annotate the given documents, make notes on the note sheet for the documents and then write a one page paper assigning blame for the Great Recession.

 

Who Caused the Great Recession?

Introduction: Like most aspects of economics, finding the cause of an economic downturn is not a simple process. Often, years of government policy, societal decisions and lack of foresight align to create a perfect economic storm. We can see this during the 1920s leading up to the Great Depression and now can look closer and closer into what caused the Great Recession starting in the late 2000s. It is not hard to imagine that when the stock market crashes there would be a lot of finger pointing but who is really to blame? Was it Wall Street, the government or consumer spending that led to the economic recession of the 2000s? The simple answer is all three. It is up to you, however, to determine who is the most to blame and to defend your position using the following documents and any other resources you have available to you.

Instructions: For this packet you must:

• Annotate Articles (10 Points) o Read and annotate each document o This means 3-10 words summarizing each paragraph. “WOW” “Really?!?” etc. do not count

• Note Charts (20 Points) o Take notes on the different groups involved in the Great Recession o Cite the documents from which you found the information o This can be bullet pointed but needs to include multiple documents for each group

• Paper (70 Points) o Write a one plus page summary of who you think is most to blame for the Great Recession and why o Needs to use citations when using evidence from the documents o Needs to have a separate introduction and conclusion paragraph

 

 

Annotations       ________/10   Notes         ________/20   Paper         ________/70     Total          _______/100  

 

Featured  Source     Source  A:  Financial  Crisis  Inquiry  Commission,  report  on  causes  and  scope  of  the  financial  crisis  of  2007-­‐ 2008,  “Conclusions  of  the  Financial  Crisis  Inquiry  Commission,”  January  2011  

In this report, we detail the events of the crisis. But a simple summary, as we see it, is useful at the outset. While the vulnerabilities that created the potential for crisis were years in the making, it was the collapse of the housing bubble—fueled by low interest rates, easy and available credit, scant regulation, and toxic mortgages— that was the spark that ignited a string of events, which led to a full-blown crisis in the fall of 2008. Trillions of dollars in risky mortgages had become embedded throughout the financial system, as mortgage-related securities were packaged, repackaged, and sold to investors around the world. When the bubble burst, hundreds of billions of dollars in losses in mortgages and mortgage-related securities shook markets as well as financial institutions that had significant exposures to those mortgages and had borrowed heavily against them. This happened not just in the United States but around the world. The losses were magnified by derivatives such as synthetic securities.

The crisis reached seismic proportions in September 2008 with the failure of Lehman Brothers and the impending collapse of the insurance giant American International Group (AIG). Panic fanned by a lack of transparency of the balance sheets of major financial institutions, coupled with a tangle of interconnections among institutions perceived to be “too big to fail,” caused the credit markets to seize up. Trading ground to a halt. The stock market plummeted. The economy plunged into a deep recession.

Now to our major findings and conclusions, which are based on the facts contained in this report: they are offered with the hope that lessons may be learned to help avoid future catastrophe.

• We conclude this financial crisis was avoidable. The crisis was the result of human action and inaction, not of Mother Nature or computer models gone haywire. The captains of finance and the public stewards of our financial system ignored warnings and failed to question, understand, and manage evolving risks within a system essential to the well-being of the American public. Theirs was a big miss, not a stumble. While the business cycle cannot be repealed, a crisis of this magnitude need not have occurred. To paraphrase Shakespeare, the fault lies not in the stars, but in us.

• Despite the expressed view of many on Wall Street and in Washington that the crisis could not have been foreseen or avoided, there were warning signs. The tragedy was that they were ignored or discounted. There was an explosion in risky subprime lending and securitization, an unsustainable rise in housing prices, widespread reports of egregious and predatory lending practices, dramatic increases in household mortgage debt, and exponential growth in financial firms’ trading activities, unregulated derivatives, and short-term “repo” lending markets, among many other red flags.

The prime example is the Federal Reserve’s pivotal failure to stem the flow of toxic mortgages, which it could have done by setting prudent mortgage-lending standards. The Federal Reserve was the one entity empowered to do so and it did not. The record of our examination is replete with evidence of other failures: financial institutions made, bought, and sold mortgage securities they never examined, did not care to examine, or knew to be defective; firms depended on tens of billions of dollars of borrowing that had to be renewed each and every night, secured by subprime mortgage securities; and major firms and investors blindly relied on credit rating agencies as their arbiters of risk. What else could one expect on a highway where there were neither speed limits nor neatly painted lines? .

