On the recordMay 19, 2010
I will concede what he pointed to as a fundamental flaw, a mistake that was made. There was a presumption made that owning a home was such a valuable American ideal... We believed if we pushed them to the limit of how much they could pay, the home would appreciate in value, their incomes would go up, and everything would work out. It turned out that gamble was wrong for some people. Certainly, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as the ultimate guarantors of mortgages, were part of that. There is a government element here. I don't question that for a moment. Certainly some blame lies there. Blame lies with those people who overextended, bought more than they could afford. They may have been misled into it, but the fact is, they did it. They made mistakes. Having said that, though, there were a lot of people involved in financial institutions which led them into this, misled them into this.
