American attorney
Peter J. Wallison (born June 6, 1941) is an American lawyer and the Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He specializes in financial markets deregulation. He was White House Counsel during the Tower Commission's inquiry into the Iran Contra Affair. He was a dissenting member of the 2010 Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, frequent commentator in the mass media on the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and wrote "Hidden in Plain Sight" (2015) about the crisis and its legacy.
Biography.
Wallison was born in New York City, and educated at the Capitol Page School and Harvard University, where he received his B.A. in 1963, an LL.B. in 1966, and was the president of the Young Republicans.
He was admitted to the bar of New York state in 1967.
Emanuel Celler appointed him a United States House of Representatives Page when he was about 14, and he served for most of his high school years. The Democrats controlled the patronage, but assigned some pages, such as Wallison, to the minority party. This experience helped him become a Republican.
He was a Rockefeller Republican before becoming a Reagan Republican.
On November 24, 1966, he married the former Frieda Koslow (born in New York January 15, 1943, A.B. Smith College 1963, LL.B. Harvard Law School 1966 admitted to New York bar in 1967, D.C. bar 1982). They have three children, Ethan S., Jeremy L., Rebecca K. Mrs. Wallison develops real estate in Snowmass, Colorado.
They split their time between homes in Colorado and in Washington, D.C.
Other.
In 1999, Wallison told New York Times reporter Steven A. Holmes that the expansion of mortgage loans by reducing the amount borrowers have to put down and extending loans to so-called subprime borrowers was creating a situation where Fannie Mae was taking on significantly more risk. "From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us," he said. "If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry." The article pointed out that the Clinton Administration had put pressure on Fannie Mae to lower standards "to expand loans among low and moderate income people."
Wallison gave a eulogy at a memorial service for Don Regan in June 2003.
Wallison's writing on the cause of the Financial crisis of 2007–08 have brought much comment. In December, 2011, the New York Times financial columnist Joe Nocera stated that Wallison had "almost single-handedly created the myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the financial crisis." Calling it "a big lie," Nocera suggested that Wallison had engaged in a deliberate deception. Economist Paul Krugman has also accused Wallison of deception, criticizing him for—among other things—attacking Fannie and Freddie in a magazine article just a year before the subprime mortgage collapse for not doing a "better job of providing affordable home financing to a neglected portion of the mortgage market." This neglected portion consisted of "African-American ... Hispanic", and "low-income borrowers". Wallison cites New York Times columnist Gretchen Morgenson exposing how "Democratic political operative Jim Johnson turned Fannie Mae into a political machine", and dismisses the exoneration of the GSEs as "the big lie."
References.
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