• We conclude dramatic failures of corporate governance and risk management at many systemically important financial institutions were a key cause of this crisis. There was a view that instincts for self- preservation inside major financial firms would shield them from fatal risk-taking without the need for a steady regulatory hand, which, the firms argued, would stifle innovation. Too many of these institutions

 

acted recklessly, taking on too much risk, with too little capital, and with too much dependence on short-term funding. In many respects, this reflected a fundamental change in these institutions, particularly the large investment banks and bank holding companies, which focused their activities increasingly on risky trading activities that produced hefty profits. They took on enormous exposures in acquiring and supporting subprime lenders and creating, packaging, repackaging, and selling trillions of dollars in mortgage-related securities, including synthetic financial products. Like Icarus, they never feared flying ever closer to the sun.

Many of these institutions grew aggressively through poorly executed acquisition and integration strategies that made effective management more challenging. The CEO of Citigroup told the Commission that a $40 billion position in highly rated mortgage securities would “not in any way have excited my attention,” and the co-head of Citigroup’s investment bank said he spent “a small fraction of 1%” of his time on those securities. In this instance, too big to fail meant too big to manage.

Financial institutions and credit rating agencies embraced mathematical models as reliable predictors of risks, replacing judgment in too many instances. Too often, risk management became risk justification.

Our examination revealed stunning instances of governance breakdowns and irresponsibility. You will read, among other things, about AIG senior management’s ignorance of the terms and risks of the company’s $79 billion derivatives exposure to mortgage-related securities; Fannie Mae’s quest for bigger market share, profits, and bonuses, which led it to ramp up its exposure to risky loans and securities as the housing market was peaking; and the costly surprise when Merrill Lynch’s top management realized that the company held $55 billion in “super-senior” and supposedly “super-safe” mortgage-related securities that resulted in billions of dollars in losses.

• We conclude a combination of excessive borrowing, risky investments, and lack of transparency put the financial system on a collision course with crisis. Clearly, this vulnerability was related to failures of corporate governance and regulation, but it is significant enough by itself to warrant our attention here.

The kings of leverage were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two behemoth government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). For example, by the end of 2007, Fannie’s and Freddie’s combined leverage ratio, including loans they owned and guaranteed, stood at 75 to 1.

But financial firms were not alone in the borrowing spree: from 2001 to 2007, national mortgage debt almost doubled, and the amount of mortgage debt per household rose more than 63% from $91,500 to $149,500, even while wages were essentially stagnant. When the housing downturn hit, heavily indebted financial firms and families alike were walloped.

When the housing and mortgage markets cratered, the lack of transparency, the extraordinary debt loads, the short-term loans, and the risky assets all came home to roost. What resulted was panic. We had reaped what we had sown.

• We conclude the government was ill prepared for the crisis, and its inconsistent response added to the uncertainty and panic in the financial markets. As part of our charge, it was appropriate to review government actions taken in response to the developing crisis, not just those policies or actions that preceded it, to determine if any of those responses contributed to or exacerbated the crisis.

As our report shows, key policy makers—the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York—who were best positioned to watch over our markets were ill prepared for the events of 2007 and 2008. Time and again, from the spring of 2007 on, policy makers and regulators

 

were caught off guard as the contagion spread, responding on an ad hoc basis with specific programs to put fingers in the dike. We had allowed the system to race ahead of our ability to protect it.

In addition, the government’s inconsistent handling of major financial institutions during the crisis—the decision to rescue Bear Stearns and then to place Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship, followed by its decision not to save Lehman Brothers and then to save AIG—increased uncertainty and panic in the market.

• We conclude there was a systemic breakdown in accountability and ethics. The integrity of our financial markets and the public’s trust in those markets are essential to the economic well-being of our nation. The soundness and the sustained prosperity of the financial system and our economy rely on the notions of fair dealing, responsibility, and transparency. In our economy, we expect businesses and individuals to pursue profits, at the same time that they produce products and services of quality and conduct themselves well. Unfortunately—as has been the case in past speculative booms and busts—we witnessed an erosion of standards of responsibility and ethics that exacerbated the financial crisis. This was not universal, but these breaches stretched from the ground level to the corporate suites. They resulted not only in significant financial consequences but in damage to trust of investors, businesses, and the public in the financial system.

