White House Offers Plan to Ward Off Credit Crises

[flashl]

Source: NY Times

WASHINGTON — After months of watching a growing credit crisis made worse by steadily eroding home prices, the Bush administration responded on Thursday with the outlines of a plan that officials emphasized is meant more to prevent future crises than to address the current one.

The plan, which relies primarily on state regulators and private industry to tighten their oversight of financial markets, calls on states to issue nationwide licensing standards for mortgage brokers.

The plan would also require lenders to make more complete disclosures about payment terms to home buyers. And it would curtail possible conflicts of interest at companies that assign levels of risk to packages of mortgages that are sold to investors.

“This effort is not about finding excuses and scapegoats,” the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., said in his most extensive comments to date about the credit and market problems. “Poor judgment and poor market practices led to mistakes by all participants.”

But in many ways, the plan relies on the same market participants — from mortgage brokers to credit-rating agencies and Wall Street firms — that government officials and other experts blame for the current crisis.

NY Times

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/business/14paulson.html?hp

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Recently in an editorial, Former Gov. Spitzer detailed years of a concerted resistance from this admin against states AGs efforts when they joined forces to protect their states from predatory lenders. Now this admin claims it want the states to create nationwide licensing AFTER the proverbial horse is out the barn.

[cliss]

1. Don't forget ~

Mr. Henry Paulsen Secretary of the Treasury, made $1,000,000,000 billion dollars off of subprime mortgages. That's one billion dollars.

[Zorra]

2. I think it may be a different individual, John Paulson, that you are

referring to.