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I stumbled across this while doing research on something else, and just find it so amazingly ironic that I decided to share. Think about the mortgage and banking crisis of the past eighteen months, and one of the major players, and then check out this story:

Fannie Mae Opposes Mortgage Legislation

From the New York Times, September 1992:

The Federal National Mortgage Association notified the House Banking Committee today that it opposed a compromise bill to regulate mortgage guarantees.

The point of the legislation was to ensure that as Fannie Mae bought more small and inner-city mortgages, it kept enough capital on hand to cover the increased risk. The legislators were skittish because they and the country had just been through the S&L crash, and didn't want a repeat of that.

But here, folks, is the absolute money quote that made me want to share:

The opposition of the politically powerful company threatens to scuttle the legislation, which has been painstakingly drafted over the last three years by members of Congress who want to insure that Fannie Mae never seeks a Federal bailout the way savings and loan institutions have. Officials at Fannie Mae, a Government-sponsored, publicly traded company that buys and guarantees mortgages, have consistently said that this fear is groundless.

Just to make the point, here's the headline from 17 years later:

Bailout: $15 Billion More to Fannie Mae (and More to Come)

The Treasury Department will pump $15 billion more into Fannie Mae, the company announced last night. That brings Fannie’s total bailout to $59.9 billion; together with its sibling Freddie Mac, the toll has risen to $110.6 billion.

Yeah boy, those pesky House Banking regulations are just too onerous. You don't need to regulate us; after all, we're bankers, right? We know how to manage risk!

It's just too much fun what you can find in the intertubes.