JuanGalt, should I be surprised to see you posting about this?
Freddie Mac isn't really actively causing a homeowner to default. They're insuring against it with other investments and profiting if they do, to offset against loss.
Now should Fannie and Freddie exist? Of course not. Look at the mess they've cost us. (And why should their executives get big bonuses when there are thousands of out-of-work executives who could do the SAME THING for far less money? Heck, government bureaucrats are in charge of tens of thousands of employees and oversee hundred-billion-dollar budgets, and you don't see them each making millions per year.)
But hedging or insuring against loss? You might as well tell a farmer who grows crops not to make a hedge bet against the price of corn, or a person who owns a stock not to sell options on that same stock..
Poet
LOL, you can't even make this stuff up. Yet another example of reality being more bizarre than fiction.
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/30/145995636/freddie-mac-betting-against-struggling-homeowners
By the way, Newt Gingrich was a big-time lobbiest for these crooks no matter how he tries to spin it!
JG