....The problem with F/F is that anyone dealing with them assumes/presumes that they are default proof because of their ties with the government. People defaulting on mortgages didn't cause this crisis and I believe your assessment is a little displaced appropriating blame on bad loans. The banks lost their ass on derivatives which had much more to do with the crisis in 2008 than anything else.
Why do you think the derivatives lost their value? One can question whether such an ethereal financial product as a derivative is a legitimate investment vehicle. But the reality is, they existed, and they were worth something. They were traded on the presumption that they were underpinned with equity AND guaranteed by the federal government through Freddy and Fanny..
Social engineers in and out of politics worked to force lenders to borrow billions to people who could never hope to pay the money back, and who had no track record of large loan repayment. With all that money changing hands, AND the federal government guaranteeing through Freddy & Fanny that the taxpayer was shouldering the risk, investors believed they had a mechanism through which to trade mortgage-backed derivatives that could not fail.
They got greedy, yes. No question about it. But the pieces of the puzzle that allowed those derivatives to become worthless were all put into place by the federal government at the behest of liberals in collusion with Wall Street financiers, and Freddy/Fanny was their sandbox. All it took was for the market to see foreclosures trending upward - which was guaranteed to happen when you loan money to trash en masse - and those derivatives became worthless fast.
You can't pin the blame on people not paying their mortgage. But you certainly cannot discount it as a step in the process. And you MOST certainly cannot place the majority of the blame anywhere but on the federal government, and in particular, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank.
...Obama has been very business friendly in my opinion. ...
Then all I can say is - with as much kindness as I can muster for a newbie - you're out of your f**king mind.