Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Facts about our current financial turmoil

Fact 1a: Without the blessing of the credit rating agencies the lousily awarded mortgages to subprime lenders would never have been able to go global and turn into a tsunami.

Fact 1b: It was the short-sighted bank regulators who appointed the credit rating agencies as their imperial credit risks overseers even though they must have known this entailed severe systemic risk creation.

Fact 2a: If the banks have kept the mortgages on their books they would have been much more observant about what was going on and never ever would so many lousy mortgages to subprime lenders been awarded.

Fact 2b: It was the short-sighted bank regulators who through their minimum capital requirements and that were exclusively based on risk perceptions induced the banks to place their assets elsewhere.

Fact 3: As always small fish like mortgage brokers will carry the full blame while the real intellectual perpetuators will go free.