• (p23) - Well, I think that—as you said, what happened is they moved from municipal securities into mortgage-backed securities, thinking that since, among other things, housing prices had never gone down in the United States, it should not be a problem.
  • To a large degree it has really been the market response that has taken care of the problem in the sense that people are not really trusting the financial guarantee insurers anymore.
  • I think it is questionable whether the market needs this kind of guarantee insurance or whether it was just sort of a historical accident that it still existed. 

--  Baird Webel, CRS, Specialist in Financial Economics, Congressional Research Service 

2011 0914 - GOV (Senate-Banking/SII) - Emerging Issues in Insurance Regulation, Jack Reed (D-RI)  ---  [BonkNote]