By 2000, the subprime loan market was worrying many observers. Some thought the Fed or the SEC might have informal authority to do something about subprime mortgages, and in 2000, Federal Reserve governor Edward Gramlich asked Fed chairman Alan Greenspan to send examiners to investigate. But Greenspan—a libertarian and Ayn Rand acolyte—refused.65 Nor would he raise margin requirements (minimum down payments) on lending for the purpose of buying stock. The Fed had a long history of imposing such requirements, so it was well within Greenspan’s authority to do so, and as the stock market climbed
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