--- /dev/null
+On line 24:
+ Commission’s public
+ hearings, testimony, and
+ supporting research—that
+
+ can be studied for
+ years to come. Much of what is
+ footnoted in this
+
+ can be found on the
+ website. In addition, more
+ materials that
+
+ cannot be released
+ yet for various reasons
+ will eventually
+
+ made public through the
+ National Archives and Records
+ Administration.
+
+
+
+On line 26:
+ extraordinary
+ commitment and knowledge of
+ the members of the
+
+ Commission who were
+ accorded the honor of
+ this public service.
+
+
+
+On line 40:
+ American people.
+ We are keenly aware of the
+ significance of
+
+
+On line 46:
+ financial upheaval,
+ if you will—that wreaked havoc in
+ communities and
+
+ neighborhoods across this
+ country. As this report goes
+ to print, there are more
+
+ million Americans
+ who are out of work, cannot
+ find full-time work,
+
+ up looking for work.
+ About four million families
+ have lost their homes to
+
+ their mortgage payments.
+ Nearly trillion in household
+ wealth has vanished, with
+
+ and life savings swept
+ away. Businesses, large and small,
+ have felt the sting of
+
+ recession. There is
+ much anger about what has transpired,
+ and justifiably
+
+ so. Many people who
+ abided by all the rules now
+ find themselves out of
+
+ about their future prospects.
+ The collateral damage
+ of this crisis has
+
+ been real people
+ and real communities.
+ The impacts of this
+
+ are likely to be
+ felt for a generation.
+ And the nation faces
+
+ so many Americans,
+ we began our exploration
+ with our own views and
+
+ how the world’s strongest
+ financial system came to
+ the brink of collapse.
+
+
+
+On line 50:
+ said about the crisis.
+ Yet all of us have been deeply
+ affected by what
+
+ we have learned in the
+ course of our inquiry. We have
+ been at various
+
+ times fascinated,
+ surprised, and even shocked by what
+ we saw, heard, and read.
+
+
+
+On line 52:
+ the total collapse
+ of our financial system
+ and economy or
+
+
+On line 20:
+ what caused the crisis.
+ In that sense, the Commission
+ has functioned somewhat
+
+
+
+On line 20:
+ the federal law
+ (the Troubled Asset Relief
+ Program, known as TARP)
+
+
+
+On line 467:
+ U.S. Congress that "the
+ apparent froth in housing
+ markets may have spilled
+
+
+
+On line 467:
+ Still, he reassured
+ legislators that the U.S.
+ economy was on
+
+
+
+On line 4799:
+ you get to the end
+ of the week, you go out and
+ you refinance that
+
+ And then you get to
+ the end of another week
+ and you refinance
+
+
+
+On line 4815:
+ did not indicate
+ substantial deficiencies.
+ He wasn’t looking
+
+
+
+On line 4817:
+ a former senior
+ managing director at
+ Bear Stearns, said, "I guess
+
+
+
+On line 7855:
+ Firms and families
+ are still deleveraging and are
+ uncertain about both
+
+
+
+On line 4053:
+ the head of credit
+ trading at AIG Financial
+ Products, told Alan Frost,
+
+ "every f***ing rating
+ agency we’ve spoken to [came]
+ out with more downgrades"
+
+
+
+On line 4053:
+ mark it. It’s, it’s, uh,
+ we’re [unintelligible]
+ f***ed basically."
+
+
+
+On line 4073:
+ that "[AIG] would be in
+ fine shape if Goldman wasn’t
+ hanging its head out
+
+
+
+On line 4073:
+ f***ing number that’s well
+ bigger than we ever planned
+ for." He acknowledged
+
+
+
+On line 5235:
+ referred to it as
+ "bullsh*t capital." Still, the
+ GSEs kept buying more
+
+
+
+On line 5949:
+ I think that was sort
+ of pie in the sky dreaming."
+ Geithner agreed,
+
+ and told Reich so
+ bluntly. Reich told the FCIC
+ about a phone call from
+
+ after the rescue.
+ "About all I can remember
+ is the foul language
+
+
+
+On line 5951:
+ Geithner telling
+ him. "‘You guys have handed me
+ a bag of sh*t.’ I
+
+
+
+On line 5957:
+ selecting a weak
+ federal regulator,
+ the Office of Thrift
+
+
+
+On line 4209:
+ Central Bank infused
+ billions of Euros into
+ overnight lending markets.
+
+
+
+On line 4243:
+ known as "breaking the
+ buck" and generally leads
+ to a fund’s collapse.
