George W. Bush has, one could argue after a few beers and some special cigarettes, shifted his government way to the left of European social democracy. By taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac he has effectively nationalised them. They are now going to be run by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The Financial Times reports that the US government is going to

• Put regulators in charge of the companies
• Inject up to $100bn in each of them as needed to ensure they meet their debts
• Start buying mortgages backed by these companies
• Extend an unlimited liquidity facility to them until the end of next year

The two weirdly named institutions provide nearly 50% of mortgages in the United States amounting to $5.3 trillion. Roughly 9% of homeowners in the country are either at risk of having their homes repossessed or have fallen behind with their payments. Only a fool would accept that the needs of working class home owners were a priority for a party whose candidate is unsure of how many houses he has and whose president can’t count to seven unaided. Treasury Secretary Hank Poulson (absurd names seem to be de rigeur  in US capitalism) was admirably blunt. “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are so large and so interwoven in our financial system that a failure of either of them would cause great turmoil in our financial markets here at home and around the globe.” That did not seem like a long shot when the companies’ combined losses amounted to $14bn, or the price of a modest war. Under the new regime neither company will be able to make payments to shareholders. Investors and speculators will have to suffer a little pain for the benefit of their class.

In British terms this is the equivalent of Gordon Brown nationalising the Halifax, the Abbey  and a couple of other banks. Instead he has provided a cut of £1,750  for buyers of homes worth between £125,000 and £175,000. It is almost impossible to buy anywhere to live in the southeast of England at those prices. Shelter the housing charity says  15,000 families could benefit from Brown’s £1.5 billion deal but  45,000 faced being repossessed this year.

Windfall taxes on energy companies have been the preferred option of the soft left in Britain to mitigate the effects of the recession. Compass is calling for a sensible one off windfall tax for social and environmental justice to “kick-start a national programme of home energy efficiency and installing renewable energy, starting with the homes of the fuel poor”. You would have to be in favour of pensioners freezing to death to oppose the demand. Yet in contrast with the bold measure that the party of US capital has taken to try to win the next election and avert a major financial crisis it does seem pretty wishy-washy.

The US government’s temporary control of the mortgage providers opens up a real propaganda and campaigning opportunity for the left on the theme of nationalisation and social control of the organisations that provide most of our basic needs. Transport, housing, healthcare, education, finance, water, energy generation are all aspects of existence that are now the source of huge profits. As we start revving up for the election that Labour is going to lose George W has opened the door to putting public ownership back in the mainstream debate. We should thank him. We should but he’s a bad bastard so let’s not.