Gary Gordon Great Quotations

These are up-and-coming acts from the greater St. Louis area.

It's hard to imagine that there will be a move towards yanking that guarantee, or weakening the implied guarantee, because it just makes too much sense for the average U.S. citizen. Their benefit is they save money on the mortgage rate because of Fannie and Freddie's status, but bear the risk of either or both of these businesses going bankrupt. The odds of that are so small that the benefit, in my view, greatly outweighs the cost, and it's hard to see Congress changing that story. And Fannie and Freddie's debt is the really the cheapest form of debt outside of Treasury debt.

A big spending driver over the past two years -- about $400 billion this year -- has been homeowners taking cash out of their homes, with the great bulk of it spent.