Where's the PMI

so my understanding is that pmi is insurance for those higher risk loans where people can't put down 20%. so people get around that by taking out two loans, a first and a second. apparently pmi is totally ineffective for even the cases where people don't figure out how to take out two loans because here we are in a market where risky loans are folding left and right and yet pmi is not ever mentioned in the news as helping out the mortgagers. so either the news is reporting it (possible) or pmi is just another waste of money that is totally ineffective in even doing what it claims (quite probable).