For example, our examination found, according to one measure, that the percentage of borrowers who defaulted on their mortgages within just a matter of months after taking a loan nearly doubled from the summer of 2006 to late 2007. This data indicates they likely took out mortgages that they never had the capacity or intention to pay. You will read about mortgage brokers who were paid “yield spread premiums” by lenders to put borrowers into higher-cost loans so they would get bigger fees, often never disclosed to borrowers. One study places the losses resulting from fraud on mortgage loans made between 2005 and 2007at $112 billion.

Lenders made loans that they knew borrowers could not afford and that could cause massive losses to investors in mortgage securities. As early as September 2004, Countrywide executives recognized that many of the loans they were originating could result in “catastrophic consequences.” Less than a year later, they noted that certain high-risk loans they were making could result not only in foreclosures but also in “financial and reputational catastrophe” for the firm. But they did not stop.

And the report documents that major financial institutions ineffectively sampled loans they were purchasing to package and sell to investors. They knew a significant percentage of the sampled loans did not meet their own underwriting standards or those of the originators. Nonetheless, they sold those securities to investors.

THESE CONCLUSIONS must be viewed in the context of human nature and individual and societal responsibility. First, to pin this crisis on mortal flaws like greed and hubris would be simplistic. It was the failure to account for human weakness that is relevant to this crisis.

Second, we clearly believe the crisis was a result of human mistakes, misjudgments, and misdeeds that resulted in systemic failures for which our nation has paid dearly. As you read this report, you will see that specific firms and individuals acted irresponsibly. Yet a crisis of this magnitude cannot be the work of a few bad actors, and such was not the case here. At the same time, the breadth of this crisis does not mean that “everyone is at fault”; many firms and individuals did not participate in the excesses that spawned disaster.

We do place special responsibility with the public leaders charged with protecting our financial system, those entrusted to run our regulatory agencies, and the chief executives of companies whose failures drove us to crisis. These individuals sought and accepted positions of significant responsibility and obligation. Tone at the top does matter and, in this instance, we were let down. No one said “no.”

 

Featured  Source     Source  B:  Peter  Wallison  and  Arthur  Burns,  opinion  that  the  financial  crisis  was  caused  by  deregulation  and   predatory  lending  practices,  “Conclusions  of  the  Financial  Crisis  Inquiry  Commission,  Dissenting  Statement,”   January  2011  

What Caused the Financial Crisis?

George Santayana is often quoted for the aphorism that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Looking back on the financial crisis, we can see why the study of history is often so contentious and why revisionist histories are so easy to construct. There are always many factors that could have caused an historical event; the difficult task is to discern which, among a welter of possible causes, were the significant ones—the ones without which history would have been different. Using this standard, I believe that the sine qua non of the financial crisis was U.S. government housing policy, which led to the creation of 27 million subprime and other risky loans—half of all mortgages in the United States—which were ready to default as soon as the massive 1997-2007 housing bubble began to deflate. If the U.S. government had not chosen this policy path—fostering the growth of a bubble of unprecedented size and an equally unprecedented number of weak and high-risk residential mortgages—the great financial crisis of 2008 would never have occurred.

Initiated by Congress in 1992 and pressed by HUD in both the Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations, the U.S. government’s housing policy sought to increase home ownership in the United States through an intensive effort to reduce mortgage underwriting standards. In pursuit of this policy, HUD used (i) the affordable housing requirements imposed by Congress in 1992 on the government- sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, (ii) its control over the policies of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and (iii) a “Best Practices Initiative” for subprime lenders and mortgage banks, to encourage greater subprime and other high risk lending. HUD’s key role in the growth of subprime and other high risk mortgage lending is covered in detail in Part III.

Ultimately, all these entities, as well as insured banks covered by the CRA, were compelled to compete for mortgage borrowers who were at or below the median income in the areas in which they lived. This competition caused underwriting standards to decline, increased the numbers of weak and high risk loans far beyond what the market would produce without government influence, and contributed importantly to the growth of the 1997-2007 housing bubble.

