The Whistleblower They Ignored

Fannie Mae Headquarters (photo: Wikipedia)

Truthdig - There aren’t too many genuine heroes to come out of the banking disaster, but Armando Falcon is one of them. You have probably never heard of him, but his testimony Friday before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, available on the commission’s website, is must reading for anyone trying to figure out why U.S. taxpayers had to bail out companies to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Falcon was the chief regulator attempting to bring order to the houses of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the first four years of this decade, and had he been listened to, a significant part of the housing crisis could have been mitigated. Instead his agency was denied serious regulatory power by Democrats in Congress including liberals such as Reps. Barney Frank and Maxine Waters, both of whom assumed he was undermining public support for more affordable housing. Read more.