For the same reason i watch MSNBC from time to time, im a glutton for punishment, and i enjoy reading stupidity from time to time.
Of course it was both but it was mostly wall street... as they were the dealers and the manufactures... they also set the price. Wall street wanted to sell premium in a massive way to create billion dollar bonuses... LTCM and Victor Neiderhoffer on steroids. It figure out selling mortgages was just like selling put options on real estate. The world believe real estate did not go down... So it was perfect. When it sold all the conventional mortgages it could stuff down the public throat. It started selling seconds. Then when everyone who could qualify for a second had bought a few houses. It lent to unqualified people with no doc loans. Then when all the unqualified people could not lie any more... It said here only pay the interest. Then it said pay less than the interest for a few years. All the while this cheap money chasing mostly one asset class drove the price of that asset class up. Yet... greenspan was allowing lower rates. --- That is an engineered bubble. And it took the public to borrow the money to make it happen. But who turns down free money? Especially if the loans are non recourse? Its like saying... here is a 1000 shares for a few hundred a month.. if they go down... you can give them back.
Well said... And i will add based on the last sentence, that i love the conspiracy theory that is out there from these OWS protesters that this was some giant plot by banks to trick people into taking these loans so that the banks could eventually steal their house. I would love to for a person to explain to me how it is profitable for a bank to lend someone 500k for a house with zero down, and then foreclose on the house when it is only worth 250k, and sell it for half as much as they lent in the first place, when nothing has went towards the mortgage, and they have only taken in a couple years of interest.
Politicians of both parties opened the doors and the bankers walked through them. The repeal of Glass-Steagall was approved in the Senate 90â8 and in the House 362â57 with overwhelming support from both parties. It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12th, 1999. In September of 1999 Fannie Mae was forced to ease credit requirements with overwhelming support from both parties. On September 30th, 1999 the New York Times published an article (by Steven Holmes) which predicted the collapse of the banking system. It was a sequence of events starting in 1999 in which politicians of both parties and the Wall Street bankers behaved badly.
Imo, every article that guy writes is like a new string of catch phrases and buzzwords from someone else. He links lame ass soundbites into articles with no substance for the rolling stone. Ozzie Osbourne authors medical advice in rolling stone---- get it? -------------------------- Fannie and Freddie had nothing to do with Merrill Lynch selling $16.5 billion worth of crap mortgage-backed securities to the Connecticut Carpenters Annuity Fund, the Mississippi Public Employees' Retirement System, the Connecticut Carpenters Pension Fund, and the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association. -------------------------- Fair statement, who were the genius buying this crap, no one twisted their arm and the buyers knew/know even less than tabbi. The inner city borrower who "breathes" is par with the fund manager who buys the shitty deal.