by Calculated Risk on 12/22/2008 04:24:00 PM

Never mind that many people saw this coming - obviously the White House wasn't listening.

From the White House: Statement by the Press Secretary on Irresponsible Reporting by New York Times

Most people can accept that a news story recounting recent events will be reliant on '20-20 hindsight'. Today's front-page New York Times story relies on hindsight with blinders on and one eye closed.

The Times' 'reporting' in this story amounted to finding selected quotes to support a story the reporters fully intended to write from the onset, while disregarding anything that didn't fit their point of view. To prove the point, when they filed their story, NYT reporters were completely unfamiliar with the President's prime time address to the nation where he laid out in detail all of the causes of the housing and financial crises. For example, the President highlighted a factor that economists agree on: that the most significant factor leading to the housing crisis was cheap money flowing into the U.S. from the rest of the world, so that there was no natural restraint on flush lenders to push loans on Americans in risky ways. This flow of funds into the U.S. was unprecedented. And because it was unprecedented, the conditions it created presented unprecedented questions for policymakers.

In his address the President also explained in detail the failure of financial institutions to perform normal and necessary due diligence in creating, buying and selling new financial products -- a problem that almost no one saw as it was happening.

The "most significant factor" was "cheap money flowing into the U.S."? Uh, no.

The most significant causes of the credit crisis were innovation in mortgage securitization coupled with almost no regulatory oversight (because of ideologues who opposed oversight and regulation). This led to lax lending standards (liar loans, DAPs, widespread use of Option ARMs as affordability products, etc.) and excessive speculation.

Oh well ... I agree the White House missed the story, but the idea that "no one saw" the problem coming is nonsense.