Subprime mortgage failures - how we got there

Subprime mortgage failures - how we got there

Calculated Risk looks at a NYT Magazine article and concisely summarizes the roles of various participants to the disaster:

Homebuyer's were speculating with no money down. Mortgage brokers didn't care because they would sell the loans immediately and collect their fees. Wall Street didn't care because they could package the loans and sell them to investors. Investors would have cared, except they trusted the rating agencies. And as this article describes, the rating agencies weren't evaluating the underlying loans - they were performing statistical analysis using models based on lenders that cared if the borrower would repay the loan.

At the same time, regulators - despite numerous warnings - mostly ignored the problem, apparently for ideological reasons

Well, ONE politician, Elliot Spitzer, viewed the situation from a different perspective. He concluded his 02-14-08 Washington Post Op-Ed thusly:

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states [to the predatory lending practices] did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.
Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.
When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.

Posted by Mark Ganzer at 1:16 AM