A gentle reminder to those here who blame people for "buying houses they couldn't afford!!!!1...it's their own fault, they knew what they were signing!!!!"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/9021172WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) - Making it easier for poorer Americans to get mortgages didn't push the country into crisis but Wall Street's drive to package the loans into opaque securities helped do so, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Wednesday.
Testifying before a Congressionally appointed panel investigating causes of the devastating crisis that wracked the country from 2007 to 2009, Greenspan renewed a defense of his own legacy by denying the U.S. central bank helped inflate housing prices with excessively low interest rates...
Greenspan also said that banks, and possibly all financial firms, should be required to hold contingent capital bonds that convert to equity if capital fell below set levels. That would reduce the problem of so-called "moral hazard" by reducing a perception that the government would step in and bail them out in times of trouble.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/9021172