This event will address the problems and improvements needed for student loans, beginning with a keynote presentation by former secretary of education Bill Bennett.

When the bubble deflated in 2007, an unprecedented number of weak mortgages went into default - those that were held or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie, and those that had been securitized by Wall Street. This drove down housing prices and threw Fannie and Freddie into insolvency. 

Super committee members Sen. Pat Toomey and Rep. Jeb Hensarling are taking flak from some conservatives for proposing a deal including increases in "revenues." But it's worth taking a look at what Toomey and Hensarling actually were talking about. It may not matter now but could after 2012.

The Federal Reserve could give banks a big incentive to expand by setting negative interest rates on their excess reserves. 

Ending Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is on the top of the GOP's congressional agenda. However, one Republican want to replace them with another government housing program.

The Occupy Wall Street phenomenon is perfectly understandable if we recognize it as an artifact of the conventional narrative about the financial crisis—that it was caused by Wall Street greed and insufficient regulation. If the demonstrators new the truth—that the government's housing policy caused the financial crisis and the subsequent recession—they would be on the Capitol steps.

Government housing policies and the toxic mortgages they spawned were the sine qua non of the financial crisis.

Barney Frank's home-lending reform bill could seriously impede the proper function of the U.S. mortgage market.