Awaiting anguished cries from Libertarians

ZOMG!!eleven the GUMMINT wants to INTERFERE in the sacred Agora:

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones) -- The crisis in the mortgage market has increased the likelihood that the Federal government could intervene in some way to alleviate a credit squeeze.

[snip]

"The chance of government intervention in the marketplace in response to current events has increased significantly," said Andy Chow, portfolio manager at SCM Advisors LLC, a $14 billion San Francisco-based investment firm specializing in fixed-income and structured-finance markets.

Once again, the inevitable principle of "Msilaicos" - privatize profits, socialize losses. Go ahead, take risks - you can always rely on the taxpayers to bail you out if things go wrong (they HAVE TO, otherwise the economy might collapse!), AND you don't have to share your windfall with the proles if they don't! Win-win! Whee!

"Congress is very focused on this issue," Doug Duvall, a spokesman at Freddie Mac, said. "There's a squeeze in the market right now and lenders are tightening their standards. But having a little more prudent underwriting isn't a bad thing. It's important to keep people in their homes and to make sure they buy homes they can afford."

How unfortunate then that those people whose homes are now threatened were dealing with companies whose job it was to deceive them into buying houses they couldn't afford, by telling them they COULD afford it. Obviously the fault of the house buyers, there.

(kudos to Greg Saunders at This Modern World for the link)