Executive Fraud Blog

The nation's top economic policy makers plan to release today their broadest blueprint yet for avoiding a recurrence of the credit crunch now threatening the economy.

Their recommendations extend to nearly every niche in the credit markets -- from mortgage brokers to the Wall Street firms that package home loans into securities, to the credit-rating firms that assess the risk of those securities, to the regulators who police the system.

Amid the housing market's deepening slump, mounting defaults by cash-strapped homeowners and an upswing in foreclosures have made investors wary of mortgage-linked securities and have made those securities increasingly difficult to value and trade. That's led to turmoil in global financial markets.

"We aren't singling out any group of market participants, because...there were mistakes made by all," including regulators, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in an interview yesterday, a day in which the stock market's euphoria over the Federal Reserve's latest initiative to free up the flow of credit gave way to some caution.