[jeffkrol]

http://www.thedailyshow.com/
and why aren't we more outraged??????
a bit of counter point (sort of)
Book Review: 'All the Devils Are Here' -- Seeking Alpha

RYSSDAL: You and Bethany McLean, your co-author, spent a lot time in the early stages of this book talking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored entities and their role in creating and helping to create this bubble, and how powerful they are. Give us some inkling of where they came from and how they began.

NOCERA: They began as a way to allow banks and the savings and loan industry to make more loans. The idea is a great idea; it allows for more home ownership, it allows for more capital to be freed up. Over time, they became unbelievably powerful politically, and they became the most powerful force in the mortgage marketplace, especially for prime loans. And part of the thing that we discovered in the book is at least part of the rise of sub-prime lending was a way for Wall Street and industry to get around having to conform to Fannie and Freddie's rules. Then, as you get further along, Fannie and Freddie start to lose more and more business to the sub-prime lenders, and they think, 'Oh my god, we have to get into this business too.' You know, there has been a lot of political hay made about the role of Fannie and Freddie, but we wound up thinking that Fannie and Freddie was not a leader in sub-prime -- they were a follower.

RYSSDAL: Let me ask you this, as long as you've brought up sub-primes: what good did they wind up doing for us? The banks lost money, people lost their houses -- why? Why did this happen?

NOCERA: They turned out to do much less good than they were promoted as doing. And that was always the fact. Sub-prime was supposed to be a way to allow more people to own homes, and that in America is the American dream. We care about that a lot. In fact, the number of new homes that were financed by sub-prime lending was far, far smaller than you would think. Most of the sub-prime lending, in fact, went to refinancing and cash-out refinancing, and you use it for whatever -- vacation, who knows.

RYSSDAL: So who led who down the primrose path -- was it the bankers or was it the government? What happened?

NOCERA: Certainly the government, both ideologically, in terms of believing in home ownership, and as a practical matter, refusing to allow anybody to do anything about sub-prime lending, it is one of the villains here. Certainly the sub-prime companies. And then the big banks, buying up these lousy mortgages, bundling them, selling them off to investors, knowing they were lousy -- you know, it's too strong to say it's a grand conspiracy, but it went well beyond delusion into areas where people knew things that were bad were happening and they did nothing to stop it.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/11/16/pm-all-the-devils-...ancial-crisis/
Carter blaming himself..... (Clinton did earlier, guess it takes Dems to admit a mistake )
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/10/27/pm-carter-on-dereg...-care/?refid=0

JIMMY CARTER: I would say that the most seminal change that affected the future was what you just mentioned, and that was deregulation. I was very much against government intrusion in private affairs, and so I thought that the airlines and the railroads and the banks all should be (de)regulated. And they were while I was in office. It was a tremendous change.

Of course there was the "someone else" that really hammered the nail home..........

No, that's not true. The elements that have resulted in the latest breakdown were done under a later president, I won't call his name. We kept tight control over the banking and finance committee. There was a constant monitoring of the loans to people. And in getting those loans and then selling those mortgages to other people, and indeed they would be resold again -- all of that was prohibited when I went out of office.

---

Last edited by jeffkrol; 11-17-2010 at 06:57 AM.