And Speaking Of New York Gone Wild...

As Doug Ross writes, “I’m truly shocked that CNBC reported and publicized this story:”

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is the “father of the subprime crisis” and his aggressive attacks on Wall Street could make him dangerous to the banking sector if he becomes the next governor of New York, well-known banking analyst Dick Bove told CNBC.

“One of the key reasons why [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are] bankrupt today, and why the government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in supporting them, is because of the edicts pushed through by Mr. Cuomo,” said Bove, of  Rochdale Securities, in a live interview.

“It’s also thought by many that the hundreds of thousands of people who are losing their homes, are [doing so] to a great degree because of the actions taken by Mr. Cuomo at HUD,” Bove added.

Cuomo, who was secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1997 to 2001, has been blamed in some quarters for helping to trigger the financial crisis by pushing Fannie and Freddie to buy more subprime mortgages to increase home ownership among the poor. Many of those homeowners eventually defaulted, and the mortgage-backed securities market later collapsed.

For a quick overview of what happened, and the media’s initial tentative reporting on the story in the 1990s, it’s worth revisiting this video from the fall of 2008:

[youtube 1RZVw3no2A4]