In September 2008, beset by mounting losses on high-risk mortgages
and mortgage securities, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation
teetered on the brink of insolvency. Fearing that confidence in the
housing market would collapse completely if Freddie Mac and its
competitor Fannie Mae failed, the US government made the difficult
decision to place the two firms into conservatorship, taking
control away from shareholders. Although the taxpayer commitment of
hundreds of billions was meant to stabilize the housing finance
system, Freddie's fall at the start of the financial crisis set off
shockwaves around the world. In Days of Slaughter, Susan Wharton
Gates, a former 19-year Freddie Mac employee and vice president of
public policy, provides a vivid eyewitness account of the competing
economic and political forces that led to massive losses for
shareholders, investors, homeowners-and taxpayers. With a keen eye
to the policy landscape, Gates relates the fateful decisions that
led to Freddie Mac's downfall and desperate rescue. She also
examines today's worrisome headlines about potential future
bailouts, the uneven housing recovery, and stymied congressional
reform efforts. Throughout the book, Gates argues convincingly that
policymakers will be unable to safely reform the massive housing
finance system that currently rests squarely on taxpayer shoulders
without addressing deeper issues of ideology, moral hazard, and
interest group politics. The first book to tell the story of
Freddie Mac from an insider perspective-while casting a prophetic
eye to the future-this first-hand account of housing policies,
complex financial transactions, and the crazy quilt of federal and
state actors involved in the Great Recession is a must-read. A
cautionary tale of failed policies and corporate mismanagement that
compellingly addresses previously unexplored issues of political
ideology, organizational dynamics, and ethics, Days of Slaughter
will appeal to readers everywhere who want a fuller explanation of
what went awry in the US housing market.
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