Description: This essay argues against the securitization of residential mortgages. The originating lending institution should have significant skin in the game when it makes a loan, but the securitization process removes this important financial control.

Description: This essay addresses ways to reduce 'negative externality' types of systemic risk. A negative externality is defined as a transaction between two parties that results in costs which accrue, in part, to one or more third parties, e.g., to society as a whole.

Description: When regulators examine financial institutions, one of the most important areas on which they focus is capital requirements. This essay argues that we can’t push for neither too high nor too low default probabilities. Regulate too high and you introduce rigidity to the system: you choke the economy. Regulate too low and you introduce softness in your foundations: they cannot for long sustain the economy. Therefore, regulation should be set to provide a 'window for business'.

Description: In this mortgage crisis, it appears mortgage brokers and mortgage originating bankers were similar to unchecked MGAs. These brokers and banks had an incentive to produce mortgages that would generate fees for them. Those mortgagees would then be sold to investors, generating additional fees – but it appears there were often no incentives to align the interests of those mortgage producers with the purchasers of these mortgages. The brokers and banks “did not have any skin in the game.”

Description: This essay examines the root causes of the 2008 global financial crisis precipitated by the bursting of the housing bubble. The author suggests that if fraud is not addressed, future crises, perhaps even worse, will occur.