+
+
+
+On line 4245:
+ including large banks
+ such as Bank of America,
+ US Bancorp, and SunTrust,
+
+
+
+On line 4245:
+ US Bancorp, and SunTrust,
+ purchased SIV assets from their
+ money market funds.
+
+
+
+On line 4249:
+ which may include wealthy
+ investors who invest million
+ or more. Enhanced cash
+
+
+
--- /dev/null
+Longest Chains of Haikus
+
+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
+
+ loans. Nevertheless,
+ subprime loans were necessary
+ for PMBS, because they
+
+ generally bore
+ higher interest rates and
+ thus could support the
+
+ yields that investors were
+ expecting. As subprime loans
+ were originated,
+
+ Fannie and Freddie
+ were willing consumers of those
+ that might meet the AH
+
+ goals; moreover, because
+ of their lower cost of funds,
+ they were able to buy
+
+ the "best of the worst,"
+ the highest quality among
+ the NTMs on off er.
+
+ Th ese factors—the
+ need for higher yielding loans
+ and the ability
+
+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
+
+ regulation got
+ out, industry lobbyists
+ would rush to complain
+
+ to members of the
+ congressional committee
+ with jurisdiction
+
+ over the financial
+ activity at issue.
+ According to Levitt,
+
+ these members would then
+ "harass" the SEC with frequent
+ letters demanding
+
+ answers to complex
+ questions and appearances of
+ officials before
+
+ Congress. These requests
+ consumed much of the agency’s
+ time and discouraged
+
+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
+
+ making sense. People
+ were paying inflated prices
+ for their homes, and they
+
+ didn’t seem to have
+ enough income to pay for what
+ they had bought. Within
+
+ a few years, when he
+ passed some of these same houses,
+ he saw that they were
+
+ vacant. "For sale" signs
+ appeared on the front lawns. And
+ when he passed again, the
+
+ yards were untended
+ and the grass was turning brown.
+ Next, the houses went
+
+ into foreclosure,
+ and that’s when he noticed that
+ the empty houses
+
+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
+
+ former senior vice
+ president, testified to
+ the FCIC. "When I left
+
+ Moody’s, an analyst’s
+ worst fear was that he would do
+ something, or she, that
+
+ would allow him or
+ her to be singled out for
+ jeopardizing Moody’s
+
+ market share."123 Clarkson
+ denied having a "forceful"
+ management style, and
+
+ his supervisor,
+ Raymond McDaniel, told the FCIC that
+ Clarkson was a "good
+
+ manager."124 Former
+ team managing director
+ Gary Witt recalled that
+
+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
+
+ billion) to billion)
+ without engendering the
+ substantial increase
+
+ in delinquencies that
+ would ordinarily have
+ alarmed investors and brought
+
+ the bubble to a
+ halt.46 Indeed, the absence of
+ delinquencies had the
+
+ opposite eff ect.
+ As investors around the world saw
+ housing prices rise in
+
+ the U.S. without any
+ signifi cant losses even among
+ subprime and other
+
+ high-yielding loans, they
+ were encouraged to buy PMBS
+ that—although rated AAA—still off
+
+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
+
+ at the Financial
+ Services Roundtable in early
+ "But we also don’t
+
+ want to encourage
+ the abuses; indeed, we want
+ to do what we can
+
+ to stop these abuses."49
+ Fed General Counsel Scott
+ Alvarez told the FCIC,
+
+ "There was concern that
+ if you put out a broad rule,
+ you would stop things that
+
+ were not unfair and
+ deceptive because you were
+ trying to get at
+
+ the bad practices and
+ you just couldn’t think of all
+ of the details you
+
+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
+
+ an Industrial
+ Loan Company," November
+ pp. To approve such
+
+ a proposal, the
+ Bank Holding Company Act
+ requires the Fed to
+
+ determine that a
+ transaction "can reasonably
+ be expected to
+
+ produce benefits
+ to the public, such as greater
+ convenience, increased
+
+ competition, or
+ gains in efficiency, that
+ outweigh possible
+
+ adverse effects, such
+ as undue concentration
+ of resources, decreased
+
+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
+
+ PMBS. Losses of this
+ magnitude would certainly
+ be enough—when combined
+
+ with other losses
+ on securities and loans
+ not related to
+
+ mortgages—to call into
+ question the stability
+ of a large number
+
+ of banks, investment
+ banks and other fi nancial
+ institutions in
+
+ the U.S. and around the
+ world. However, there was one
+ other factor that
+
+ exacerbated
+ the adverse eff ect of the
+ loss of a market
+
+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
+
+ were generally
+ prime mortgages, did not suff er
+ substantial losses
+
+ at the outset of
+ the mortgage meltdown, although
+ as the fi nancial
+
+ crisis turned into
+ a recession and housing
+ prices continued to
+
+ fall, losses among prime
+ mortgages began to approach
+ the level of prime
+
+ mortgage losses that
+ had occurred in past housing
+ crises. However, those
+
+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
+
+ true, in part, because
+ CRA loans are generally
+ loans to low income
+
+ individuals;
+ as such, they are more likely
+ than loans to middle
+
+ income borrowers
+ to be subprime and Alt-A loans
+ and thus sought aft er
+
+ by FHA, Fannie and
+ Freddie and subprime lenders such
+ as Countrywide; this
+
+ competition is
+ another reason why their
+ rates are likely to
+
--- /dev/null
+Found 19940 haiku...
