Last Thursday, while on a tour of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, my son and I met and chatted with Rick Santelli, who many know as CNBC’s financial futures reporter at the CME (CBOT). I mention this because when I told him that I was there to speak at a Fannie Mae regional meeting, he launched into a dissertation about how better off the mortgage industry would be if the government ended all of its involvement, specifically supporting the agencies. He feels very strongly about this, and certainly has a media audience. Businessman Steve Forbes, who also has great access to the media, agrees – he is pushing for a complete and immediate severance of all the government’s ties to the GSE’s . (I guess that would turn them from “GSE’s” to plain “Mortgage Enterprise’s”?) Forbes believes that a sharp…(read more)