Excerpt
MARGARET WARNER (Newshour): Now, a new book by a former insider takes a critical look at the government's actions during and after the financial crisis. The fallout from the crisis and those decisions is still reverberating on the campaign trail this fall.
Sheila Bair was a key player as head of the FDIC, one of the nation's chief bank regulators. She worked with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, before stepping down last year.
Her new book is called "Bull By the Horns."
Judy Woodruff sat down with Bair yesterday.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Sheila Bair, welcome.
SHEILA BAIR, former chair, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: Thank you for having me. Nice to be here.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): So let's just -- just to get some background out of the way, who and what do you think is responsible for the financial collapse of 2008?
SHEILA BAIR: Oh, there's plenty of blame to go around.
I think at the end of the day, it was greed. It was just greed that was unchecked by government and government regulators. This idea that this is all caused because the government wanted poor people to have mortgages, that's just not true.
I think expanding access to homeownership for low-income people was a rationalization, but it was not a driver. A lot of people were making a lot of money, making a lot of irresponsible loans to frankly the vulnerable parts of our population that didn't understand these mortgages to begin with, and regulators didn't step in to stop it.
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