WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents. Full Story »
Posted by Stephen Pizzo
Apuzzo describes the process and identifies some of the banks and institutions that fought regulation and oversight. The story is a good read, well written. Additional information on specific persons in the regulatory apparatus who enabled the regulatory vacuum would perhaps help provide pressure to exclude those people from further positions of responsibility. Legislators and executive branch officials most responsible would be similarly informative. Banks and corporations which most strongly corrupted the system with donations and lobbying would also add to the picture.
Public financing of elections moves in the direction of getting representatives that represent the interests of the people over the interests of the wealthy and corrupt corporations.
Republicans have been trying to blame the mortgage crisis on Democrats who insisted on making loans to the poor and others with low credit standing. This story blows that dodge out of the water. The Bush administration was warned but instead of regulating lenders let them run wild. Now taxpayers are bailing those same lenders out.
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