This month marks the 10-year anniversary of the housing market meltdown that led to the Great Recession. Is another crisis looming around the corner?
Hopefully not, but it is worrisome that a decade later, Washington is engaged in all the same derelict behavior that caused the crisis in October 2008. The government agencies are still issuing taxpayer guarantees on more than 90 percent of mortgages — many with less than 5 percent down payments. Yikes.
Worse, the biggest conspirators in the meltdown, the duopolistic credit rating agencies — Moody's and S&P — which gave sterling AAA grades on these bonds up nearly to the date they collapsed into financial rubble, are still dominating 80 percent of the credit rating market. Why are they even still in business?
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