I have to disagree with my colleague Steve Taub on this, not because my heart bleeds for jobless, underwater homeowners, but to keep foreclosures from driving home prices ever downward.

Here's the thing: What is the "natural" price that Steve wants the market to find?

The recently enacted financial reform bill addresses most aspects of the financial services industry. But there are still two major areas which still need the attention of lawmakers--government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) and covered bonds. 

Of the two, the most needed reform is that of GSEs, as Hank Paulson brought up in an op-ed to the Washington Post last week. 

More woes for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The government agency that oversees them has ordered to two mortgage giants to delist their common and preferred stock from the New York Stock Exchange and any other national securities exchange.

Before I get to the news (which involves the problems of European banks), let me bury the lede and offer up a bit of perspective. Yes, that's totally bass ackwards, but indulge me for a few grafs. (Hey, this is the web.)

We've recently gotten grief from friends here and there about being too negative about the economy. So we've been doing our damndest of late to ensure a "balanced" approach, seeing the glass half full as often as empty, so to speak, or walking on the sunny side of the street in addition to the shady one. You get the picture. Well, sorry, folks, but sometimes reality won't budge.

Gretchen Morgenson's piece in Sunday's Times points out how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are serving as a source of back-door bailouts for the banks.

And she quotes Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research in Washingto,n DC, to the effect that their continuing status as half governmental agency, half private enterprise creates an irreconcilable conflict between taxpayers and shareholders.

I wasn't sure what to make of some of the rumblings in the blogosphere over the disclosure on Christmas Eve that the Treasury had extended fresh capital to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Interesting timing, for sure. The Treasury clearly wanted to minimize the bad press that would attend the news. But the timing only got the tin foil atop the heads of the more advanced theorists flashing away big time.

Fannie Mae announced on Friday that the New York Stock Exchange notified it that it has regained compliance with the exchange's minimum price standard to continue listing of its common stock.

Wow, what a relief.

Fact is, exchange-listing rules haven't applied to the government-sponsored enterprise that now resides in conservatorship for some time.

Even after being rocked by an accounting scandal in 2004, Fannie's stock remained listed even though it wouldn't become current on its financial reporting until 2008.

During that time, Fannie got reprieve after reprieve.