Common Sense Observations about the Mortgage Meltdown from Cypress Semiconductor CEO, T.J. Rodgers

Here is an excerpt from Rodgers's Wall Street Journal op-Ed piece:

"Wall Street understands how to make money, up-market or down... Wall Street did nothing other than facilitate home-financing access to the next tier of less-qualified home buyers, as demanded by every president since Bill Clinton. After that, the bankers did exactly what their shareholders wanted: bundle those risky loans into securities, sell them to lock in the profits, and dump the risk right back onto the federal government—where it belonged.

My purpose is not to debate the morality of mortgage-backed securities but to update the Law of Unintended Consequences with the corollary Law of Misguided Subsidies: Whenever Washington disrupts a market by dumping subsidies into it, Wall Street will find a way to pocket a majority of the money while the intended subsidy beneficiaries are harmed by the resulting market turmoil.

The recent crash in mortgage-backed securities was a near-repeat of the savings-and-loan crash of the 1980s, in which Washington insured the S&L industry but failed to set limits on high-risk loans." 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204903804577082631863392956.html?fb_ref=wsj_share_FB&fb_source=home_multiline