+
+On line 4:
+ current financial
+ and economic crisis in
+ the United States." In
+
+On line 4:
+ Commission presents to
+ the President, the Congress,
+ and the American
+
+ people the results
+ of its examination
+ and its conclusions
+
+ as to the causes
+ of the crisis. More than two
+ years after the worst
+
+On line 6:
+ financial crisis,
+ our economy, as well as
+ communities and
+
+On line 6:
+ the after-shocks. Millions
+ of Americans have lost their
+ jobs and their homes, and
+
+On line 6:
+ rebound. This report
+ is intended to provide
+ a historical
+
+ accounting of what
+ brought our financial system
+ and economy to
+
+On line 8:
+ better understand
+ how this calamity came to be.
+ The Commission was
+
+On line 8:
+ as part of the Fraud
+ Enforcement and Recovery
+ Act (Public Law 111-21)
+
+On line 10:
+ by Congress and signed
+ by the President in May
+ This independent,
+
+On line 10:
+ panel was composed
+ of private citizens with
+ experience in
+
+On line 10:
+ banking, and consumer
+ protection. Six members of
+ the Commission were
+
+On line 10:
+ by the Democratic
+ leadership of Congress and
+ four members by the
+
+On line 12:
+ specific topics
+ for inquiry and called for the
+ examination
+
+On line 12:
+ collapse of major
+ financial institutions
+ that failed or would have
+
+On line 12:
+ the government. This
+ report fulfills these mandates.
+ In addition, the
+
+On line 12:
+ was instructed to
+ refer to the attorney
+ general of the
+
+On line 12:
+ any appropriate
+ state attorney general
+ any person that the
+
+ Commission found may
+ have violated the laws
+ of the United States
+
+On line 12:
+ relation to the
+ crisis. Where the Commission
+ found such potential
+
+On line 12:
+ The Commission used
+ the authority it was
+ given to issue
+
+On line 12:
+ and the production
+ of documents, but in the
+ vast majority
+
+On line 14:
+ voluntarily
+ cooperated with this
+ inquiry. In the course
+
+On line 14:
+ millions of pages of
+ documents, interviewed more
+ than witnesses, and
+
+On line 14:
+ of public hearings
+ in New York, Washington, D.C.,
+ and communities
+
+On line 14:
+ the country that were
+ hard hit by the crisis. The
+ Commission also
+
+ drew from a large body
+ of existing work about the
+ crisis developed
+
+On line 14:
+ government agencies,
+ academics, journalists, legal
+ investigators,
+
+On line 16:
+ We have tried in this
+ report to explain in clear,
+ understandable terms
+
+On line 16:
+ complex financial
+ system worked, how the pieces fit
+ together, and how
+
+On line 16:
+ occurred. Doing so
+ required research into broad
+ and sometimes arcane
+
+On line 16:
+ risk management. To
+ bring these subjects out of the
+ realm of the abstract,
+
+On line 16:
+ Financial, Fannie
+ Mae, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers,
+ Merrill Lynch, Moody’s, and
+
+ Wachovia. We looked more
+ generally at the roles
+ and actions of scores
+
+On line 18:
+ We also studied
+ relevant policies put in
+ place by successive
+
+On line 18:
+ And importantly,
+ we examined the roles of
+ policy makers
+
+On line 18:
+ Corporation, the
+ Federal Reserve Board, the
+ Federal Reserve
+
+On line 18:
+ Housing and Urban
+ Development, the Office
+ of the Comptroller
+
+ of the Currency,
+ the Office of Federal
+ Housing Enterprise
+
+On line 18:
+ its successor, the
+ Federal Housing Finance
+ Agency), the Office
+
+On line 18:
+ Supervision, the
+ Securities and Exchange
+ Commission, and the
+
+ Treasury Department.
