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    Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused the World's Worst Financial Crisis--and Why It Could Happen Again

    Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused the World's Worst Financial Crisis--and Why It Could Happen Again

    3.6 3

    by Peter J. Wallison


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      ISBN-13: 9781594038662
    • Publisher: Encounter Books
    • Publication date: 03/29/2016
    • Sold by: Barnes & Noble
    • Format: eBook
    • Pages: 432
    • File size: 18 MB
    • Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

    Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies and is codirector of the American Enterprise Institute’s program on Financial Policy Studies. From June 1981 to January 1985, he was General Counsel of the United States Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in developing the Reagan administration proposals for deregulating financial services. During 1986 and 1987, Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan.

    He testifies frequently before congressional committees and is a frequent contributor to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal and other publications. He has also been a speaker at many conferences on financial services, housing, the financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Act, accounting, and corporate governance and was a member of the congressionally authorized Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (2009–2011). In 2011, Wallison received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Colorado.

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    Table of Contents

    Preface to the Paperback Edition xi

    Acknowledgments xvii

    Part I The Basics

    1 Introduction 3

    What Really Caused the World's Worst Financial Crisis and Why It Could Happen Again

    2 The Difference between Prime and Nontraditional Mortgages 27

    The importance of Sound Underwriting Standards

    3 The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report and Other Explanations for the Crisis 41

    Why Conventional Explanations for the Crisis Are inadequate

    4 A Short History of Housing Finance in the U.S. 100

    How and Why Housing Finance Was Substantially Changed in 1992

    Part II Government Housing Policies Take Effect

    5 HUDs Central Role 125

    How HUD Used the Affordable-Housing Goals to Reduce Underwriting Standards

    6 The Decline in Underwriting Standards 160

    How the Affordable-Housing Goals Forced an increase in Nontraditional Mortgages

    7 Force Fed 182

    Why the Affordable-Housing Goals, and Not Market Share or Profit, Were the Sole Reason the GSEs Acquired Nontraditional Mortgages

    8 Going Viral 219

    Why and How Reduced Underwriting Standards Spread to the Wider Market

    Part III The Financial Crisis and its Accelerants

    9 The Great Housing Price Bubble 237

    How Loosened Underwriting Standards Stimulated Its Growth

    10 Flying Blind into a Storm 248

    How the GSEs' Failure to Disclose Their Acquisition of Nontraditional Mortgages Magnified the Crisis

    11 31 Million Nontraditional Mortgages Precipitate a Crisis 265

    Why Even Government-Backed Mortgage Securities Were Contributors

    12 Fair-Value Accounting Scales Up the Crisis 278

    How Mark-to-Market Accounting Made Financial Firms Look Weak or Unstable

    Part IV From Bad to Worse

    13 From Bad to Worse 307

    How Government Blunders Turned a Mortgage Meltdown Into an Investor Panic and Financial Crisis

    14 The False Narrative and the Future 342

    Why the Failure to Understand the Causes of the Crisis May Lead to Another

    Notes 363

    Index 393

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    The 2008 financial crisis—like the Great Depression—was a world-historical event. What caused it will be debated for years, if not generations. The conventional narrative is that the financial crisis was caused by Wall Street greed and insufficient regulation of the financial system. That narrative produced the Dodd-Frank Act, the most
    comprehensive financial-system regulation since the New Deal. There is evidence, however, that the Dodd-Frank Act has slowed the recovery from the recession. If insufficient regulation caused the financial crisis, then the Dodd-Frank Act will never be modified or repealed; proponents will argue that doing so will cause another crisis.

    A competing narrative about what caused the financial crisis has received little attention. This view, which is accepted by almost all Republicans in Congress and most conservatives, contends that the crisis was caused by government housing policies. This book extensively documents this view. For example, it shows that in June 2008, before the crisis, 58 percent of all US mortgages were subprime or other low-quality mortgages. Of these, 76 percent were on the books of government agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. When these mortgages defaulted in 2007 and 2008, they drove down housing prices and weakened banks and other mortgage holders, causing the crisis.

    After this book is published, no one will be able to claim that the financial crisis was caused by insufficient regulation, or defend Dodd-Frank, without coming to terms with the data this book contains.

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