Reuters reports that Fed Chair Ben Bernanke met yesterday with Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) chair Richard Syron and told him that Freddie and Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) would get access to the Fed's emergency discount window. (For those who are new to these two companies, the New York Times has a helpful graphic that helps explain them.) This is what he did to the entire investment banking industry earlier this year when Bear Stearns was headed south.

Now that Freddie and Fannie are free-falling, helicopter Ben is preparing to open the discount window to them as well. This means that these two government-sponsored packagers of mortgage-backed securities will get access to taxpayer's capital instead of going through the arduous process of trying to raise capital from private investors.

I wish I could get the Fed to bail me out when I make bad investments. This is what it means to be too big to fail. But since the Fed will not confirm the Reuters report, we will need to wait to see whether this report is true. Freddie was down 3% during regular market hours -- it had been down as much as 50% during the day. Fannie tumbled 26% during regular hours. Its stock had also been sliced in half earlier today.

Continue reading Will Bernanke bail out Fannie and Freddie?

Will Bernanke bail out Fannie and Freddie? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.