Back in the summer of 2008, as the financial system teetered on the edge of collapse, no one knew what would happen to the debt-laden mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—would they be allowed to go under, or would the government come to their rescue? What would become of the shareholders? Trillions rested on the answers to those questions. Oh wait, someone did know. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. And he told his hedge fund pals and former Goldman Sachs colleagues. He just didn't tell you. Because, really—who the fuck are you?

The suicide last month of acting Freddie Mac chief financial officer David Kellerman apparently sparked an obstruction of justice investigation by the Troubled Asset Relief Program's special inspector general, Gawker has learned.

• Who said the good times are over? On the list of the 10 highest-paid CEOs of 2008: Vikram Pandit, Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, and Ken Chenault. [AP]
• Bank of America's board continues to stand by CEO Ken Lewis and has no plans to oust him, says "a person familiar with the deliberations." [WSJ]
• Citigroup is raising some desperately needed cash by selling off its Japanese brokerage and investment units for $5.56 billion. [DB]

David Kellerman, the Freddie Mac CFO who committed suicide this week, was told by HR to take some time off from work, shortly before he killed himself. The "job stress" scenario looks ever more likely.

The media's had a good half day now to find out more about David Kellerman, the Freddie Mac CFO who committed suicide early this morning. He hung himself. The "job stress" scenario is looking plausible:

David Kellermann, the acting CFO of Freddie Mac who was found dead in his home this morning, hanged himself, according to police. "Some neighbors said Mr. Kellermann had lost a noticeable amount of weight under the strain of the job, and some said they had suggested that he should quit to avoid the stress." Kellermann reportedly hired a security firm to stand watch outside his home after reporters turned up at his front door to ask about his bonus. Hope you're happy, Charles Grassley. [NYT, WSJ]

David Kellerman, the chief financial officer of money-bleeding mortgage firm Freddie Mac, was found dead in his Virginia home this morning. He'd apparently committed suicide. The financial crisis would be one obvious possible motive.

• Morgan Stanley reported a larger-than-expected loss for the first quarter this morning. The bank reported it lost $177 million, down from the $1.41 billion profit it collected during the same period in 2008. [WSJ, NYT, BN]
• David Kellermann, the chief financial officer of Freddie Mac, was found dead in his Virginia home, the result of an apparent suicide. [WaPo, BN]
• Things have gone from bad to worse for Steve Rattner: New York City's comptroller is investigating whether Quadrangle "intentionally misled or deceived" city pension funds by failing to disclose finder's fees. [WSJ]

One of the oddest side effects of the credit crunch, which most recently brought about the nationalization of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Salesforce.com shares are soaring. Fannie and Freddie's fall hasn't boosted Salesforce's business. But Freddie Mac has been taken off the S&P 500 stock index, which made room for Salesforce.com. Index-tracking funds which are required to match its makeup have been buying Salesforce.com as a result.

• A battered Lehman Brothers plans to spin off the majority of its real estate investments into a new company and sell more than half its interest in its investment management division. The bank also predicted a third-quarter loss of $3.9 billion. [WSJ, Dealbook]

• Investors generally reacted positively yesterday to the news of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout. [WSJ]

Hey, can you even blame all the stupid people saying stupid things about today's Freddie Mac Fannie Mae bailout? This whole thing has been stupid ever since someone decided to call it the Federal National Mortgage Association. Who names something "Federal National?" Anyway, the good news is, no one understood any of this shit back in 1968 when they "privatized" it, and no one — us especially! — seems to really understand it now. We keep LOL-ing at stupid things people say about the biggest-ever government bailout only to reflect a while longer and start to the secret genius of all of it! Let us count the ways:1. "[Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have] gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers." Thanks for sharing, Elle Woods Palin! But ha ha ha, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are supposed to be private companies that have nothing to do with the taxpayers who are only now going to find out how "big" and "expensive" their woeful mismanagement is! Of course, in seizing upon this "gaffe" as Democrats did today they kinda missed the whole supposed reason the bailout was "necessary" to begin with, which is to say, that the government exists to protect the plutocracy but also that taxpayers have essentially "implicitly" guaranteed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds throughout their entire 80-year existences. When the Federal government first announced plans to "privatize" Fannie Mae to help balance the budget in January 1968, an economics reporter at the New York Times named Edwin Dale wrote that the whole thing was a budget "gimmick." By September 1968, Lyndon Johnson aides had appropriated the "gimmick" term themselves, in an Edwin Dale story that employed more smug quotation marks than a Tao Lin prospectus:

• The seizure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the federal government over the weekend has sent global stocks up sharply this morning. [Bloomberg]
  

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, lenders created at the whim of evil government in the 1930s and 1970s respectively, have been brought back under national supervision in the wake of the country's mortgage crisis. The two institutions simply weren't "capitalized" enough to weather the sub-prime storm, and whatever government regulations were left failed like levees under a flow tide of bad debt. And while it will help stabilize the mortgage market, it won't necessarily help people who have sky-high payments and underwater equity. Ever resourceful, Americans in areas hard hit by foreclosure are playing home ownership musical chairs with the banks. All I understand about economics is that I feel poor. So does this mean Bay Area housing will get more affordable?No. While exurban exiles will feel the pinch on payments and at the pump, denser inner-urban communities will probably see rents increase as desperate homeowners look to cut costs and find job opportunities. And it's not like you can expect affordable housing in the likes of Belmont and Saddle River, Ross or Sag Harbor, Piedmont or Greenwich. As bad as renting is long-term for your retirement and rent control may be for their housing markets, apartment dwellers with fixed costs are the least likely to move back in with parents right now.

• Obama now has a running mate. But now Joe Biden's son and brother are in the news over a hedge fund that went sour. [WaPo, Dealbook]

• Lehman Brothers' Dick Fuld was near a deal to raise $5 billion from South Korean investors, but negotiations broke down earlier this month. [NYP]

• Dan Och's Och-Ziff reported a net loss during the second quarter; the stock has been cut in half since its IPO last year. [Reuters, NYP]

• House and Senate leaders have sorted out an arrangement to prop up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. [WSJ]

• Merrill Lynch's $4.65 billion second-quarter loss was almost twice what analysts had predicted; the firm also wrote down an additional $9.5 billion in connection with subprime losses. [Bloomberg]

• Did Goldman Sachs have a hand in the downfall of Bear Stearns? London-based traders at the firm are now under investigation for spreading negative rumors [WSJ]