The Rise and Fall of Fannie Mae: A Timeline

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in the news a lot this year. For starters, there was the presidential summit in August, to solicit ideas for what to do with the ailing government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs for short). That was followed by midterm-election wrangling over whether to replace the struggling mortgage giants with another form of federal insurance or kill them off all together, effectively getting the feds out of the business of guaranteeing mortgages.

Fannie and Freddie's fate could be sealed as early as January 2011, when the White House is due to present a comprehensive reform proposal to Congress. In honor of the occasion, we thought we'd take a look back at the history of these once-august institutions.