Unmasking the Real Culprits of the Housing Collapse

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Front Page Magazine:

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Paul Sperry, former Washington bureau chief for Investor’s Business Daily and author of The Great American Bank Robbery: The Unauthorized Report About What Really Caused the Great Recession.

FP: Paul Sperry, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Sperry: Thank you, always a pleasure, Jamie.

FP: I would like to talk to you today about the root causes of the financial crisis and why we can’t seem to get it behind us. What can you tell us?

Sperry: It’s complicated, but I’ll give you the Readers Digest version:

The government forced banks to rubberstamp home loans for lower-income folks who couldn’t otherwise qualify, and then blamed Wall Street when those high-risk loans failed in a classic case of government creating a problem and then blaming the private sector. The crisis was the inevitable outcome of more than a decade of bad housing policy in Washington. And now some of the same radicals are doubling down on the same stupid mistakes they made before the crisis.

FP: So this goes back to the 1990s and Clinton?

Sperry: As a matter of fact, he’s the prime suspect. But he had several accomplices — and many of them have returned to the scene of their financial crime. Because they were never held accountable, they’ve managed to land key jobs inside the Obama administration where they’re formulating more reckless housing and banking policies.

FP: Like who?

Sperry: Well, like Eric Holder and Tom Perez, who are leading a new bank shakedown at Justice for affirmative-action mortgages. And then there’s Shaun Donovan and Bill Apgar, who are picking up where they left off at HUD. They’re the geniuses who originally plunged Fannie and Freddie into the dangerous subprime securities market. I identify several other repeat offenders from the old Clinton gang in my book as well. But Clinton was the mastermind. Now he’s covering up his role by blaming Republicans and Wall Street.

His hubris never ceases to amaze me. He’s out there right now on a book tour trying to be the hero and save the economy that he himself murdered. It’s his own bad policies we need saving from. His housing regulations actually created the subprime bubble and started the feeding frenzy on Wall Street.

FP: What’s your evidence?