Treasury makes $25B profit on mortgages

(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON — The U.S. Treasury Department has sold off the final portion of $225 billion in mortgage-backed securities it purchased during the height of the financial crisis.

Treasury said Monday that the sales of securities issued primarily by troubled mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have netted the government $25 billion in interest. The government began selling its securities one year ago. The final sales were completed last week.

Fed fines 8 banks for alleged foreclosure abuses
U.S. homebuilder outlook near 4-year high
Housing bottom: Are we there yet?

"The successful sale of these securities marks another important milestone in the wind down of the government's emergency financial crisis efforts," said Mary Miller, Treasury's assistant secretary for financial markets.

Even with the sales, the government still has heavy losses from the rescue of the two mortgage giants in September 2008.

Taxpayers have spent more than $150 billion to rescue Fannie and Freddie, the most expensive bailout of the 2008 financial crisis. It could cost nearly $200 billion more to support the companies through 2014 after subtracting dividend payments, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the government regulator that oversees Fannie and Freddie.

[VictorAshesLoveChild]

@CHEVYHOTROD
Every time you see a new Corvette go by, do you wave and say, "THANKS, BARACK! And BTW, thanks, George, for kicking off the GM rescues DESPITE THE DOGGED OPPOSITION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY?"

Thought you would. We'd all hate to see the corporate HQ for GM in Shanghai, now, wouldn't we?

Stinking hypocrite.

[jtdev1]

Does anyone have a total of the interest the US is paying on borrowing this 225 billion in the first place?

Did the US ever pay off the borrowed money??

[VictorAshesLoveChild]

Who cares? Under Obama interest rates are at all-time record LOWS.

[fredisalive]

DumpObama12, get your kleenex ready cause the jokers you have running dont have a winning prayer against Obama! Your 700,000 job loss a month
starting in 2008 finally stopped in 2010 and now Americans are going back to work love it or hate it!

[sandiegopete]

I see the Republican operatives are posting propaganda again. More than any single thing the Republican deregulation of the mortgage market led to the financial crisis of 2008. In 2003 Bush appointee George Gilleran, the director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, appeared at a press conference with a chain saw and copie of the Federal Register containing the regulations he swore to enforce. After that banks started issuing the toxic mortgages that led to the financial crisis.

It is simply astounding that anyone would believe the flat out lie that some action by anybody in government in 2007 resulted in the financial crisis of 2008. The foreclosures started in 2007. The loans that failed were written before 2007.

[notyrants]

Nobletruth March 19, 2012 6:01 PM EDT
So the Dems in Congress in 2007 refused to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack causing the economic disaster then blamed Bush for it.
-------------

Unscrupulously lacking integrity or just plain bat sh&*t crazy? The Cons and the libertarians have been railing against government intrusion and regulation since Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of the right wing fascist movement said government is the problem not the solution.