The GSEs had been getting prodded by members of Congress to purchase more subprime; but mostly, the “advice” came too close to the pricking of the housing bubble. There has been substantial dispute over just how much subprime and Alt-A loans Fannie and Freddie hoovered up in this narrow window; but a major riposte to the neoliberal story “The Democrats Made Them Do It” is that neither GSE touted a change in policy, but if anything, tended to underreport these activities. This is one primary reason most outside analysts trace the housing bubble to the private sector, and in particular, specialized subprime originators such as Countrywide and Ameriquest and the banking firms that repackaged them into baroque securities; it even corrupted profitable subsidiaries of “industrial firms” such as GMAC and GE Capital; consequently, “the biggest factor contributing to the subprime boom was securitization.” Another argument against the neoliberal story is that there was in parallel a bubble in commercial real estate, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the GSEs.

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 888