Today, the Center for Public Integrity releases the results of its investigation into the housing crisis, which showed that investment banks, some of which were recipients of billions of taxpayer dollars through the federal bailout, made major investments in subprime lending.
"The top subprime lenders whose loans are largely blamed for triggering the global economic meltdown were owned or bankrolled by banks now collecting billions of dollars in bailout money -- including several that have paid huge fines to settle predatory lending charges," write John Dunbar and David Donald.
"The banks made huge profits and executives collected handsome bonuses until the bottom fell out of the real estate market."
According to their analysis, 21 of the top 25 subprime lenders were either owned or partly financed by one or more of the top bailed-out banks.
Among those banks: Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs.
Here is the list of the top 25 subprime lenders based on the center's analysis of data collected on almost 7.2 million high-interest mortgages.
The center's investigation also features maps showing where the top 25 subprime lenders originated most of their high-interest mortgages from 2005 through 2007, the period that marks the peak and collapse of the subprime boom.