Subject: Re: Huge GSE IPO - messy factors

The government brought the GSEs into conservatorship in 2008. The shareholders were wiped out but the government made the bondholders whole.

And that is what leads me to think, if the haggis really hit the fan, the US would not default on it's bonds. Almost everything else would be expendable, but the bond holders will be protected. We have seen this play out several times in Michigan: city residents poised with bad water, that they were still required to pay for, children cheated out of a good education, all for the care and feeding of bond holders.

Steve