Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Playing the blame game

Why is Wall St in trouble? At root, too many non performing mortgages. Too many mortages granted to borrowers who couldn't afford to keep up the payments. And/or too many mortgages granted that were more money than the property is worth. Used to be, banks only granted mortgages with monthly payments less than a third of the lender's income, and in amounts less than the value of the property. Banks were careful lending money, lest they lose it.
Then Fannie and Freddie came along to buy mortgages off the banks, the risk to the bank went away. Once sold, the bank is out of jail free, the loan can go into foreclosure and it's no skin of their nose. Fannie and Freddie bought more and more mortgages and then started buying sub prime mortgage bonds. They borrowed money all over the world and poured it into shaky mortgages. House sales, house prices and housing starts went up. As long as they could sell mortgages to Fannie and Freddie, the banks kept making them. In short, Fannie and Freddie's willingness to buy mortgages and sub prime mortgage bonds created the bubble.
Way back in 2005 a bill to put a cap on Fannie and Freddie's borrowing power went up the Hill. It was supported by Paul Volker, Alan Greenspan, John McCain, the Wall St Journal, and the Bush administration. It was opposed by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, and failed to pass. If it had passed, we wouldn't be where we are now.
In short, an attempt at regulation was defeated by the very democrats calling for more regulation today.
Fannie and Freddie used to make massive campaign contributions. Barney, Chris and a certain Barack Obama were the top three recipients of this largess. You get what you pay for.

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