Letter: Fannie, Freddie ills coming to light
Former Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd (R) testifes along with former Freddie Mac CEO Richard Syron before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee during a hearing on "The Role of Fannie and Freddie Mac in the Financial Crisis" on Capitol Hill December 9, 2008 in Washington, DC. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued former Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd and former Freddie Mac CEO Richard Syron December 16, 2011 for understating the subprime loans held by the agencies by hundreds of billions of dollars. Credit: Getty Images
True to form, Freddie Mac's former chairman, Richard Syron, and Fannie Mae's former chief executive, Daniel Mudd, have reverted to legalese to squirm out of their involvement in the housing collapse ["Ex-Fannie CEO to take leave," Business, Dec. 22].
In an attempt to absolve his client, Mudd's attorney said the government reviewed and approved all the company's claims. If this indeed is the case, then the government officials who "reviewed and approved" any obviously flawed plans should also be brought up on charges.
Styron's defense that the term "subprime" had no uniform definition at the time is as insulting as it is arrogant. Subprime means bad in anyone's dictionary, and the chief executive of a large business should know it.
To any moderately informed individual, the wheeling and dealing that brought our nation to the brink of disaster has become blatantly obvious. The unholy alliance between big business and politics thrives because they operate in the dark. It is time to shine the light and clean house.
Keep Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in the headlines, along with the Corzines and Madoffs, and maybe the Occupy Wall Street sites can return to normal.
Robert Capraro, Oakland Gardens
