For diehards, here is the entire 7+ hours of testimony before Congress about OFHEO Director Armando Falcon’s report in 2004, and the reactions of congressional representatives who refused to believe the dire warnings contained within it.

Stanford economics professor Thomas Sowell explains the housing bubble in this video produced by the Hoover Institution.

… years before it happened.  Here is a news spot from 2008 showing clips from Congressional hearings in 2004 — fully four years before the housing bubble burst and the financial meltdown took place — in which lawmakers were warned that there were serious problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

These hearings were prompted by a report from OFHEO (Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight).  Armando Falcon, Jr. was the Director of OFHEO at the time, and he was eviscerated by a number of congressmen and women, who claimed that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were “sound,” and that Mr. Falcon was out to undermine affordable housing.  This was untrue, as this article from The Nation magazine points out.

Those attempting to push for stronger oversight of the GSE were ignored.  Mr. Falcon was asked to resign.  But his concerns were vindicated by the events four years later.

A story from the NYT — just last week.

And how they got into the mess that was WAYYYYY undercapitalized mortgages ….

And this writer thinks that is a very good thing, indeed.

What are “credit default swaps“????

Because people often ask, here is a simple explanation.

Here is a report from CNBC that makes this argument.  (With some help from the Washington Examiner’s supersleuth, Tim Carney.)

There are conflicting opinions on this one, so I will post articles that reflect those viewpoints, for this week’s discussion — and thereafter.