When the bubble began to deflate in mid-2007, the low quality and high risk loans engendered by government policies failed in unprecedented numbers. The effect of these defaults was exacerbated by the fact that few if any investors—including housing market analysts—understood at the time that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been acquiring large numbers of subprime and other high risk loans in order to meet HUD’s affordable housing goals.

In this environment, the government’s rescue of Bear Stearns in March of 2008 temporarily calmed investor fears but created a significant moral hazard; investors and other market participants reasonably believed after the rescue of Bear that all large financial institutions would also be rescued if they encountered financial difficulties. However, when Lehman Brothers—an investment bank even larger than Bear—was allowed to fail, market participants were shocked; suddenly, they were forced to consider the financial health of their counterparties, many of which appeared weakened by losses and the capital writedowns required by mark-to- market accounting. This caused a halt to lending and a hoarding of cash—a virtually unprecedented period of market paralysis and panic that we know as the financial crisis of 2008.

 

Featured  Source     Source  C:  Andrew  Sorkin,  prologue  about  the  financial  crisis  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  JP  Morgan  CEO,  Too   Big  to  Fail:  The  Inside  Story  of  How  Wall  Street  and  Washington  Fought  to  Save  the  Financial  System—And   Themselves,  2009  

Standing in the kitchen of his Park Avenue apartment, Jamie Dimon poured himself a cup of coffee, hoping it might ease his headache. He was recovering from a slight hangover, but his head really hurt for a different reason: He knew too much.

It was just past 7:00 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, September 13, 2008. Dimon, the chief executive of JP Morgan Chase, the nation's third largest bank, had spent part of the prior evening at an emergency, all-hands- on-deck meeting at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with a dozen of his rival Wall Street CEOs. Their assignment was to come up with a plan to save Lehman Brothers, the nation's fourth-largest investment bank— or risk the collateral damage that might ensue in the markets.

Dimon knew that Lehman Brothers might not make it through the weekend. JP Morgan had examined its books earlier that week as a potential lender and had been unimpressed. He also had decided to request some extra collateral from the firm out of fear it might fall. In the next twenty four hours, Dimon knew, Lehman would either be rescued or ruined.

Knowing what he did, however, Dimon was concerned about more than just Lehman Brothers. He was aware that Merrill Lynch, another icon of Wall Street, was in trouble, too, and he had just asked his staff to make sure JP Morgan had enough collateral from that firm as well. And he was also acutely aware of new dangers developing at the global insurance giant American International Group (AIG) that so far had gone relatively unnoticed by the public—it was his firm's client, and they were scrambling to raise additional capital to save it. By his estimation AIG had only about a week to find a solution, or it, too, could falter.

Dimon began contemplating a worst-case scenario, and at 7:30 a.m. he went into his home library and dialed into a conference call with two dozen members of his management team. "You are about to experience the most unbelievable week in America ever, and we have to prepare for the absolutely worst case," Dimon told his staff. "We have to protect the firm. This is about our survival."

Like most people on Wall Street—including Richard S. Fuld Jr., Lehman's CEO, who enjoyed one of the longest reigns of any of its leaders—many of those listening to the call assumed that the government would intervene and prevent its failure. Dimon hastened to disabuse them of the notion.

"That's wishful thinking. There is no way, in my opinion, that Washington is going to bail out an investment bank. Nor should they," he said. "I want you all to know that this is a matter of life and death. I'm serious." Then he dropped his bombshell. It was his ultimate doomsday scenario.

"Here's the drill," he continued. "We need to prepare right now for Lehman Brothers filing." Then he paused. "And for Merrill Lynch filing." He paused again. "And for AIG filing." Another pause. "And for Morgan Stanley filing." And after a final, even longer pause he added: "And potentially for Goldman Sachs filing." There was a collective gasp on the phone.

As Dimon had presciently warned in his conference call, the following days would bring a near collapse of the financial system, forcing a government rescue effort with no precedent in modern history. In a period of less than eighteen months, Wall Street had gone from celebrating its most profitable age to finding itself on the brink of an epochal devastation.

Trillions of dollars in wealth had vanished, and the financial landscape was entirely reconfigured. The calamity would definitively shatter some of the most cherished principles of capitalism. The idea that financial wizards had conjured up a new era of low-risk profits, and that American-style financial engineering was the global gold standard, was officially dead.

