The timing of this move is somewhat suspect due to the fact that the Fed is fixing to buy up “toxic assets” in their new public/private partnership. Before they supposedly did not know what these assets were worth or they were worth only pennys on the dollar. Now they get to set their own price and get paid that price by the Fed. It will also create a false bottom in the real estate market. These little regulatory mechanisms are the devices the string pullers use to game the system so the can milk it on the upswing and the downswing.
True, those in the know, are the political connected will milk this program like a herd of Holsteins. That is what they are designing it for.