Fannie, Freddie, Financial Crisis

A party that needn't be named
Made GSEs chiefly to blame
For the mortgage collapse,
Though inquisitive chaps
Say the data don't back up this claim.

Writing in The Big Picture blog, Roosevelt Institute fellow Mike Konczal brings out the data to refute the oft-heard claim that the cause of the mortgage crisis was Congress' pushing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make imprudent loans. Among the key facts:

• More than 83% of subprime loans issued to 2006 were from private firms, and went into the private label securitization market. 
• From 2002-2005, the GSEs (government-sponsored enterprises, such as Fannie and Freddie) saw their share of US mortgage originations drop from 50% to 30%. 
• Before the crash, conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute were arguing that the GSEs were were blocking the issuance of subprime mortgages, by purchasing too few of them. 

FCIC Blue, & Red

"The truth is unsparingly ugly:
That mortgage-backed bonds became bubbly,
Thanks to Wall Street's big guys
Who would securitize
The same mortgages triply or doubly."   

"The real estate market was screamin' out:
'We must cast the government demon out!
We'd have steadily grown
If they'd left us alone,
Except when they didn't bail Lehman out.'"

New York Times reporter Heidi Moore writes in DealBook that Democrats and Republicans on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) have drawn entirely different lessons from the financial crisis.  Like the characters in the classic Japanese film Rashomon, they witnessed the same crime but tell conflicting tales.  

Rating Agency Hearing

"Triple-A," admits Warren Buffett,
"Is a term one may rightfully scoff at,
But as owner of Moody's,
I'll tell you the beauty's
Their business plan still turns a profit."