Can Fannie and Freddie fix the mortgage crisis?

The once-derided housing agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are being feted as potential saviours of the mortgage market after the authorities relaxed the laws limiting the amount of mortgage debt the agencies can hold. Simon Boughey reports

Rudyard Kipling, the poet of Britain's high imperial age, once wrote of the hypocrisy of a country that often spurned its soldiers, or Tommies, in times of peace and then embraced them when there was a war to fight and win. He said:

"Oh, it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Tommy go away; But it's 'Thank you Mr Atkins,' when the band begins to play"

Management at the two government-sponsored