GOP omits ‘derivatives’ from crisis report

Republicans omitted the words “derivatives” and “deregulation” from their report released Wednesday on the cause of the financial crisis that shook the economy to the brink in 2008. Instead, the report, released by GOP members of a bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, concentrates much of its 13 pages on how mortgage refinance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as public companies, contributed to the crisis by investing in and guaranteeing mortgages of “increasingly lower quality and higher risk to the taxpayer.” It also argues that mortgage-related losses at big banks that were undercapitalized all led to a financial panic.