"I view the ratings agencies as one of the key culprits," says Joseph Stiglitz, 65, the Nobel laureate economist at Columbia University. "They were the party that performed that alchemy that converted the securities from F-rated to A-rated. The banks could not have done what they did without the complicity of the ratings agencies."
Also, be sure to read these related posts:
Housing Bailout – The Real Cause?
The Paulson Plan – Still Wrong
Government Bail-Out – Risk & Reward
Why do we think jeopardizing our country’s future for short term gain is a good idea? As a whole, Americans live beyond their means and rely on….credit. You can’t expect Uncle Sam to “fix” all of your personal finance problems. Time to let the chips fall where they may…
Houston Bail Specialist
I have followed this blog for about 4 years – everything it predicted is coming true
Skin Expert
CA was the perfect state for the subprime mortgage mkt. When you have statistics that show less than 20% of the state can afford to buy a home and yet people were buying houses like nobody’s business there had to be some fancy math going on. They were reporting in 2006 that 80% of new mortgages were non-traditional variable rate/interest only loans because the only way to get people into these overpriced homes was to get creative. Never in our history had home prices skyrocketed like they had in the past 10 years and everyone wanted in on the gravy train, from the person selling his home, the realtor handling it, the banks wanted the bigger mortgages, to the people that thought they deserved an expensive home, to the banks allowing equity to soar so people could turn their homes into ATMs and the banks would get years of interest
Cosmetic Dental Specialist