Big Bailouts: Freddie Mac And Fannie Mae, Offshore Drilling, 150 Banks Could Fail

***UPDATE*** 1:29pm: Bush has lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling.

Today's financial headlines tell a story of a nation in bailout mode. Beyond the oil and mortgage crisis that the government is attempting to act on, The New York Times says analysts are predicting 150 banks might falter in the coming months. Read the excerpts below.

Bush to lift executive ban on offshore drilling:

In another push to deal with soaring gas prices, President Bush on Monday will lift an executive ban on offshore drilling that his stood since his father was president. But the move, by itself, will do nothing unless Congress acts as well.

The president plans to officially lift the ban and then explain his actions in a Rose Garden statement, White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

Fed's Plans To Bail Out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

Scrambling to bolster eroding investor confidence, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department announced unprecedented steps to brace slumping mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The companies' shares, which have plunged as losses from their mortgage holdings threatened their financial survival, opened higher Monday. Fannie Mae rose 27 cents to $10.53, while Freddie Mac climbed 34 cents to $8.08.

NY Times Reports Analysts Say More Banks Will Fail:

As home prices continue to decline and loan defaults mount, federal regulators are bracing for dozens of American banks to fail over the next year.

But after a large mortgage lender in California collapsed late Friday, Wall Street analysts began posing two crucial questions: Just how many banks might falter? And, more urgently, which one could be next?

Comments

[moreupnorth]

08:09 AM on 07/15/2008

Remember when you were told "There is no need for governemnt intervention or regulation. The market will self correct!" Well here is the market trying to self correct except those who would have you believe in that are now "interferering and regulating" because the self correcting free market is trashing an entire economy.

[MarkInEugene]

11:08 PM on 07/16/2008

Absolutely spot on! The hypocricy and hubris is just overwhelming in this Administration.

[McPander]

05:58 AM on 07/15/2008

I love how everybody blames Bush for these issues. What we are seeing is the chickens from the Clinton era coming home to roost.

[MarkInEugene]

11:06 PM on 07/16/2008

That's right after 8 years of Republican domination of all three branches of government, blame Clinton for your failures. You make me puke!

[drd1044]

12:39 AM on 07/15/2008

Every time I get angry about the vitriol on this and similar sites, I think that some like me are in a state of rage and despair about what our government and the people who supported them have done to this country and the planet. Reagan's shining city upon the hill is the bonfire of the vanities.

[mx711]

12:19 AM on 07/15/2008

If these companies can't stand alone then all the billions of our dollars that the government dumps into them will only delay the fall. The free market will fluctuate on it's own, government involvement only increases the dips and gives us unrealistic highs. A more consistent economy is a healthier economy.

[MarkInEugene]

10:24 PM on 07/14/2008

Along with opening up our waters to offshore drilling, do you think dubya might consider doing something about that $750 million dollars a day we're pissing away in Iraq? Can you imagine what a months worth of that cash could do to help with the foreclosure crisis. And while he's at it, it would be nice if did something about the free fall of the US dollar.

Hope all you die hard Bush voters are happy! But next time consider voting in your own interest instead of the interest of billionaires and oil barrons.

[truthynesslover]

11:09 PM on 07/14/2008

Hey their saving the unborn and keeping gays from marrying!!

[Insideout143]

09:36 PM on 07/14/2008

We're all supposed to be worried about terrorism, meanwhile the country is killing itself....

[caldarone]

09:31 PM on 07/14/2008

All I got to say to all those people who scream DO NOT RAISE MY TAXES.. How in the hell do you think these bail out, this deficit and these wars going to get paid for??? TAXES WILL BE RAISED NO MATTER WHO GETS IN OFFICE.. McCain is a barefaced liar, he going to RAISE everybody's taxes as Obama not going to raise taxes of the middle class just the top 2%.. so you need to think about which one you want, to me the choice is simple.

