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$196 billion lawsuit just filed against 17 major banks on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Bank of America is severely exposed in this lawsuit. As the parent company of Countrywide and Merrill Lynch they are on the hook for $57.4 billion. JP Morgan is next in the line of fire with $33 billion. And many death spiraling European banks are facing billions in losses as well. FHA Files a $196 Billion Lawsuit Against 17 Banks The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), as conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises), today filed lawsuits against 17 financial institutions, certain of their officers and various unaffiliated lead underwriters. The suits allege violations of federal securities laws and common law in the sale of residential private-label mortgage-backed securities (PLS) to the Enterprises

In 2002 Warren Buffett famously referred to derivatives as 'financial weapons of mass destruction.' But beyond that headline, few in the media took the time to actually communicate what Buffett was really saying, and the risks that the unregulated derivatives markets posed to the banking system.

It would have been more effective to have nationalized the banks and cut the risk out at the source, but the new president Obama was badly advised to say the least, by advisors he himself appointed, who were in fact long time insiders in the creation of the risk situation itself.

In the case of the 2008-9 crisis, Bush-Obama failed to dictate terms, and essentially allowed the banks to do whatever they wished to keep going without reforming the system, taking huge sums of money and paying off their bets while maintaining their bonuses and most of their positions. And this was a monumental political failure indeed, and history will probably not be kind.