A fair settlement could facilitate the restart of lending and help accelerate the repair of the housing sector. But if President Obama successfully capitalizes on a deal, banks may be inviting four more years of his anti-Wall Street agenda.

In a new book entitled “Financing Failure: A Century of Bailouts,” Vern McKinley provides the most detailed account yet of the government’s decision-making process during these momentous events.

In case you missed it: in a recent piece, mortgage finance and housing expert Edward Pinto writes that the 30-years mortgage could well be the cause of a new housing bubble.

Housing markets will continue to go sideways, on average, during 2012, then they will begin their cyclical recovery in 2013.

Europe's banks and entire monetary system are in crisis from the sovereign debt of financially weak governments.  But the capital requirement for banks to hold such Euro denominated debt was zero.  It was defined as "risk free," but has instead led to massive losses.

Secretary Geithner argued that we have forgotten the reasons that the Dodd-Frank Act was necessary, and that's why the act has become so controversial. What the secretary seems to have missed is that we have learned a lot in the intervening years. The administration's rush to judgment on the financial crisis is a case study in why it would have been worthwhile to wait for the facts.

Here we go again.  A series of uncoordinated government policies are once more setting up the U.S. banking system for major losses and possibly another financial crisis.  

For many in the U.S., the worrisome events occurring in Europe recall the 2008 financial crisis. If Greece or some other country should fail to meet its debt obligations, the result could be much like the 2007 mortgage meltdown in the United States. Why is all this happening again?