 

Featured  Source     Source  D:  Center  for  Responsible  Lending,  video  overview  of  and  article  about  the  root  causes  of  the   financial  crisis  of  2007-­‐2008,  State  of  Lending:  Mortgages,  December  12,  2012  

The increased complexity in the mortgage market created a chasm between those who originated loans and those who bore the risk of defaults. Under a “traditional” lending model—where lenders both originated and held their mortgages—lenders had a vested interest in ensuring that borrowers could afford to repay their loans. In the more recent “originate-to-securitize” system, the compensation of brokers, lenders, and securitizers was based on transaction volume, not loan performance. Consequently, many lenders and brokers aggressively marketed and originated loans without evaluating the borrowers’ ability to repay them.

This evolution led to a new breed of dangerous mortgages—such as loans with introductory “teaser” rates that reset after a few years to much higher rates; loans that did not require income verification; and loans with prepayment penalties that locked borrowers into high rates or risky terms. These loans were often made with scant underwriting and marketed without regard for whether they were suitable for the borrowers. Accompanying this expansion of risky loan terms was a deterioration of lending standards. These developments are discussed in more detail in the following Abuses in Subprime and Alt-A Lending section.

The severe decline in loan quality was facilitated by two factors. First, the growth in private-label securitization by Wall Street meant that mortgage originators did not need to conform to the lending standards of the GSEs in order to sell their loans. In fact, Wall Street rewarded loan originators for riskier loan products by paying a higher premium for non-conforming loans. At the same time, subprime lenders targeted many of the same borrowers who had been traditionally served by the FHA and VA programs, saddling these borrowers with much riskier debt than they would have received had they gone through the government programs. Worse, evidence suggests that many subprime borrowers could have qualified for conforming or lower-priced loans.14 Meanwhile, the credit agencies charged with rating the quality of mortgage-backed investments were assigning high ratings to securities backed by these dangerous and unsustainable loans. This gave false assurance to investors that these products were safe.

                                             

 

Featured  Source     Source  E:  Tyler  Cowen,  article  examining  fraudulent  borrowing  practices  on  the  part  of  consumers  leading   up  to  the  financial  crisis  of  2007-­‐2008,  “So  We  Thought.  But  Then  Again  .  .  .”  (excerpt),  New  York  Times,   January  13,  2008  ”  

 

…IT’S  NOT  JUST  THE  LENDERS  There  has  been  plenty  of  talk  about  “predatory  lending,”  but  “predatory  borrowing”   may  have  been  the  bigger  problem.  As  much  as  70  percent  of  recent  early  payment  defaults  had  fraudulent   misrepresentations  on  their  original  loan  applications,  according  to  one  recent  study.  The  research  was  done  by   BasePoint  Analytics,  which  helps  banks  and  lenders  identify  fraudulent  transactions;  the  study  looked  at  more  than   three  million  loans  from  1997  to  2006,  with  a  majority  from  2005  to  2006.  Applications  with  misrepresentations   were  also  five  times  as  likely  to  go  into  default.  

Many  of  the  frauds  were  simple  rather  than  ingenious.  In  some  cases,  borrowers  who  were  asked  to  state  their   incomes  just  lied,  sometimes  reporting  five  times  actual  income;  other  borrowers  falsified  income  documents  by   using  computers.  Too  often,  mortgage  originators  and  middlemen  looked  the  other  way  rather  than  slowing  down   the  process  or  insisting  on  adequate  documentation  of  income  and  assets.  As  long  as  housing  prices  kept  rising,  it   didn’t  seem  to  matter.  

In  other  words,  many  of  the  people  now  losing  their  homes  committed  fraud.  And  when  a  mortgage  goes  into   default  in  its  first  year,  the  chance  is  high  that  there  was  fraud  in  the  initial  application,  especially  because   unemployment  in  general  has  been  low  during  the  last  two  years.  

 

©  2008  The  New  York  Times.  All  rights  reserved.  Used  by  permission  and  protected  by  the  Copyright  Laws  of  the  United  States.  The   printing,  copying,  redistribution,  or  retransmission  of  this  Content  without  repress  written  permission  is  prohibited.   http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/business/13view.html?_r=0.    

