Fannie and Freddie had nothing to do with the explosion of high-risk lending a few years ago, an explosion that dwarfed the S&L fiasco. In fact, Fannie and Freddie, after growing rapidly in the 1990s, largely faded from the scene during the height of the housing bubble. Partly that’s because regulators, responding to accounting scandals at the companies, placed temporary restraints on both Freddie and Fannie that curtailed their lending just as housing prices were really taking off. Also, they didn’t do any subprime lending, because they can’t.

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 878