The Mortgage Wars: Inside Fannie Mae, Big-Money Politics, and the Collapse of the American Dream

Perspective. History is usually written by the winners, and over the past decade it appears that both Fannie Mae and former CFO Timothy Howard were beaten and bruised from a series of events. In his book, The Mortgage Wars: Inside Fannie Mae, Big-Money Politics, and the Collapse of the American Dream, Howard describes the ways in which ideologues who wanted to constrain Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac used politics, media and dirty warfare to change the mortgage business. Howard’s voice was muted by ongoing litigation over the course of many years, and after he was vindicated of wrongdoing, he decided to present this book which tells a side of the story readers have not seen until now. Howard has written a plain speaking and straightforward presentation of his insider perspective about what happened to damage the housing finance system in the United States. By way of disclaimer, I was a Freddie Mac executive from 1976 through 1998, and came to this book with a viewpoint and perspective of my own. After reading this book, I concluded that it’s about time this other part of the story got told. For any reader willing to revisit events leading up to and during the financial crisis, this book fills in the gaps from previous accounts and offers an insider’s knowledge that goes deeper than most other books. Readers interested in public policy will find this book fascinating, and anyone involved in the mortgage business should consider this book required reading. Rating: Five-star (I love it) Click here to purchase The Mortgage Wars from amazon.com.