It’s been months since subprime mortgages troubles began to affect so many Americans, causing a spike in home foreclosures and contributing to a severe slowdown in the overall economy.

Looking back to before it all began, is there someone, or some government agency, that could have kept the whole mess from happening in the first place?

That’s one of three questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

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In the early ’80s an African-American Navy pilot was shot down over the Middle East and held captive. The Rev. Jesse Jackson negotiated his release. What ever happened to that pilot?

Michael Logan

Milwaukee, Wis.

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That was Lt. Robert O. Goodman Jr., a bombardier-navigator who retired from the Navy in 1995 and now lives in Colorado Springs, Colo. He is a senior consultant on homeland security, defense and law enforcement at Booz Allen Hamilton, a global strategy and technology consulting firm.

On Dec. 4, 1983, Goodman was on a bombing mission against Syrian anti-aircraft batteries in Lebanon when his A-6 Intruder was shot down. The pilot, Lt. Mark Lange, was killed.

Goodman was held in a Syrian prison for 30 days. Jackson went to Damascus and negotiated his release with then-President Hafez al-Assad. At the time, Goodman was stationed in Virginia Beach, Va., and was on a six-month deployment in the Middle East aboard the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy.

“When I was a captive, I didn’t know if I’d be held for one week, a month, a year,” Goodman says. “I was quite lucky to be released in 30 days.”

Now 51, Goodman seldom reflects on his imprisonment, and he is no longer in touch with Jackson. He doesn’t fly anymore, either, except on business travel.

“It’s not really a big part of who I am now,” he said of his captivity. “It comes up when people ask me.”

He does think of those days when watching the news, he said.

“You see things happen in Iraq and the other wars and other things happening overseas, and I know I see things differently from other people,” Goodman said.

Goodman and his wife, Terry, have two adult children and are grandparents. They lead what Goodman calls “a normal life.”

Mary Hudetz

Associated Press Writer, Denver

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Over a period of years, I saw newspaper articles and interviews with experts who warned of the dangers of subprime mortgages, but it seems that nothing was done to stop the practice before everything imploded.

What government entities could have intervened to avert the crisis?

Maggie Gombos

Albuquerque, N.M.

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Housing experts say the mortgage mess stemmed from a number of factors, including lenders who took advantage of weak government regulations. While the Federal Reserve in 1994 was given the power to crack down on shady lending practices, critics in Congress and elsewhere say former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan resisted calls to do so.

Recently the Fed, under Greenspan’s successor, Ben Bernanke, has proposed a tighter set of national mortgage lending standards. But with the mortgage market already suffering from a devastating meltdown, those changes may not have much immediate impact.

Alan Zibel

AP Business Writer, Washington

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Since U.S. refineries have to import more than 60 percent of the crude oil they refine, why does the country export tremendous amounts of U.S. oil to Asia and the rest of the world? That seems self-defeating!

Jim Nicholson

Columbia, Tenn.

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The U.S. exports only a very small amount of crude oil _ 26,000 barrels a day, according to the Energy Department. That’s a smidgen, compared with the 9.5 million to 10.2 million barrels we’ve imported each day in recent weeks. U.S. refineries consume about 15.2 million barrels of crude oil a day.

To meet gasoline demand, the U.S. also imports 1 to 1.2 million barrels of gasoline and gas blending components every day.

The U.S. does export about 1.4 million barrels of petroleum products each day, including distillates such as diesel fuel and residual fuel oil _ but again, those are products made from petroleum, not the crude oil itself.

John Wilen

AP Energy and Transportation Writer, New York

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Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.