Here is a link to a newsletter by Marotta Asset Management that has a quite different 'take' on the whole sub-prime lending debacle. The basic argument is that the bad loans were made because the Clinton administration pushed lenders to make risky loans to unqualified borrowers in the name of civil rights and affirmative action.
Marotta argues that banks and other lenders were forced to make loans they knew were iffy in order to keep the likes of Jesse Jackson off their collective backs. He views it as an example (one of many) of well-intentioned public policy generating spectacularly bad unintended consequences.
I don't know if he is right. However, his argument makes sense in terms of my experience with public policy which is often economically illiterate.
