[LS]

FYI, an absolute genius and smartest guy I know in banking/finance is Charles Calomiris of Columbia. Google his work.

[philman_36]

Google his work.
Okay. Does he speak/write in layman terms like you do or do I need a degree?

[philman_36]

Never mind. Anybody who still uses cockamamie is okay in my book! (it's a silly thing, but there it is)

The Big Flaws in Dodd-Frank

No, and the irony is that even the original of the Glass-Steagall Act, as passed in 1933, had nothing to do with the crisis it was supposed to address. Senator Carter Glass, who had been Chairman of the House Committee that drafted the Federal Reserve Act under President Woodrow Wilson in 1913, in 1933 played the same role as Volcker did some 75 years later. Amazing how so much goes back to Wilson's administration, isn't it.

Snip...

There is no attempt in Dodd-Frank to address the key problem of government subsidization of mortgage risk, and the exposures of Fannie Mae [FNMA], Freddie Mac [FMCC], and the Federal Housing Administration are still growing. As I've noted before.
Good article. Thanks for the recommendation. I'll do some more looking and reading.

[philman_36]

Ouch!

Blame Fannie Mae and Congress For the Credit Mess September 23, 2008

If the Democrats had let the 2005 legislation come to a vote, the huge growth in the subprime and Alt-A loan portfolios of Fannie and Freddie could not have occurred, and the scale of the financial meltdown would have been substantially less. The same politicians who today decry the lack of intervention to stop excess risk taking in 2005-2006 were the ones who blocked the only legislative effort that could have stopped it. Still relevant today to some extent.