PETER J. WALLISON is the Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a policy organisation in Washington, DC. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Between 1985–1986, he was White House Counsel for President Ronald Reagan. Before that, between 1981 and 1985, he was General Counsel of the US Treasury. He was a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission,a group created by the US Congress to report on what caused the financial crisis of 2008. He writes frequently on financial regulatory matters, US housing policy and related matters.