mac included in any kind of meaningful financial reform. does anyone get that? most of the loans that were modified at the cost of a hundred and some billion dollars of taxpayers money have gone under again. have gone driven went again within six months. jon: that was senator john mccain of arizona who read an entire editorial from the wall street journal on the senate floor into the senate record, and the editorial page editor of the journal, paul, is with us now. good to be with you. jon: well, $145 billion, what do we get for that money? nothing. i mean, this is spent money. these are losses that took place, most of them, in 2006 and 2007, loans that they brought up, subprime, the liar loans and what not. they are spending a little more money now, billions in fact, on mortgage foreclosure mitigation to try to stop more foreclosures. but most of those, as the senator pointed out, in fact
nbc s senior inves gatetive correspondent lisa myers is in washington. good morning. reporter: good morning, willie. good morning, mike. as you guys probably notice, congress has spent a lot of energy lately bashing wall street. but experts say that ain assessing blame for the crisis, congress also needs to look in the mirror it s cozy relationship with wall street led to lax rules that enabled the meltdown to happen. do you swear the testimony you re about to give will be the truth, the we ll reporter: the senate s investigation of what caused the financial meltdown has zeroed in on many villains. we ve got no regrets. you ought to have plenty of regrets. reporter: mortgage lenders gave liar loans that couldn t be replayed. federal regulators were asleep at the switch. credit rating agencies gave inflated ratings to investments that turned out to be junk. and investment banks like goldman sachs, made billions, feeding bonds over toxic mortgages into the economy where
testimony you re about to give will be the truth, the whole truth reporter: the senate s investigation of what caused the financial meltdown has zeroed in on many villains. you ve got no regrets? you ought to have plenty of regrets. reporter: mortgage lenders gave liar loans that couldn t be repaid. federal regulators were asleep at the switch. credit rating agencies gave inflated ratings to investments that turned out to be junk. and investment banks like goldman sachs made billions, feeding bundles of toxic mortgages into the economy where they blew up. all of the figures from those three days of hearings point to wall street. reporter: but experts point fingers at another important culprit, congress itself. i think congress deserves a lot of the blame for the meltdown. reporter: why? because experts say congress, when controlled by democrats and by republicans, created the conditions that allowed wall street to run wild. elizabeth warren chairs the panel named by con
what is goldman sachs i don t want to be critical of wall street. but what was goldman sachs doing dealing in liar loans, trading investing them, selling them. what was goldman sachs doing here? if you are in america and listening and watching today, you that i sounds totally wrong. the fact that it may have been legal. but that s not how people run their lives. the other thing that will hurt them is for the first time in a long time, people are so engaged in this issue and they understand even better. while they try to make it a distraction, i don t think they are going to succeed. if the bill does get passed it will be because the republicans continued to force them back to the table to negotiate and are exposing the bad parts of the bill. sean: they don t want to get to the truth stuart. they don t want to get to the truth or the bottom line. if they do, not only will they be excoriating ceos of
what is goldman sachs i don t want to be critical of wall street. but what was goldman sachs doing dealing in liar loans, trading investing them, selling them. what was goldman sachs doing here? if you are in america and listening and watching today, you that i sounds totally wrong. the fact that it may have been legal. but that s not how people run their lives. the other thing that will hurt them is for the first time in a long time, people are so engaged in this issue and they understand even better. while they try to make it a distraction, i don t think they are going to succeed. if the bill does get passed it will be because the republicans continued to force them back to the table to negotiate and are exposing the bad parts of the bill. sean: they don t want to get to the truth stuart. they don t want to get to the truth or the bottom line. if they do, not only will they be excoriating ceos of