Pointing Fingers: Bankers Blame the Government for the Crisis

We might still be in the midst of a dour recession, but the finger-pointing has been going on for some time now. You may recall the skewering by Congress of Alan Greenspan last October.

While many legislators have weighed in, we have heard little from bankers themselves. After all, was it not the bankers who were complicit in the CDS-securitization-easy-credit orgy?

Fret not, we have a verdict. A study by Grant Thornton and Bank Director magazine came out today that polled about 340 banking industry CEOs and senior corporate officers about “what do you think are the main causes of the credit crisis?” Their answer: the government and politicians. While it is true that “lax underwriting standards” votes from 54% of the respondents, I did some calculating and found that of all the votes cast, 32.4% of the votes were cast for causes related to actions by the government or politicians, while 28.2% were industry-related.

The full list of causes the study suggested, and the percentage of banker votes each garnered, were:

* Lax underwriting standards – 54%
* Political emphasis on increasing home ownership – 46%
* Lack of oversight of the mortgage industry – 44%
* Inadequate understanding of risks – 40%
* Lack of oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – 39%
* Credit default swaps – 18%
* Inappropriate or aggressive commissions for mortgage brokers – 18%
* Interest rates kept low for too long – 18%
* Use of the fair value accounting standard – 15%
* Mortgage fraud – 11%
* None of the above – 1%

The truth is we might never know what the true cause of the crisis was. Certainly, it’ll be the subject of many academic debates in the years to come. In fact, this kind of speculation right now is silly. I only wish the study had unveiled how to get us out of this mess, rather than just who was to blame for it. There would be nothing academic about that.