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A Center for Public Integrity Investigation: "Who’s Behind the Financial Meltdown?"

The Center for Public Integrity has released a new report and multimedia project identifying the subprime lenders most responsible for the global economic crisis. "Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown?" is an in-depth study grounded in the Center's analysis of 7.2 million subprime loans from 2005 through 2007. Ford supports the Center for this type of groundbreaking work related to government transparency and accountability.

Published by The Center for Public Integrity on PublicIntegrity.org: May 2009

The top subprime lenders whose loans are largely blamed for triggering the global economic meltdown were owned or backed by giant banks now collecting billions of dollars in bailout money — including several that have paid huge fines to settle predatory lending charges. The banks that funded the subprime industry were not victims of an unforeseen financial collapse, as they have sometimes portrayed themselves, but enablers that bankrolled the type of lending threatening the financial system.

These are among the findings that emerged from the Center for Public Integrity's analysis of government data on nearly 7.2 million "high-interest" or subprime loans made from 2005 through 2007, a period that marks the peak and collapse of the subprime boom. The computer-assisted analysis also revealed The Subprime 25 — the top 25 originators of the high-interest loans, accounting for nearly $1 trillion and about 72 percent of industry-reported subprime loans during that period.

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