[jerrypenguin]

09:24 PM on 07/14/2008

How I long of the old days when the banking industry catastrophe creating CEO's and execs would walk away with a mere thirty of forty million.

[totaldisbelief]

09:18 PM on 07/14/2008

HOLD IT>>>>STOP !!! the printing presses at the Mint are reaching thermal overload...she's gonna blow!!

[research]

07:48 PM on 07/14/2008

Common conservatives,

Where is your outrage at this Corporate Welfare?

...Crickets...

[danoj]

09:39 PM on 07/14/2008

As a conservative I am completely outraged. Government should not bail out the lenders or those who borrowed the money. Taxpayers should not be punished because some lenders gave loans to people they should not have, and should not bail out companies that gave said loans. The market will take care of all of them if washington got there filthy hands out of it.

[truthynesslover]

11:08 PM on 07/14/2008

And you learned what from the savings and loan scandel?

[Jrtrollspaceman]

07:40 PM on 07/14/2008

'The immediate cause of the closing was a deposit run that began and continued after the public release of a June 26 letter to the OTS and the FDIC from Senator Charles [Chuck-U] Schumer of New York. The letter expressed concerns about IndyMac's viability. In the following 11 business days, depositors withdrew more than $1.3 billion from their accounts,'" all because Charles Chuck-U Schumer was following the game plan of the Democrat Party and the American left today in trying to convince the American people their country isn't worth a sack.

[watchingthings]

07:24 PM on 07/14/2008

These institutions have shown that the people [government] need to monitor all financial institutions of their country. As in the twenties....these institutions have robbed America bind. Now they wany the public to bail them out so it can be business as usual again.

[VolvoBirkenstock]

07:22 PM on 07/14/2008

Successful oilman T Boone Pickens says we can't drill our way out of this.

Failed oilman W, and his sycophants here, say we can.

Whom to believe...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2bOug1d20c

[research]

07:39 PM on 07/14/2008

Pickens is right, and he wants to corner the market.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research

[BOBONDE]

07:23 PM on 07/14/2008

START PULLING OUT YOUR MONEY FOLKS, GOP DEPRESSION #2 IS COMING!

[3arthling]

07:25 PM on 07/14/2008

Sounds like somebody has short position to cover.

[danoj]

10:02 PM on 07/14/2008

What are you all going to do at this time next year when things are even worse, and there is no Bush or a Repub congress to blam for everything under the sun. Guess you are all going to have to carry water for Obama.

[andvoodoo2]

12:03 PM on 07/15/2008

It's good to see you have decided to accept the inevitable - that the repug's days in the WH are numbered!

[MadAppraiser]

07:04 PM on 07/14/2008

What Bernanke and Paulson fail to divulge to American citizens is that while they attempt to mask institutional corporate greed, America is being sold to foreign investors. While America sleeps on the weekend from partying, early in the morning foreign investors in bus caravans survey American cities deciding which real estate they are going to purchase! Surprise, Surprise! These business redevelopment projects often result in businesses with foreign names unknown to American citizens.

America was asleep while corporate America labored through the nights, and the weekends developing strategies to successfully implement the sub prime mortgage carnage! I have seen, and been economically emasculated by corporate American banking in terms of real estate appraising. I personally know the mindset of corporate American banking! I do not need some elite economist, corporate executive, or real estate guru to lie to me concerning future American economic strategies! These economic theorist cannot tell me sh$t! American citizens are experiencing authentic economic scenarios at the gas station, and grocery store. America must awaken from the deep sleep it is in before it is too late! You are dealing with real evil!

[3arthling]

07:24 PM on 07/14/2008

I'm as worried as you are. Nonetheless, it pays to remember back in 1985 when everyone was terrified that Japan would buy the whole country.

That said, the economic disaster afoot is every bit as bad - and more - than even the worst scenarios the MSM will let you hear and the people running the show haven't the smallest clue what they're doing.