>just a symptom and an effect of the initial cause.

The major problem was that the banks had all that bad debt, not Fannie and Freddie. The government caused Fannie and Freddie to take on a lot of bad debt, but that in no way sank the economy. The stampede for the mortgage securities was all private sector and voluntary.

Saying that Bear Stearns' collapse was a 'symptom' of government policy is the conservative party line, and it's maliciously untrue.