Don't Overlook Fannie and Freddie's Central Role in the Housing Collapse

"The controversy over the culpability of US government real estate policy in the '90s and '00s, and Fannie and Freddie in particular, continue to rage. To me, those who deny the central role of government policy and the GSEs have to answer a crucial question: if they were not absorbing a substantial amount of the credit risk in subprime mortgages, how did they lose so much money?"