Time Magazine Online Posts 25 People To Blame For Mortgage Crisis

I'd have figured this group for a lot of finger-pointing at mortgage brokers as a root cause of the mortgage crisis, but even the liberal-leaning partner of CNN, TIME, has released it's opinion of the biggest culprits in the debacle, and amazingly main street mortgage brokers and bankers aren't on the menu. Instead, the online magazine cites "The American Consumer" alongside certain presidents and investment bankers and based on the number of substantiating votes rendered by online readership, people seem to agree. This is quite a departure from the "everyone else is to blame" mentality many homeowners have adopted after realizing that home ownership isn't all about unlimited appreciation and cash-out refinancing, but TIME spares no quarter in leveling blame where it fits elsewhere.

So who made this particular list?

1. Angelo Mozilo – Co-founder and former head of Countrywide
2. Phil Gramm – Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee 1995 – 2000
3. Alan Greenspan – former Chairman, Federal Reserve
4. Chris Cox – former Chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission
5. American Consumers
6. Hank Paulson – former Secretary of the Treasury
7. Joe Cassano – founding member, AIG’s financial-products unit
8. Ian McCarthy – CEO, Beazer Homes
9. Frank Raines – former Chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae
10. Kathleen Corbet – former CEO, Standard & Poor’s
11. Dick Fuld – former CEO, Lehman Brothers
12. Marion and Herb Sandler – former heads, World Savings Bank
13. Bill Clinton – former U.S. President
14. George W. Bush – former U.S. President
15. Stan O’Neal – former CEO, Merrill Lynch
16. Wen Jiabao – Premier, China
17. David Lereah – former chief economist, National Assoc of Realtors
18. John Devaney – hedge fund manager
19. Bernie Madoff – Ponzi scheme orchestrator
20. Lew Ranieri – father of mortgage-backed securities
21. Burton Jablin – programmer at Scripps Networks, which owns HGTV
22. Fred Goodwin – former Chairman and CEO, Royal Bank of Scotland
23. Sandy Weill – former Chairman and CEO, Citigroup
24. David Oddsson – former Prime Minister, Iceland
25. Jimmy Cayne – former Chairman and CEO, Bear Stearns

Lot of "former" somebodies in there.

Read more about each of the above here.

Posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 9:59 pm in Mortgage Loan Insights. Bookmark this page, or subscribe through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.