WASHINGTON: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the linchpins of the American housing market, continue to bedevil the US financial system.

In February 2003, their regulator issued a report saying the companies were taking on too much risk by using implicit government backing to plunge deeper into the mortgage market.

The government-sponsored entities would pose a systemic threat to the economy in the "remote" chance that either failed, Armando Falcon told the Bond Market Association the same day. The Bush administration, considering his report a potential threat to financial markets, asked him to resign.