[quote]Anyways, the $13B pales in comparison to the money that we (taxpayers) will lose with Fannie and Freddie. We’ve already lost close to $150 BILLION, and we stand to lose another $160 billion to $1 trillion, according to conservative estimates[/quote]

We (taxpayers) didn’t lose anything with Fannie and Freddie, nor will we. We essentially loaned them $150 billion at 10% interest, because Fannie and Freddie’s officials like to have positive mark-to-market net worth. They sit on that cash and pay us back dividends for the privilege of having it. By the time they are done repaying the loan, we the taxpayers will probably end up making more money from the Frannie deal than from the latest GOP proposed budget cuts.

[quote]which resulted in cheap money flowing into mortgage brokers and subprime borrowers, inflating house prices to ridiculous levels.[/quote]

You have a logic gap here. Money flowing into mortgage brokers and subprime borrowers was not going into bonds with even a shred of implicit government guarantee.