| Much is often made of how shrewd the US has been in bringing its financial system through the crisis relatively smoothly, even turning a profit on its bailouts. While UK taxpayers are still sitting on tens of billions of pounds of losses after rescuing the likes of Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds and Northern Rock, the US Treasury has sold its investments in nearly everything it bailed out, making money for taxpayers into the bargain.
The key exceptions that often escape mention are the US mortgage finance vehicles Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose bailout cost $190bn – dwarfing the £45bn pumped into RBS in the world’s costliest bank rescue...............................................Full Article: Source
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