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The strong belief of investors in the implicit government backing of the GSEs does not by itself create safety and soundness problems for the GSEs, but it does create systemic risks for the U.S. financial system as the GSEs become very large. Systemic risks are difficult to address through the normal course of financial institution regulation alone and, as I will stipulate shortly, can be effectively handled in the case of the GSEs by limiting their investment portfolios funded by implicitly subsidized debt.
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Typically in a market system, lenders and investors monitor and discipline the activities, including leverage, of their counterparties to assure themselves of the financial strength of those to whom they lend. However, market discipline with respect to the GSEs has been weak to nonexistent. Because the many counterparties in GSE transactions assess risk based almost wholly on the GSE’s perceived special relationship to the government rather than on the underlying soundness of the institutions, regulators cannot rely on market discipline to contain systemic risk.
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Beyond strengthening GSE regulation, the Congress will need to clarify the circumstances under which a GSE can become insolvent and, in particular, the resultant position—both during and after insolvency—of the investors that hold GSE debt, as well as other creditors and shareholders. This process must be unambiguous before it is needed. Current law, which contemplates conservatorship and not receivership for a troubled GSE, requires the federal government to maintain GSEs as ongoing enterprises, but other than the symbolic line of credit at the U.S. Treasury, provides no means of financing to do so. Left unresolved, such uncertainties could threaten the stability of financial markets.
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On the other hand, if we fail to strengthen GSE regulation, we increase the possibility of insolvency and crisis. We at the Federal Reserve believe this dilemma would be resolved by placing limits on the GSEs’ portfolios of assets, perhaps as a share of single-family home mortgages outstanding or some other variation of such a ratio. Almost all the concerns associated with systemic risks flow from the size of the balance sheets of the GSEs, not from their purchase of loans from home-mortgage originators and the subsequent securitization of these mortgages.

Ce sont des extraits pour le moins troublants d’un discours de Greenspan devant le sénat US qui date d’Avril 2005. On peut retrouver l’integralité ici :

www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/testimony/2005/20050406/default.htm