+ Of course, there is much work the
+ Commission did not
+
+On line 20:
+ it to delve into
+ what caused the crisis. In that
+ sense, the Commission
+
+On line 20:
+ other transportation
+ accidents so that knowledge
+ of the probable
+
+On line 20:
+ can help avoid future
+ accidents. Nor were we tasked
+ with evaluating
+
+ the federal law
+ (the Troubled Asset Relief
+ Program, known as TARP)
+
+On line 20:
+ major financial
+ institutions. That duty
+ was assigned to the
+
+On line 22:
+ General for TARP.
+ This report is not the sole
+ repository of
+
+ what the panel found.
+ A website will host a wealth
+ of information
+
+On line 24:
+ contain a stockpile
+ of materials—including
+ documents and emails,
+
+On line 24:
+ Commission’s public
+ hearings, testimony, and
+ supporting research—that
+
+ can be studied for
+ years to come. Much of what is
+ footnoted in this
+
+On line 24:
+ can be found on the
+ website. In addition, more
+ materials that
+
+ cannot be released
+ yet for various reasons
+ will eventually
+
+On line 24:
+ made public through the
+ National Archives and Records
+ Administration.
+
+On line 26:
+ extraordinary
+ commitment and knowledge of
+ the members of the
+
+ Commission who were
+ accorded the honor of
+ this public service.
+
+On line 26:
+ from the perspectives
+ shared with commissioners by
+ thousands of concerned
+
+On line 26:
+ and emails. And we are
+ grateful to the hundreds of
+ individuals
+
+On line 26:
+ personal accounts
+ in extensive interviews,
+ testimony, and
+
+ discussions with the
+ Commission. We want to thank
+ the Commission staff,
+
+On line 30:
+ particular, Wendy
+ Edelberg, our executive
+ director, for the
+
+ professionalism,
+ passion, and long hours they brought
+ to this mission in
+
+On line 30:
+ report would not have
+ been possible without their
+ extraordinary
+
+ dedication. With
+ this report and our website,
+ the Commission’s work
+
+ comes to a close. We
+ present what we have found in the
+ hope that readers can
+
+On line 32:
+ this report to reach
+ their own conclusions, even as
+ the comprehensive
+
+On line 38:
+ record of this crisis
+ continues to be written.
+ CONCLUSIONS OF THE
+
+On line 40:
+ Commission has been
+ called upon to examine
+ the financial and
+
+ economic crisis
+ that has gripped our country and
+ explain its causes
+
+On line 40:
+ American people.
+ We are keenly aware of the
+ significance of
+
+On line 40:
+ economic damage
+ that America has suffered
+ in the wake of the
+
+On line 42:
+ crisis since the Great
+ Depression. Our task was first
+ to determine what
+
+On line 42:
+ and how it happened
+ so that we could understand
+ why it happened. Here
+
+On line 42:
+ our conclusions. We
+ encourage the American
+ people to join us
+
+On line 42:
+ own assessments based
+ on the evidence gathered
+ in our inquiry. If
+
+On line 42:
+ from history, we
+ are unlikely to fully
+ recover from it.
+
+ Some on Wall Street and
+ in Washington with a stake
+ in the status quo
+
+ may be tempted to
+ wipe from memory the events
+ of this crisis, or
+
+On line 42:
+ unravel myths, and
+ help us understand how the
+ crisis could have been
+
+ avoided. It is an
+ attempt to record history,
+ not to rewrite it,
+
+On line 44:
+ allow it to be
+ rewritten. To help our fellow
+ citizens better
+
+On line 44:
+ conclusions at the
+ end of chapters in Parts III,
+ IV, and V of this
+
+ report. The subject
+ of this report is of no
+ small consequence to
+
+On line 46:
+ nation. The profound
+ events of and were neither bumps
+ in the road nor an
+
+ accentuated
+ dip in the financial and
+ business cycles we
+
+On line 46:
+ come to expect in
+ a free market economic
+ system. This was a
+
+On line 46:
+ financial upheaval,
+ if you will—that wreaked havoc in
+ communities and
+
+ neighborhoods across this
+ country. As this report goes
+ to print, there are more
+
+On line 48:
+ million Americans
+ who are out of work, cannot
+ find full-time work,
+
+On line 48:
+ up looking for work.
+ About four million families
+ have lost their homes to
+
+On line 48:
+ their mortgage payments.
+ Nearly trillion in household
+ wealth has vanished, with
+
+On line 48:
+ and life savings swept
+ away. Businesses, large and small,
+ have felt the sting of
+
+On line 48:
+ recession. There is
+ much anger about what has transpired,
+ and justifiably
+
+ so. Many people who
+ abided by all the rules now
+ find themselves out of
+
+On line 48:
+ about their future prospects.
