josh/58, pel/53; –FYI

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/18/AR2006081801032.html

(note date)

http://emac.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/02/02/housing-red-flags-ignored/?test=latestnews

***
have read elsewhere, Bush admin made 17 separate initiatives to reform F&F (You Tube has a BFrank ridiculing Cheney on one of ‘em), the last one ‘died in the Senate in 2005′. some say, GWB should’ve gone over congress to the American people with this –but had he done so, the mkts would’ve collapsed then –albeit with lesser (to some extent, depending) damage. But the albatross would’ve then been on crazy Hoover Bush –so i guess he just punted. Hindsight: he shouldn’t've.

***

one of the killers was the ‘hide’ –the OTC CDS –SEC had slipped a quiet little approval (this is a story in itself, a certain review meet went unatended by the pencil –Bill Donalson –now on PERAB) of allowable leverage from the half-century old 12 in a leap all the way to 40. It’s critical to remember that altho the predicates to the disaster extended at least back to 1998 when citi merged Traveler’s and became Too Big To Fail (been bailed four times since) –the great damage was compressed into the 18 months of ninja and liar loans just before the bust.