Jim Cramer's Best Blogs

Jim Cramer fills his blog on RealMoney every day with his up-to-the-minute reactions to what's happening in the market and his legendary ahead-of-the-crowd ideas. This week he blogged on:

• oil's decline,
• the misleading inflation headlines, and
• Fannie and Freddie as martyrs.

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Amateur Hour Drags On

Originally published on Tuesday, Aug. 19, at 8:58 a.m. EDT

Who leaked? Who told Barron's that there is a plan to take over Fannie (FNM Quote) and Freddie (FRE Quote), and then who leaked yesterday and denied such a plan? Who tolerates this nonsense at Treasury, and who speaks for Treasury? Did the SEC not know that the short-selling suspension coupled with a "bad article" about Fannie and Freddie could undo months of "they are well-capitalized" rhetoric from the regulators and the administration? Could the administration be so stupid as to spend thousands of man-hours investigating leaks about Iraq and let this nonsense go on, thus destroying billions upon billions in capital? Does anyone really know what they are doing here?

The Treasury-SEC amateur hour is a wondrous thing to behold. I am not excusing Fannie and Freddie: They are worthless. That's clear from the bad loans they made. However, they could be a superior dumping ground, a genuine Resolution Mortgage Trust, if the administration would just think this through and realize that there has to be a place for the FDIC to dump bad mortgages when they seize a bank. Otherwise, they will be running dozens of regional banks and using up capital at a reckless clip.