In his best-selling summer, House of Cards (“House of Cards”), William Cohan, a former Bear Stearns, posed the question bluntly: should the banks get paid for their responsibility in the financial collapse of 2008? Three years after the start of the subprime crisis, the subprime sold to individuals, the Federal government has made an initial response: he decided to press charges against 17 banks and financial institutions, and their demands tens of billions of dollars. The complaint was filed late Friday by the Federal Housing Finance (FHFA), but it had caused the fall of the American Stock Exchange before the weekend of three days (yesterday was a holiday due to Labor Day) to due to a leak in the New York Times.

The decline in banking stocks, including that of Society General complained against with six other foreign, contributed yesterday violent drop in European markets. After long hesitation, the Obama administration, criticized for not having challenged the banks in the subprime crisis, is on the offensive. The U.S. government, which had spent $ 700 billion (nearly 500 million euros) to keep the banks afloat, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in late 2008, demand has more than 200 billion in damages to the largest names in finance. In its complaint, alleges that the FHFA JPMorgan or Morgan Stanley of lying to investors.