Politicians in Washington have the shortest memories.

Maybe that’s why they so seldom learn from their sometimes catastrophic mistakes.

It was less than 20 years ago that the U.S. economy was flattened by the mortgage and banking crisis. Anyone remember?

The experts said that the odds were tiny that the housing market could crash; that the federal housing agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would never need a bailout; that mortgage-backed securities were as good as gold.

Then they crashed overnight spectacularly and devastatingly. Banks made riskier and riskier housing loans to subprime borrowers — and the government covered the bets with essentially 100% loan guarantees. The book “The Big Short” famously tells the story of strippers in Las Vegas playing the market and flipping houses

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