Its the Ken Lay Disease all over again! none will see jail time, still live inside thier penthouses and make mega $ from overseas accounts.
Tell that to the vet who died from cancer from being exposed to Depleted Urianiam and his own mother mortaged her home to pay for the Bills the VA wouldint pay for.

Its never going to happen folks,, money buys a goverment and court and the rest just sit in the fucking dark.

It starts at the top and some Americans want to elect John McKeating to the WH?

i wonder how long it take for them to mcBlame bill clinton for this to

It is about time that some of these big crooks,who were running financial schemes are now facing justice.
But that's still drop in a bucket when one considers the the size of the scheme, the amount of home equities lost,and the number of homes foreclosed.

You live in a plutocracy. I'll repeat that, you live in a PLUTOCRACY. It doesn't matter who you vote for, term limits don't mean a thing. The president is a figurehead and the house and senate are impotent shadow puppets dancing on the strings of their corporate masters.

When this is all over and done with, a few sacraficial lambs will have been thrown to the lions and the people will pat themselves on the back and declare "Justice is done!" meanwhile the real criminals sit behind the scenes, conducting business as usual, untouched and laughing their asses off.

All financial institutions are fraudulent. Hell, look at the interest charged for a loan in comparison to interest paid on bank accounts. The ones charged are just little fish in the barrel and that is all that will be charged, cuz hey, everyone knows that employees are always fraudulent, but not their companies CEO's. Ha!

love the USA but i will NOT stand by and support a neo nazi facist regiem and its ppl that cheer Bush as if he is some new leader. About the only thing GWB can lead his wife in to the bedroom , after hes done a line of coke and Pickels took a xnanax. GOD bless,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,america,,,,,,?
------------------

Lemme correct that sorry folks!
NOT NOT NOT being the key word above .

Krugman's piece last Friday, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/opinion/13krugman.html, made a great point about how regulation can actually be good for business. Whether it's foreign beef buyers having faith in American exports or borrowers having faith in the financial industry, a system of "trust but verify" can work to everyone's benefit.

but...but...didn't the GovernmentAdministration bail out Bear Sterns? Surely they wouldn't aid criminals.....

i recently moved to las vegas....possibly the capital of foreclosure.the market is flooded with inventory. this scheme has touched a lot of lives. home values have decreased 25%....and there is more to come. crime rates are high here and high school graduation rate is the lowest in the country 45%. due to the vacant homes less property tax revenue is being collected...hurting public services which were subpar prior to this. there will be opportunity in a couple years or so.....i'm leaving i moved here from blue state big difference. the crime here is kept quiet so not to disturb the gaming industry

fine, it's a start. wake me when they go after the big boyz.

only small fish get caught in america.

How is it feeling to get Bushed

I'll believe justice is done when the feds walk up to the McCain campaign and clap the cuffs on Phil and Wendy Gramm.

Think we'll see that?

A little safe tasering would be nice to see too.

..

You have to watch the Abrams report or whatever they call it now, yoiu have to watch it RIGHT NOW!! MSNBC.

Bush's answer is to strengthen the Federal Reserve. lolz

indicted after the damage has already been done...thx to the bush crime family

miss_kitty @ 32:

And when will this exact same thing happen to the bastards manipulating the oil market?

Soon.

That should read "Hundreds of second and third tier perps without aceess to Bush's power strcuture are indicted"

Elliot Spitzer's NY State Dept was trying to educate consumers about predatory lending practices, and his efforts were stymied by the Bush administration, who invoked an arcane provision in the law, preventing Elliot Spitzer from making the public aware about the scams afoot. Elliot Spitzer then wrote an article, wherein he showed how it was that the Bush administration cooperated with certain banks, and protected their operations, and foiled NYS from educating consumers.

