Mortgage Tsunami Blame Misdirected by Congressional Leadership
Friday, October 10th, 2008
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, Democrat from California, began dragging Wall Street titans from failed institutions in front of his committee on Monday to answer for the world wide credit crisis that has devastated markets around the globe. There is no doubt, as confirmed by their own testimony, that greed in these institutions ran rampant with generous bonuses being dolled out to parting executives even as those institutions became insolvent and headed toward bankruptcy. These true confessions make for great theater and give those affected by the rapidly declining economy a target for their disgust and frustration but ignore the fact that the primary cause of the failures were the non-performing portfolios dominated by sub-prime mortgages generated in staggering dollar amounts under guidelines set by the quasi-government mortgage institutions of Fannie Mae [FNME] and Freddie Mack [FMAC]. (more…)