Freddie and Fannie
Here is an interesting article I saw this morning.  Both Freddie and Fannie are fun political whipping boys, but this paragraph underscores their importance to the housing market:

More important, shutting down Fannie and Freddie and having the private market step in, as politically popular a sound-bite as that may be, is economically unfeasible. For better or worse, Fannie, Freddie and Ginnie Mae were behind 98 percent of all mortgages in this country so far this year, according to the Mortgage Service News. Pulling the rug out from under them would be pulling the rug from under the entire housing market as it continues to struggle.

I think we're stuck with these two firms, in some form, for the near term, unless everyone is ready for a huge drop in housing prices due to lack of financing.  PIMCO's Bill Gross had some provocative comments on Freddie and Fannie this morning that I need to read.