- Ranieri
- Clinton
- Greenspan
- Bernanke
- Paulson
If you don't know who Ranieri is, go here. Mundell dings Ranieri for having "lost connection between original borrowers and lenders" which seems dead on to me: the reason we can't do workouts is that nobody knows who owns this stuff.
He blames Clinton for repealing Glass-Steagall which is a fair cop, although I'd say others are more culpable (I'm looking at you, little Phil Gramm). He also blames Clinton for "strengthening the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act," and I don't think we have enough data on that one yet. Way I see it, most of the problem loans came from lenders not covered by CRA, and lots of CRA borrowers have continued to perform well. But we need to know more.
The rap on Bernanke is not quite what you might guess: mainly that he let the dollar soar in 2008 which (per Mundell) triggered the credit crunch (so also PaulsOn).
BTW on close scrutiny, I see his five goats are really six: he also has a slide for Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, who gave us AIG.
H/T: Dani Rodrik. Not sure my link to Mundell will work; if not, follow the link from Rodrik's page.