 

   

 

Featured  Source     Source  F:  Meta  Brown,  Andrew  Haughwout,  Donghoon  Lee,  and  Wilbert  van  der  Klaauw,  study  examining   total  consumer  debt  over  time,  “The  Financial  Crisis  at  the  Kitchen  Table:  Trends  in  Household  Debt  and   Credit”  (excerpt),  2013  

 

 

Consumer  Debt  during  the  Pre-­‐crisis  Period  

 From  first-­‐quarter  1999  (when  our  data  begin)  through  third-­‐quarter  2008,  we  observe  substantial  increases  in   consumer  indebtedness.  On  March  31,  1999,  consumers  owed  about  $4.6  trillion  to  creditors.  During  the   subsequent  nine  years,  consumer  indebtedness  rose  more  than  170  percent,  reaching  $12.7  trillion  at  the  end  of   third-­‐quarter  2008.

 

The  driving  force  behind  these  changes  was  debt  secured  by  residential  real  estate,  which   accounts  for  the  great  majority—more  than  70  percent  in  all  periods—of  household  liabilities.  Amounts  owed  on   installment  mortgages  and  home  equity  lines  of  credit  (HELOCs)  tripled  over  this  period—from  $3.3  trillion  to  $10   trillion—accounting  for  $6.7  trillion  of  the  total  $8  trillion  increase  in  consumer  liabilities.  Nonetheless,  other   forms  of  consumer  debt  also  rose  sharply.    Many  factors  were  responsible  for  these  increases,  including  rising   populations,  incomes,  stock  and  house  prices,  falling  interest  rates,  and  the  democratization  of  credit.  Indeed,  while   consumer  indebtedness—the  liabilities  side  of  the  household  balance  sheet—was  rising  sharply,  the  Flow  of  Funds   Accounts  indicate  that  assets  owned  by  the  household  sector  were  growing  as  well,  leaving  consumers’  net  wealth   (the  difference  between  the  value  of  assets  owned  and  liabilities  owed)  to  grow  steadily  over  the  period.    

Delinquency  rates  remained  stable  from  1999  through  2006  in  the  Consumer  Credit  Panel,  with  roughly  4  percent   of  total  outstanding  debt  thirty  or  more  days  past  due  (delinquent)  and  2  percent  of  total  debt  ninety  or  more  days   past  due  (severely  delinquent).  However,  delinquency  rose  quickly  during  2007,  reaching  6.7  percent  by  the  end  of   the  year  and  8.5  percent  by  the  peak  of  consumer  debt  in  third-­‐quarter  2008.  Severe  delinquency  climbed  to  3.6   percent  by  the  end  of  2007  and  5.1  percent  by  third-­‐quarter  2008.  Hence,  the  data  reveal  both  a  pre-­‐crisis  period  of   credit  expansion  associated  with  very  steady  consumer  debt  performance  and  emerging  evidence  of  repayment   difficulties  as  early  as  2007.    

Consumer  Debt  since  the  Financial  Crisis    

Since  the  end  of  third-­‐quarter  2008,  U.S.  consumers  have  reduced  their  indebtedness  by  $1.4  trillion,  resulting  in  a   decrease  in  the  aggregate  consumer  debt  balance  from  $12.7  trillion  at  its  peak  in  third-­‐quarter  2008  to  $11.3   trillion  at  the  end  of  third-­‐quarter  2012.  Chart  1  shows  the  total  debt  observed  on  credit  reports  for  the  entire  life   of  the  Panel,  in  the  aggregate  and  broken  down  by  loan  type.  Total  household  debt  has  decreased  roughly  11   percent  since  its  peak.  Mortgage-­‐related  debt  now  accounts  for  76  percent  of  total  debt,  with  the  remainder   comprising  credit  cards,  auto  loans,  student  loans,  and  other  consumer  debt….  

 

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Assigning Blame Instructions: As you read each document, complete the chart below with information on each group. This will help guide you when you go to write your paper. The notes do not have to be in complete sentences but you should cite where you are getting the information from (just the letter of the document in parenthesis is fine).

Group Evidence

Wall Street & Bankers

Government

U.S. Public

Paper: When you have completed the documents and the chart, write a one page paper on who you think is most to blame for the Great Recession and why? Be sure to include and cite information from the documents in your response.