Wow! A heavy-handed commentary from CJR's Dean Starkman. The perspective and most of the information in this piece were new to me. I found his argument insightful and compelling. The point of view was very well supported, with good links to boost it.

This informative opinion piece argues that Wall Street is largely to blame for the subprime mortgage crisis, leading to the subsequent credit market crash and Freddie and Fannie debacle. The author supports his points with extensive factual evidence from multiple, credible sources, and provides insightful context about this important topic. For example, I was surprised to hear that these mortgage giants spent $170 million on lobbying in the past decade, apparently "to keep their regulators at bay and buy protection from Congress." What a disgrace. So much for the theory that market forces are capable of regulating themselves, without government oversight. We the taxpayers will be paying for this serious error in judgment for ... More »

An excellent, well-sourced read, arguing with nuance that Wall Street is to blame for Freddie and Fannie's problems.

Keep in mind that this is not news journalism; this is interpretative journalism by a writer who did the research and is interpretting that data through argumentation. His thesis in an election year is that both parties are to blame--the Democrats for using the excuse of affordable housing to sustain a fat-cat fraudulent system and the Republicans for the mirage of a robust economy that went bust long ago. What the writer fails to take into account, however, is the news media's role as watchdog--a necessary component to understand how this debacle happened in the first place--and essential in an article in CJR, no less. The ultimate irony is that media owners were as guilty as subprime lenders in putting stockbrokers ahead of ... More »

This is what good journalism is all about: informative and backed up by research with links to other sources. Stories about greed and corruption under the Bush administration keep surfacing. Each showing the evil results when regulation is replaced by "trusting business to do the right thing." The article states that mortgage lenders, "threw away any semblance of underwriting in favor of what can only be called boiler room-style sales tactics–deception on a mass scale and as a matter of corporate policy–in order to meet Wall Street’’s demand for product. But then everyone meeting Wall Street’s demands is what gave us exorbitant CEO salaries and debacles like Enron.

This is a good article, presenting a point of view not heard a great deal. And while it discusses 'Wall St." excesses and some of Fannie and Freddie's failures, it doesn't go into the accounting scandals that both entities have had at least twice over the last 20 years. IMHO, one analogy to the current situation was in the 1980s when quasi governmental entities theoretically backed by a state government suddenly and disastrously needed to call on the state for a bailout. Obviously no one learned from that. Regulators are always a step or two behind 'new' financial instruments, and 'markets' don't look at past mistakes.

A brief but worthwhile opinion piece focusing on Wall Street's failures that caused the housing crisis and the failure of Freddie and Fannie.

The story is good, but the story title is misleading. The story only shows that Freddie and Fannie collapsed when they tried to compete for marginal borrowers, not that Wall Street was the cause.