Government caused the financial melt down, not Wall Street.
Wall Street simply reacted to stupid Federal mandates.
Wall Street simply reacted to stupid Federal mandates.
There's plenty of blame to be shared by both the Feds and Wall Street.
Wall Street banks were pitching the sales of these toxic assets to the public while at the same time was betting against them. The Federal Government, which helped create them by forcing these Wall Street banks to issue them to otherwise uncreditworthy homeowners in the name of "diversity."
Fed gov is responsible for causing part of it. However Wall Street bankers invented the liar loans, had rating agencies rate it AAA paper and sold it to unsuspecting investors and pension funds. This was not perpetrated by a few isolated bankers, it was bank wide. Almost everyone was doing it until it exploded. MERS, robo signing, liar loans, etc were not Federal mandates. The only thing the feds did wrong was subprime loans and willing to guarantee the mortgage notes thru Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac without thorough review of the paper they were buying, and lying about the losses till it was too late. Gov is further complicit by not prosecuting the bankers for violating SEC laws as well as local state laws on banking. Obama is suppose to be the most anti business POTUS has not even put one major CEO in jail, instead he goes to them for political donation for 2012 election. Can we say Wall Street owns Wash DC?????