THE REAL STORY OF THE MELTDOWN THAT LED TO THE FINANCIAL CRISIS "Required reading” -- SeekingAlpha.com Many books have been written about the financial crisis and its causes, but none of them has been written by one of the key figures intimately involved in the drama. At last, one of those top insiders tells the complete story of the mortgage wars that almost destroyed the global economy. In this no-holds-barred account, Timothy Howard exposes the perfect storm of money, power, ideology, and politics that led to the crisis. Howard was the CFO of Fannie Mae until 2004. At its peak, Fannie Mae was responsible for more than one out of every four home loans in the United States. But by the mid-2000s, what seemed to be the most successful mortgage finance system in the world completely broke down. What happened? Howard takes you behind the scenes to show the dramatic struggles between the corporations and the politicians that led to the meltdown. In The Mortgage Wars, you'll learn: How Fannie Mae was born and evolved into the largest mortgage lender in the world How Fannie Mae survived the fi nancial turmoil that killed the thrift industry How the subprime market grew, with very little oversight, and eventually exploded How political and fi nancial jockeying sparked the mortgage wars What we must do to prevent a similar financial crisis from ever happening again At long last, this inside account tells the unvarnished truth about some of the most controversial subjects of our time, including the disturbing new norm of unsafe and unsound business practices in the finance world and the huge problems that arise when politicians try to pick winners in the global markets. The Mortgage Wars tells the real story for the first time, showing how an $11 trillion dollar industry really fights its battles, for better or worse. Timothy Howard also shares his insights on how to keep the mortgage fi nance system safe, offering invaluable, prescriptive advice for all of us as we move forward into an uncertain future. PRAISE FOR THE MORTGAGE WARS: “An essential contribution to understanding the roots of our most recent financial crisis, enriched by a deeper review of the history of American home financing." -- Kirkus Reviews “With great attention to detail, Howard charts business decisions over a five-decade span and leading up to the company's downfall." -- Publishers Weekly “Howard, with 20 years as a senior risk management executive, is in a unique position to examine the beginning of the mortgage wars and how they escalated and spun out of control, with disastrous results for the American homeowner. . . . For anyone wanting the ‘other side of the story’ and anyone who does not believe everything the media and politicians tell us.” -- Library Journal "A fascinating tale, well written by an insider, that shows forcefully how dangerous it can be to combine big politics with big money and big ambitions in a big hurry!" -- CHARLES D. ELLIS, author of the bestselling Winning the Loser's Game "In this fascinating and revealing book, one of the inside players in the struggle over the American home financing market tells the full story for the first time. Full of dramatic stories of partisan government and big business fighting to the finish, The Mortgage Wars is riveting--an essential read for anyone who wants to know how we can avoid another meltdown like the devastating financial crisis of 2008." -- JUNHENG LI, Founder and Head of Research, JL Warren Capital; author of Tiger Woman on Wall Street "Timothy Howard gives you the inside scoop on the battle for control of the U.S. mortgage market, a 'war' that was at the center of the global financial crisis. Understanding the fundamental cause of the crisis we are still recovering from is essential to avoid repeating past mistakes. I learned a lot from The Mortgage Wars and I highly recommend it." -- JENS NORDVIG, Head of Fixed Income Research Americas, Nomura Securities; author of The Fall of the Euro "Timothy Howard is the new rock star of fi nancial exposés. The Mortgage Wars reveals how Washington placed an $11 trillion dollar bet on the American dream and pushed our nation to the brink of economic collapse. Required reading for anyone with an interest in the capital markets." -- NORB VONNEGUT, author of The Trust.

The Nine Years’ War with France was a period of great institutional innovation in public finance and of severe monetary turmoil for England. It saw the creation of the Bank of England; a sudden sharp fall in the external value of the pound; a massive undertaking to melt down and recoin most of the nation’s silver currency; a failed attempt to create a National Land Bank as a competitor to the Bank of England; and the ensuing outbreak of a sharp monetary and financial crisis. Histories of this period usually divide these events into two main topics, treated in isolation from one another: the recoinage debate and ensuing monetary crisis and a ‘battle of the banks’. The first is often interpreted as the pyrrhic victory of a creditor-dominated parliament over the nation’s debtors, one that led very predictably to the ensuing monetary crisis. The second has been construed as a contest between whig-merchant and tory-gentry visions of the proper place of banking in England’s future. This book binds the two strands into a single narrative, resulting in a very different interpretation of both. Parliamentary debate over the recoinage was superficial and misleading; beneath the surface, it was just another front for the battle of the banks. And the latter had little to do with competing philosophies of economic development; it was rather a pragmatic struggle for profit and power, involving interlocking contests between two groups of financiers and two sets of politicians within the royal administration. The monetary crisis of summer 1696 was not the result of poor planning by the Treasury; rather it was a continuation of the battle of the banks, fought on new ground but with the same ultimate intent – to establish dominance in the lucrative business of private lending to the crown.

