These three studies are: 1. Sizing Total Exposure to Subprime and Alt-A Loans in the U.S. First Mortgage Market as of 6.30.2008, 2. Sizing Total Federal Government and Federal Agency Contributions to Subprime and Alt-A Loans in the U.S. First Mortgage Market as of 6.30.2008, and 3. High LTV, Subprime and Alt-A Originations Over the Period 1992–2007 and Fannie, Freddie, FHA, and VA‘s Role.

Discolsures contained in SEC complaints further validate the necessity to look behind Fannie and Freddie's characterization of subprime loans.  

The Securities and Exchange Commission's lawsuits against six top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, announced last week, are a seminal event.

Efforts to blame the banks for the financial crisis are failing because they are not supported by data. The key fact is that, by 2008, before the crisis, half of the 54 million mortgages in the U.S. financial system were subprime and other low-quality mortgages.

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. 

It's always painful to take on the myths and ideological narratives of the left. The pundits of the liberal (excuse me, "progressive") media make a pretense of listening to reason, but when their views are challenged, they become abusive.

It's somewhat implausible that two guys at a Washington think-tank, arguing that the financial crisis was caused by government housing policy, could create a widely accepted alternative to the conventional liberal narrative that the financial crisis was caused by the greed and lack of regulation of Wall Street. 

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