The federal commission tasked with investigating the causes of the financial crisis has concluded that the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression was avoidable.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission blamed "widespread failure" of financial regulators, breakdowns in corporate governance, excessive borrowing and risk by both households and financial firms along with "systemic breaches in accountability and ethics" at all levels for the crisis.
"Despite the expressed view of many on Wall Street and in Washington that the crisis could not have been foreseen or avoided, there were warning signs," said Phil Angelides, chairman of the commission. "The greatest tragedy would be to accept the refrain that no one could have seen this coming and thus nothing could have been done."
He added, "If we accept this notion, it will happen again."
The report placed special blame on collapsing standards for mortgage lending and the pipeline of mortgage securitization, which it said "lit and spread the flame of contagion and crisis."
However, the over-the-counter derivatives market and failures by the credit rating agencies were also instrumental, playing the role of "essential cogs in the wheel of financial destruction."
And while the government-sponsored lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played a role in the crisis, the commission found that they had not caused it.
"They had a deeply flawed business model and suffered from many of the same failures of corporate governance and risk management seen in other financial firms but ultimately followed rather than led Wall Street and other lenders in purchasing subprime and other risky mortgages," the commission said.
The report, which the commission delivered to President Barack Obama and to Congress on Thursday, is the result of an extensive inquiry involving the review of millions of pages of documents, interviews with more than 700 witnesses, and 19 days of public hearings in New York, Washington, D.C., and communities across the country.
However, in a dissenting opinion, three members of the commission categorically rejected some of the commission's conclusions, specifically the contention that too little regulation was to blame.
"We … reject as too simplistic the hypothesis that too little regulation caused the crisis," wrote commissioners Keith Hennessey, Douglas Holtz-Eakin and commission Vice Chairman Bill Thomas.
They added, "The majority says the crisis was avoidable if only the United States had adopted across-the-board more restrictive regulations, in conjunction with more aggressive regulators and supervisors. This conclusion by the majority largely ignores the global nature of the crisis."
The dissenters strongly faulted the majority of the commission for not considering events in Europe and around the world that may have played a role
"By focusing too narrowly on U.S. regulatory policy and supervision, ignoring international parallels, emphasizing only arguments for greater regulation, failing to prioritize the causes, and failing to distinguish sufficiently between causes and effects, the majority's report is unbalanced and leads to incorrect conclusions about what caused the crisis," they wrote.
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June 05, 2026 16:18 ET A busy week for economic news flow saw a slew of reports being released that reflected the trends in the U.S. labor market. In Europe, economic growth and inflation data gained attention as the European Central Bank and Bank of England head for policy session later in the month. In Asia, the monetary policy session of the Indian central bank was in focus as the country, a major oil importer, reels under the pressures of a weaker rupee and rising inflation.