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Banking, finance, and taxes

Buffett Savages Banks Over Credit Crisis

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

Who is to blame for the subprime mortage mess which has effectlively locked up much of the global credit markets and pushed the US economy into recession. It is the banks. Period. If they had been responsible in their home lending practices, most of the thrashing of the economy could have been avoided.

Thus says Warren Buffett as he tours Europe like a king. According to Reuters "The banks exposed themselves too much, they took on too much risk …. It’s their fault. There’s no need to blame anyone else," he said.

Buffett may be right, because a number of companies like Countrywide Credit (CFC) gave mortgages to people who were able to buy homes for over $1 million on salaries of under $10,000.

Nonetheless, it is 20/20 hindsight. Where was Buffett when we needed him?

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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