Matt Taibbi over at Rolling Stone has an interesting piece discussing the large banks and their plan to buy up large swaths of foreclosed and nearly foreclosed homes from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The story first ran in the Wall Street Journal. Essentially, the plan is to buy up foreclosed homes that the banks once owned. The banks, as you might recall, ran up the prices on homes, and subsequently sold off the mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So, now the banks will be permitted to buy back those same homes at a steep discount. However, the banks don’t plan to sell the homes, instead they will rent the homes back to the occupants, former owners, or anyone else off the street and reap huge profits in the current rental market.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better for the banks, the government-run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac want to get into the bank welfare game.