Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Arbitrary Assignations
So, like most good Americans, I have been keeping track of the financial news as of late. Unlike most good Americans, I am a consumate partaker of the news at all times. My day is not complete if I have not spent hours browsing through the Washington Post, Yahoo! News, and the BBC news wires.
Either way, two names have been popping up in the news a lot lately, and neither one is a personal name for any one individual. These two names are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I never really thought much about them before. I knew of them only in the vaguest of terms. Recently I have come to realise that these two behemoths of the housing industry have essentially controlled mortgages and house values for the nation. (I exaggerate, I know, but surely you get the point.)
What I did not know until just today is that these are actually acronymic names, along the lines of laser, radar, scuba, or, perhaps more appropriately, "nickel bee" (the name given by some for No Child Left Behind - NCLB). Fannie Mac actually kind of makes sense. It comes from the Federal National Mortgage Association, also known as FNMA. I can see how some lazy bureaucrat or bored banker looked at FN MA and said "Fn... Ma... Fan Ma... Fannie Ma... Fannie Mae!" However, I cannot for the life of me figure out exactly how Freddie Mac came about. It was originally known as the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, or FHLMC. So I can understand the Mac part (MC). But FHL? How does one come up with Freddie from that?
I'm sure that if you were to ask any investment banker type, they'd tell you it has to do with the company's listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). But here's the kicker: look up any company on the NYSE, and you're bound to find a listing that, well, makes sense. Point in case: Archer Daniels Midland Co. is oh-so-cleverly listed as "ADM". The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, on the other hand, is listed as "FRE". And thus we have FRE MC, which somehow, probably due, in part, to Fannie Mae, became known as Freddie Mac.
Anyone care to explain why the NYSE decided to list FHLMC as "FRE" instead of "FHL" or "FHM"? ("FMC" was taken in 1948, forty years before FHLMC came into existence.)
Either way, two names have been popping up in the news a lot lately, and neither one is a personal name for any one individual. These two names are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I never really thought much about them before. I knew of them only in the vaguest of terms. Recently I have come to realise that these two behemoths of the housing industry have essentially controlled mortgages and house values for the nation. (I exaggerate, I know, but surely you get the point.)
What I did not know until just today is that these are actually acronymic names, along the lines of laser, radar, scuba, or, perhaps more appropriately, "nickel bee" (the name given by some for No Child Left Behind - NCLB). Fannie Mac actually kind of makes sense. It comes from the Federal National Mortgage Association, also known as FNMA. I can see how some lazy bureaucrat or bored banker looked at FN MA and said "Fn... Ma... Fan Ma... Fannie Ma... Fannie Mae!" However, I cannot for the life of me figure out exactly how Freddie Mac came about. It was originally known as the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, or FHLMC. So I can understand the Mac part (MC). But FHL? How does one come up with Freddie from that?
I'm sure that if you were to ask any investment banker type, they'd tell you it has to do with the company's listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). But here's the kicker: look up any company on the NYSE, and you're bound to find a listing that, well, makes sense. Point in case: Archer Daniels Midland Co. is oh-so-cleverly listed as "ADM". The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, on the other hand, is listed as "FRE". And thus we have FRE MC, which somehow, probably due, in part, to Fannie Mae, became known as Freddie Mac.
Anyone care to explain why the NYSE decided to list FHLMC as "FRE" instead of "FHL" or "FHM"? ("FMC" was taken in 1948, forty years before FHLMC came into existence.)
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Basically the background is centre aligned, but the content itself is positioned on the left. So if your screen is wider the actual text sits on the dark background and you can't read it!
This can be solved by setting the actual content part of the page to align in the centre, like the background does. That way they will always line up the same.