Superstar bank analyst Dick Bove lambastes New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, calling him the "father of the subprime crisis."
The Rochdale Securities financial strategist said Cuomo helped push Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to finance mortgage loans to low income people who couldn’t afford them when he was secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1997 to 2001.
"One of the key reasons why (Fannie and Freddie) are bankrupt today, and why the government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in supporting them, is because of the edicts pushed through by Mr. Cuomo," Bove told CNBC.
"It's also thought by many that the hundreds of thousands of people who are losing their homes, are (doing so) to a great degree because of the actions taken by Mr. Cuomo at HUD."
Bove also criticized Cuomo, a Democrat who likely will run for governor of New York, for his attack on Bank of America over its acquisition of Merrill Lynch.
“You just don’t want someone with that type of lack of understanding of the financial system running a state as important as New York.,” Bove said.
As for the housing crisis, investment icon Warren Buffett says it is on its last legs.
“Within a year or so, residential housing problems should largely be behind us, (though) prices will remain far below ‘bubble’ levels” he wrote in his annual letter to shareholders.
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