[quote=briansd1]But certain uninformed people who just don’t understand the chain of events accuse the GSEs of CAUSING the crisis.[/quote]

Brian, the GSEs were part of the system that caused the crisis. I agree that the GSEs were not the sole cause, but the implicit government guarantee behind paper issued (or repackaged) by the GSEs introduced a great deal of distortion in the market, which resulted in cheap money flowing into mortgage brokers and subprime borrowers, inflating house prices to ridiculous levels.