The 2008 financial crisis—like the Great Depression—was a world-historical event. What caused it will be debated for years, if not generations. The conventional narrative is that the financial crisis was caused by Wall Street greed and insufficient regulation of the financial system. That narrative produced the Dodd-Frank Act, the most comprehensive financial-system regulation since the New Deal. There is evidence, however, that the Dodd-Frank Act has slowed the recovery from the recession. If insufficient regulation caused the financial crisis, then the Dodd-Frank Act will never be modified or repealed; proponents will argue that doing so will cause another crisis. A competing narrative about what caused the financial crisis has received little attention. This view, which is accepted by almost all Republicans in Congress and most conservatives, contends that the crisis was caused by government housing policies. This book extensively documents this view. For example, it shows that in June 2008, before the crisis, 58 percent of all US mortgages were subprime or other low-quality mortgages. Of these, 76 percent were on the books of government agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. When these mortgages defaulted in 2007 and 2008, they drove down housing prices and weakened banks and other mortgage holders, causing the crisis. After this book is published, no one will be able to claim that the financial crisis was caused by insufficient regulation, or defend Dodd-Frank, without coming to terms with the data this book contains.

“A lucid and meticulously reported book by one of the Wall Street Journal’s ace reporters” (George Anders, Forbes contributor and author of The Rare Find). In 1938, the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt created a small agency called Fannie Mae. Intended to make home loans more accessible, the agency was born of the Great Depression and a government desperate to revive housing construction. It was a minor detail of the New Deal, barely recorded by the newspapers of the day. Over the next seventy years, Fannie Mae evolved into one of the largest financial companies in the world, owned by private shareholders but with its nearly $1 trillion of debt effectively guaranteed by the government. Almost from the beginning, critics repeatedly warned that Fannie was an accident waiting to happen. Then, in 2008, the housing market collapsed. Amid a wave of foreclosures, the company’s capital began to run out, and the US Treasury seized control. From the New Deal to President Obama’s administration, James R. Hagerty explains this fascinating but little-understood saga. Based on the author’s reporting for the Wall Street Journal, personal research, and interviews with executives, regulators, and congressional leaders, The Fateful History of Fannie Mae, he explains the politics, economics, and human frailties behind seven decades of missed opportunities to prevent a financial disaster.

Part economic history, part public history, A History of Mortgage Banking in the West is an insider’s account of how the mortgage banking sector worked over the last 150 years, including analysis of the causes of the 2007 mortgage crisis. Beginning with the land and railroad development acts that encouraged settlement in the west, E. Michael Rosser and Diane M. Sanders trace the laws, institutions, and individuals that contributed to the economic growth of the region. Using Colorado and the west as a case study for the nation’s economic and property development as a whole since the late nineteenth century, Rosser and Sanders explain how farm mortgages and agricultural lending steadily gave way to urban development and housing mortgages, all while the large mortgage and investment firms financed the development of some of the state’s most important water resources and railroad networks. Rosser uses his personal experience as a lifelong practitioner and educator of mortgage banking, along with a plethora of primary sources, academic archives, and industry publications, to analyze the causes of economic booms and busts as they relate to real estate and development. Rosser’s professional acumen combined with Sanders’s research experience makes A History of Mortgage Banking in the West a rich and nuanced account of the region’s most significant economic events. It will be an important work for scholars and practitioners in regional and financial history, mortgage market practice and development, government housing and mortgage policy, and financial stability and of great significance to anyone curious about the role of the federal government in national housing policy and the inherent risk in mortgages.

Why America's public-private mortgage giants threaten the world economy—and what to do about it The financial collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2008 led to one of the most sweeping government interventions in private financial markets in history. The bailout has already cost American taxpayers close to $150 billion, and substantially more will be needed. The U.S. economy--and by extension, the global financial system--has a lot riding on Fannie and Freddie. They cannot fail, yet that is precisely what these mortgage giants are guaranteed to do. How can we limit the damage to our economy, and avoid making the same mistakes in the future? Guaranteed to Fail explains how poorly designed government guarantees for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac led to the debacle of mortgage finance in the United States, weighs different reform proposals, and provides sensible, practical recommendations. Despite repeated calls for tougher action, Washington has expanded the scope of its guarantees to Fannie and Freddie, fueling more and more housing and mortgages all across the economy--and putting all of us at risk. This book unravels the dizzyingly immense, highly interconnected businesses of Fannie and Freddie. It proposes a unique model of reform that emphasizes public-private partnership, one that can serve as a blueprint for better organizing and managing government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In doing so, Guaranteed to Fail strikes a cautionary note about excessive government intervention in markets.

The urgent demand for housing after World War I fueled a boom in residential construction that led to historic peaks in home ownership. Foreclosures at the time were rare, and when they did happen, lenders could quickly recoup their losses by selling into a strong market. But no mortgage system is equipped to deal with credit problems on the scale of the Great Depression. As foreclosures quintupled, it became clear that the mortgage system of the 1920s was not up to the task, and borrowers, lenders, and real estate professionals sought action at the federal level. Well Worth Saving tells the story of the disastrous housing market during the Great Depression and the extent to which an immensely popular New Deal relief program, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), was able to stem foreclosures by buying distressed mortgages from lenders and refinancing them. Drawing on historical records and modern statistical tools, Price Fishback, Jonathan Rose, and Kenneth Snowden investigate important unanswered questions to provide an unparalleled view of the mortgage loan industry throughout the 1920s and early ’30s. Combining this with the stories of those involved, the book offers a clear understanding of the HOLC within the context of the housing market in which it operated, including an examination of how the incentives and behaviors at play throughout the crisis influenced the effectiveness of policy. More than eighty years after the start of the Great Depression, when politicians have called for similar programs to quell the current mortgage crisis, this accessible account of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation holds invaluable lessons for our own time.