In response to the mortgage crisis, was the "reform" in the direction of regulating adjustible rate mortages?
No. Now the mortgage industry has reverted to the pre-Bill-Clinton era when people had to make a 20 or 30% down payment. Wealthy investors will be grabbing homes like hotcakes at low prices, while middle class wage eraners will be further locked out of home ownership. The result: an even more dramatic gap between the haves, people who own multple houses, and the have nots - average working people, and even professional people, who could pay a fair mortgage but have no means to produce a 20% or 30% on the inflated price of a house. Even though we now read reports of home prices dropping by 20% due to the mortgage crises, remember that in late 2003-2005 the housing prices doubled. So the recent demand for a 20% or 30% down payment still applies to a very inflated price of a home, perhaps 80% more than the price of the same home in 2000-2002. We are back to the days of Reagan and Bush #1, when middle class persons did not have access to home ownership.