The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission released its long-awaited report on Friday.

WILLIAM BLACK
The New York Times just posted a piece by Black titled “When ‘Liar’s Loans’ Flourish.”
Black also recently wrote the piece “How can the Architects of the Crisis Investigate it?” — which states: “The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission issued its report [Friday] on the causes of the crisis. The Commissioners were chosen along partisan lines and the Republicans, one-upping [their] dual responses to President Obama’s State of the Union address, have issued three rebuttals. The rebuttals follow a failed preemptive effort by the Republicans to censor the report — they insisted on banning the use of the terms ‘shadow banking system’ (the virtually unregulated financial sector that conducts most financial transactions), ‘Wall Street,’ and ‘deregulation.’”

Black is an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. He was the deputy staff director of the national commission that investigated the cause of the savings and loan debacle and he was a witness before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and an expert witness for the federal government in its enforcement action against the former senior leaders of Fannie Mae.

RANDALL WRAY
Wray, professor of economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, said today: We are in the midst of the worst scandal in human history, created by layer after layer of fraud in every link of the home finance food chain, from fraudulent mortgage lending through fraudulent securitization of mortgages and to the fraudulent home foreclosures. This could not have happened without the acquiescence and support of real estate agents, property appraisers, mortgage brokers, lenders, investment banks, credit ratings agencies, trustees, accountants, credit default swap sellers and mortgage insurers, mortgage servicers, MERS [Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems] and even judges who let the fraudulent banks steal homes. We cannot forget that the whole mess was aided and abetted by policy makers at the Fed and Treasury as well as academic economists who essentially functioned as cheerleaders for fraud as they pushed to remove regulation and opposed any intervention to stop dangerous practices. We are now witness to the greatest redistribution of wealth toward the top since the enclosure movement (the seizure of common land into private hands).” Wray’s books include Understanding Modern Money.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167