Monday, August 18, 2008

If you thought that too much free market and not enough regulation caused the mortgage mess

Think again:
Franklin Raines, the Fannie chairman and first black CEO of a Fortune 500 company, warned that [Andrew] Cuomo's rules were moving Fannie into risky territory: "We have not been a major presence in the subprime market," he said, "but you can bet that under these goals, we will be." Fannie's chief financial officer, Timothy Howard, said that "making loans to people with less-than-perfect credit" is "something we should do." Cuomo wasn't shy about embracing subprime mortgages as a possible consequence of his goals. "GSE presence in the subprime market could be of significant benefit to lower-income families, minorities, and families living in underserved areas," his report on the new goals noted.

No comments:

Post a Comment