The architect behind mortgage-backed securities Franklin Bank Chairman Lewis Ranieri told Holfstra University conference-goers that the federal government and private partners should remove 1 million homes from the housing market and turn them into lease-to-own rentals in order to turn the economy around.

He blamed the collapse of mortgage-backed securities on a breakdown of checks and balances and scoffed at the way the government is approaching the problem now.

“You can’t do restructuring loan by loan,” he says.

Ranieri, a former chairman at now-defunct Salomon Brothers, supports changes in bankruptcy laws to allow judges to reset loans.

Source: Investment News Daily, Andrew Coen (12/01/08)