Taxpayers' risk with a burst of the housing bubble

Here's a good column from Friday's Baltimore Sun about the fallout from a possible bust involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- between them, they back more than $4 trillion in mortgages. But by virtue of the implicit federal guarantee backing these mortgage giants, U.S. taxpayers may be one of the largest mortgage lenders in the world. Some have been sounding the alarm from as far back as 2002. Among them is none other than Ron Paul. The column correctly suggests that at this point, Fannie's and Freddie's positions are too precarious to remove the federal guarantee backing their debt. Doing so could lead to more trouble in the housing market and panic in the financial market.