The biggest risk to the global financial system post-2008 crisis? It’s right here in D.C.

Washington Business Journal - September 15, 2015 - September 16, 2015

By Robert J. Terry

This week marks the seven-year anniversary (I can’t believe it’s been that long) of the global economy’s implosion, sparked by the massive Lehman Brothers bankruptcy filed on Sept. 14, 2008. Business journalist Bethany McLean has pinpointed a “festering problem” left over from that crisis, and it resides here in town.

It’s Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the D.C.-based mortgage giants that went into federal “conservatorship” in 2008 at the brink of bankruptcy. McLean — the Vanity Fair writer who uncovered the accounting shenanigans at Enron Corp. that led to the book, “The Smartest Guys in the Room” — has a new book, called “Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the U.S. Mortgage Giants,” which is about “the tangled history and very messed-up present of these two companies, which impact the lives of a lot of Americans, whether they realize it or not.”

Read the full article: The biggest risk to the global financial system post-2008 crisis? It’s right here in D.C.