Can you believe it? Sept 7th marks the one year anniversary of the American government’s decision to takeover Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. At that point they owed, or guaranteed almost HALF of the United States’ $12 trillion mortgage market. The bailout nationalised them.

Some commentators said this nationalisation marked the end of American as a capitalist country. But, as I’ve said before, America is a mixed economy and like many other countries it chooses aspects of capitalism, socialism and other economic systems that suit its needs at a particular time in its history.

Both organisations are limping along but it’s unlikely they will remains state assets for very long. Between them the organisations bouy 90% of all loans meaning Uncle Sam is taking on almost all the risk of the housing market.

Not only that but Fannie Mae wants to pay massive bonus payments to executives. In March the WSJ said “Fannie Mae is due to pay retention bonuses of between $470,000 and $611,000 this year to some executives, despite enormous losses at the government backed mortgage company.” Freddie Mac and AIG – another bailed out entity – also planned to pay huge bonuses although they are being propped up by Federal funds.

Some other anniversaries this month include:

Sept 14th – Merrill Lynch sold to Bank of America due to liquity crisis fears.

Sept 15th – Lehman Brothers files for Bankruptcy

Sept 17th marks the one year anniversary of $85 billion loan to AIG from the US Federal Reserve (their Central Bank) The Wall Street Journal reported recently that Hong Kong Tycoon Richard Li has made a deal to purchase AIG’s asset management group for $500 million.

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