back.
I recently read Jim Collins’s “Good To Great”, which used Fannie Mae as an example of a “great” company. Oops.