A mixed up form of capitalism

From Steven Malanga for Real Clear Markets:

The U.S. has become a purveyor of what might best be described as selectively applied capitalism, in which we urge free markets and growth policies on the rest of the world but increasingly do not practice what we preach. Today, if you were building a country from scratch you would hardly look to the U.S. as a model of how to tax your businesses and residents, how to regulate your financial systems, or how to use markets and incentives to organize and run government most efficiently...

Nothing illustrates how difficult it is to end a government initiative, even when its raison d’etre has long passed, than the persistence of Fannie and Freddie. Several studies have estimated that today what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac give us through their giant borrowing power and implicit government backing (which has recently become explicit) is a reduction in the interest rate on mortgages of about 25 basis points. In other words, the federal government has remained our biggest player in the home mortgage market through these two quasi-public entities for the sake of knocking a quarter of a percentage point off your mortgage.