Very interesting stuff, pdq. You can't go halfway on something. It either has to be genuinely government run and guaranteed...or it has to be privately run and face the rigors and risks involved, seems to me...but not poised vaguely somewhere in the nebulous middle ground between the two.

"the Johnson administration decided to privatize Fannie — not for any free-market reason, but because the federal government's debt was rising fast, and the administration realized it could make the government's accounts look better by moving Fannie Mae's obligations off the books."

Right on!!! That is exactly what a long series of governments...both liberal and conservative...have been doing in Canada now for at least 2 decades. They have been privatizing government-run businesses and public services...not to improve those services...not to reduce costs...not to give the public a better deal...but simply to make the government's accounts look better by taking an obligation off the books!

In other words, they've been ducking their real responsibilities for a quick cash windfall. The normal result of this has been: much higher prices for the services that have been privatized, and no improvement in those services whatsoever. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives do it. The Conservatives are much prouder of themselves for doing it... ;-) ...but they both do it just the same.

And they pretend to be "public servants"! ;-)