+ The collateral damage
+ of this crisis has
+
+ been real people
+ and real communities.
+ The impacts of this
+
+On line 48:
+ are likely to be
+ felt for a generation.
+ And the nation faces
+
+On line 50:
+ so many Americans,
+ we began our exploration
+ with our own views and
+
+On line 50:
+ how the world’s strongest
+ financial system came to
+ the brink of collapse.
+
+On line 50:
+ our appointment to
+ this independent panel,
+ much had already been
+
+On line 50:
+ said about the crisis.
+ Yet all of us have been deeply
+ affected by what
+
+ we have learned in the
+ course of our inquiry. We have
+ been at various
+
+ times fascinated,
+ surprised, and even shocked by what
+ we saw, heard, and read.
+
+On line 52:
+ revelation. Much
+ attention over the past two
+ years has been focused
+
+On line 52:
+ the decisions by
+ the federal government
+ to provide massive
+
+On line 52:
+ financial system
+ and rescue large financial
+ institutions that
+
+On line 52:
+ important to fail.
+ Those decisions—and the deep
+ emotions surrounding
+
+ them—will be debated
+ long into the future. But
+ our mission was to
+
+ ask and answer this
+ central question: how did it
+ come to pass that in
+
+On line 52:
+ the total collapse
+ of our financial system
+ and economy or
+
+On line 52:
+ and an array of
+ companies, as millions of
+ Americans still lost
+
+ their jobs, their savings,
+ and their homes1 In this report,
+ we detail the events
+
+On line 54:
+ the crisis. But a
+ simple summary, as we
+ see it, is useful
+
+ at the outset. While
+ the vulnerabilities
+ that created the
+
+On line 54:
+ the making, it was
+ the collapse of the housing
+ bubble—fueled by
+
+ low interest rates,
+ easy and available credit, scant
+ regulation, and
+
+ toxic mortgages— that
+ was the spark that ignited
+ a string of events, which
+
+On line 56:
+ fall of Trillions of
+ dollars in risky mortgages had
+ become embedded
+
+On line 56:
+ as mortgage-related
+ securities were packaged,
+ repackaged, and sold to
+
+On line 56:
+ world. When the bubble
+ burst, hundreds of billions of
+ dollars in losses
+
+On line 56:
+ to those mortgages and
+ had borrowed heavily against
+ them. This happened not
+
+On line 56:
+ in the United States
+ but around the world. The losses
+ were magnified by
+
+On line 58:
+ crisis reached seismic
+ proportions in September
+ with the failure of
+
+ Lehman Brothers and the
+ impending collapse of the
+ insurance giant
+
+On line 58:
+ International
+ Group (AIG). Panic fanned by a
+ lack of transparency
+
+On line 58:
+ interconnections
+ among institutions perceived
+ to be "too big to
+
+ fail," caused the credit
+ markets to seize up. Trading
+ ground to a halt. The
+
+On line 58:
+ market plummeted.
+ The economy plunged into
+ a deep recession.
+
+On line 60:
+ financial system
+ we examined bears little
+ resemblance to that
+
+On line 60:
+ generation. The
+ changes in the past three decades alone
+ have been remarkable.
+
+On line 60:
+ markets have become
+ increasingly globalized.
+ Technology has
+
+On line 60:
+ and complexity
+ of financial instruments
+ and transactions. There
+
+On line 60:
+ costs of financing
+ than ever before. And the
+ financial sector
+
+ itself has become
+ a much more dominant force
+ in our economy.
+
+On line 64:
+ the amount of debt held
+ by the financial sector
+ soared from trillion to
+
+On line 66:
+ doubling as a share
+ of gross domestic product.
+ The very nature of
+
+On line 66:
+ to publicly traded
+ corporations taking greater
+ and more diverse kinds
+
+On line 66:
+ risks. By the largest U.S.
+ commercial banks held of the
+ industry’s assets,
+
+On line 66:
+ more than double the
+ level held in On the eve
+ of the crisis in
+
+On line 66:
+ constituted of
+ all corporate profits in
+ the United States, up
+
+On line 66:
+ in Understanding
+ this transformation has been
+ critical to the
+
+On line 68:
+ Now to our major
+ findings and conclusions, which
+ are based on the facts
+
+On line 68:
+ in this report: they
+ are offered with the hope that
+ lessons may be learned to
+
+On line 70:
+ future catastrophe.
+ We conclude this financial
+ crisis was avoidable.
+
+ The crisis was the
+ result of human action
+ and inaction, not
+
+ of Mother Nature
+ &nbs
projects / crisishaiku.git / commitdiff