The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare. AEI is an independent nonprofit organization supported primarily by contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals.
The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), commonly known as Fannie Mae, is a United States government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) and, since 1968, a publicly traded company. Founded in 1938 during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal, the corporation's purpose is to expand the secondary mortgage market by securitizing mortgage loans in the form of mortgage-backed securities (MBS), allowing lenders to reinvest their assets into more lending and in effect increasing the number of lenders in the mortgage market by reducing the reliance on locally based savings and loan associations. Its brother organization is the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), better known as Freddie Mac.
The Community Reinvestment Act is a United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to help meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Congress passed the Act in 1977 to reduce discriminatory credit practices against low-income neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining.
Franklin Delano Raines, also known as Frank Raines, is an American business executive. He is the former chairman and chief executive officer of the Federal National Mortgage Association, commonly known as Fannie Mae, who served as White House budget director under President Bill Clinton. His role leading Fannie Mae has come under scrutiny. He has been called one of the "25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis" according to Time magazine.
The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), commonly known as Freddie Mac, is an American publicly traded, government-sponsored enterprise (GSE), headquartered in Tysons, Virginia. The FHLMC was created in 1970 to expand the secondary market for mortgages in the US. Along with its sister organization, the Federal National Mortgage Association, Freddie Mac buys mortgages, pools them, and sells them as a mortgage-backed security (MBS) to private investors on the open market. This secondary mortgage market increases the supply of money available for mortgage lending and increases the money available for new home purchases. The name "Freddie Mac" is a variant of the FHLMC initialism of the company's full name that was adopted officially for ease of identification.
A government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) is a type of financial services corporation created by the United States Congress. Their intended function is to enhance the flow of credit to targeted sectors of the economy, to make those segments of the capital market more efficient and transparent, and to reduce the risk to investors and other suppliers of capital. The desired effect of the GSEs is to enhance the availability and reduce the cost of credit to the targeted borrowing sectors primarily by reducing the risk of capital losses to investors: agriculture, home finance and education. Well known GSEs are the Federal National Mortgage Association, known as Fannie Mae, and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, or Freddie Mac.
The American subprime mortgage crisis was a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010 that contributed to the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. The crisis led to a severe economic recession, with millions losing their jobs and many businesses going bankrupt. The U.S. government intervened with a series of measures to stabilize the financial system, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
Christopher C. DeMuth is an American lawyer and a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute, as well as director of the National Conservatism conference organized by the Edmund Burke Society. He was the president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank, from 1986 to 2008. DeMuth is widely credited with reviving AEI's fortunes after its near-bankruptcy in 1986 and leading the institute to new levels of influence and growth. Before joining AEI, DeMuth worked on regulatory issues in the Ronald Reagan administration.
Residential mortgage-backed security (RMBS) are a type of mortgage-backed security backed by residential real estate mortgages.
The subprime mortgage crisis impact timeline lists dates relevant to the creation of a United States housing bubble, the 2005 housing bubble burst and the subprime mortgage crisis which developed during 2007 and 2008. It includes United States enactment of government laws and regulations, as well as public and private actions which affected the housing industry and related banking and investment activity. It also notes details of important incidents in the United States, such as bankruptcies and takeovers, and information and statistics about relevant trends. For more information on reverberations of this crisis throughout the global financial system see 2007–2008 financial crisis.
Observers and analysts have attributed the reasons for the 2001–2006 housing bubble and its 2007–10 collapse in the United States to "everyone from home buyers to Wall Street, mortgage brokers to Alan Greenspan". Other factors that are named include "Mortgage underwriters, investment banks, rating agencies, and investors", "low mortgage interest rates, low short-term interest rates, relaxed standards for mortgage loans, and irrational exuberance" Politicians in both the Democratic and Republican political parties have been cited for "pushing to keep derivatives unregulated" and "with rare exceptions" giving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "unwavering support".
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is an independent federal agency in the United States created as the successor regulatory agency of the Federal Housing Finance Board (FHFB), the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development government-sponsored enterprise mission team, absorbing the powers and regulatory authority of both entities, with expanded legal and regulatory authority, including the ability to place government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) into receivership or conservatorship.
In September 2008, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that it would take over the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. Both government-sponsored enterprises, which finance home mortgages in the United States by issuing bonds, had become illiquid as the market for those bonds collapsed in the subprime mortgage crisis. The FHFA established conservatorships in which each enterprise's management works under the FHFA's direction to reduce losses and to develop a new operating structure that will allow a return to self-management.
James B. Lockhart III is an American U.S. Navy officer, business executive, and, since September 2009, Vice Chairman of WL Ross & Co, which manages $9 billion of private equity investments, a hedge fund and a Mortgage Recovery Fund. It is a subsidiary of Invesco, a Fortune 500 investment management firm. He coordinates WL Ross's investments in financial services firms and mortgages. Lockhart serves co-chairs the Bipartisan Policy Center's Commission on Retirement Security and Personal Savings.
The government interventions during the subprime mortgage crisis were a response to the 2007–2009 subprime mortgage crisis and resulted in a variety of government bailouts that were implemented to stabilize the financial system during late 2007 and early 2008.
Government policies and the subprime mortgage crisis covers the United States government policies and its impact on the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–2009. The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis was a set of events and conditions that led to the 2007–2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession. It was characterized by a rise in subprime mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures, and the resulting decline of securities backed by said mortgages. Several major financial institutions collapsed in September 2008, with significant disruption in the flow of credit to businesses and consumers and the onset of a severe global recession.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) was established in 2010 to investigate the causes of the financial crisis of 2007–2008. The Commission, led by Phil Angelides, held public hearings, gathered testimony from hundreds, and released its report in January 2011.
The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis, was the most severe worldwide economic crisis since the 1929 Wall Street crash which began the Great Depression. Its causes included predatory lending in the form of subprime mortgages to low-income homebuyers and a resulting housing bubble, excessive risk-taking by global financial institutions, and lack of regulatory oversight, which culminated in a "perfect storm" that triggered the Great Recession of late 2007 to mid-2009. The first phase of the global crisis began in early 2007, as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) tied to U.S. real estate, and a vast web of derivatives linked to those MBS, collapsed in value. A liquidity crisis spread to global institutions by mid-2007 and climaxed with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, which triggered a stock market crash and international banking crisis.
Lawrence J. White is Robert Kavesh Professor of Economics at New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business. During 1986–1989 he was on leave to serve as board member, Federal Home Loan Bank Board, in which capacity he also served as board member for Freddie Mac; and during 1982–1983 he was on leave to serve as Director of the Economic Policy Office, Antitrust Division, US Department of Justice. He is the General Editor of The Review of Industrial Organization and formerly Secretary-Treasurer of the Western Economic Association International.
Phillip Lee "Phill" Swagel is an American economist who is currently the director of the Congressional Budget Office. As Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy from 2006 to 2009, he played an important role in the Troubled Asset Relief Program that was part of the U.S. government's response to the financial crisis of 2007–08. He was recently a Professor in International Economics at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, a non-resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, senior fellow at the Milken Institute, and co-chair of the Bipartisan Policy Center's Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative.
