YUP, FANNIE & FREDDIE WERE BIT PLAYERS

No matter what the radio gasbags say, these two semi-government agencies were not among the main causes of the Housing Bubble:

Financial Crisis: The Greatest Hits
By Morgan Housel
January 28, 2011
The Motley Fool

On Fannie and Freddie acting better than the private market: While they generated substantial losses, delinquency rates for GSE loans were substantially lower than loans securitized by other financial firms. For example, data compiled by the commission for a subset of borrowers with similar credit scores -- scores below 660 -- show that by the end of 2008, GSE mortgages were far less likely to be seriously delinquent than were non-GSE securitized mortgages: 6.2% versus 28.3%.