One month later, Spitizer was disgraced and lost his governorship over some indiscretions. Yes, of course they were wrong. Stay with me now! Truth be known, almost every politician has some skeletons in the closet, and no one is innocent. The indulgences of those in high places are known to insiders, but as long as they don't make enemies, these things don't come into public scrutiny. The fact is, that the Bush administration just dug up some easy dirt on Spitzer, to discredit the messenger, and punish him for exposing Bush's complicity with the sub-prime predatory practices that led to the current banking debacle. (Bear Stearns is just the tip of the ice berg.) Its the same intimidation and fear tactic the bush admin. used, when they outed Valerie Plame as a CIA agent, because her husband honestly wrote in an op/ed piece, that he found no evidence of Saddam Hussein looking for nuclear weapons materials in Africa. (as the admin. had claimed, in support of the much-repeated WMD mantra) The Clinton admin. also resorted to such mob-style intimidations, using the power of IRS audits to scare away critics, and deflect investigations into their shady dealings. What we live in now in the USA is not a democracy, but a sort of financial theocracy. "Might makes Right"

NoBuddy @ 40:

The big fish in this scheme are the rating agencies, such as Standard & Poor's, Moody's or Fitch. It was the assignment of a AAA grade to the mortgage backed securities that allowed the securities to be sold for more than they were worth, making the whole scheme profitable. Now who wudda thunk that a lot of no money down loans, with interest only payments for a while, followed by balloon payments, might not be worthy of a AAA rating. Perhaps the common man or a drunk in an alley could figure it out, but for some reason, Standard & Poor's, Moody's or Fitch couldn't? The rating agencies, grading these securities with the highest investment grade, were the enablers of the scam.

Mm-Hm, and the knee-jerk reaction is to grant the Fed more sweeping powers! (We wouldn't want this kind of thing to happen again, now, would we?)

"Create a crisis, provide your solution"

John Amato I disagree with the parting comment. There are laws and regulations in place, many weren't followed, people are going to go to jail as a result. Many people who bought into homeownership were naive, and there should be no laws or regulations protecting people from that. People were having checks handed to them when buying a house. That's ridiculous. If it's too good to be true... Did any of these people hire a real estate attorney to check the deal? You're going to buy a $150,000 house let alone a $500,000 house and you're going to go cheap on the fee a real estate attorney charges to vet out the paper work and talk about the consequences of the options?

Instead of more regulations, I'd rather see people take responsibility for their stupid choices. Did they read all of those documents they signed? You don't get an aggressive ARM that suddenly becomes explosively expensive to pay for without having signed a document.

Uncle Joe Mccarthy Said:
"and i want compensation for my electric bills"

That's Communism!

The American Way is to SHUT UP and pay your bills so that the CEO can 'earn' his million dollar bonus from fu*#ing you over.

Welfare is ONLY for the already wealthy! If you make less than $2M a year, you don't deserve a dime! That's the Republican Way!

If they'd only met with Dick Cheney first, they'd still be free and we wouldn't know anything about it.

I refinanced my home in January, 2006. The mortgage broker tried to sell me an interest only loan that let me borrow against my rising equity. I said no, I wanted a straight 15-year mortgage. The broker told me, honest to God, "That wouldn't be in your best interests, and I cannot ethically let you do that." Eventually she gave in, and I got my loan.

These people are sleazy.

nomoreclintonorbush @ 43:

John Amato I disagree with the parting comment. There are laws and regulations in place, many weren't followed, people are going to go to jail as a result. Many people who bought into homeownership were naive, and there should be no laws or regulations protecting people from that. People were having checks handed to them when buying a house. That's ridiculous. If it's too good to be true... Did any of these people hire a real estate attorney to check the deal? You're going to buy a $150,000 house let alone a $500,000 house and you're going to go cheap on the fee a real estate attorney charges to vet out the paper work and talk about the consequences of the options?

Instead of more regulations, I'd rather see people take responsibility for their stupid choices. Did they read all of those documents they signed? You don't get an aggressive ARM that suddenly becomes explosively expensive to pay for without having signed a document.

I disagree with that. Caveat emptor or "let the buyer beware" has already been replaced with Truth in Lending regulations. There are unfair and deceptive practices statutes in many states that regulates retailers. I would favor making the same unfair and deceptive practices statutes applicable to any retailer, also applicable to any lender. How 'bout this for a simple regulation: If it's a 30 year loan, print off the monthly repayment schedule for the next 30 years so that the borrower can review what he is getting into. In the age of computerization, a simple PC could print the schedule. Let's see 30×12=360 entries - wouldn't take an awful lot of paper to make it starkly clear what the borrower is getting into. There are social consequences to excessive foreclosures that don't benefit society. I don't like the idea of a lot of anglers taking advantage of unsophisticated and naive borrowers, especially, until when these mortgages backed securities started happening, we had a long tradition of lenders making suitable loans, because the lenders were the ultimate holders of the loans.

nomoreclintonorbush @ 43:

John Amato I disagree with the parting comment. There are laws and regulations in place, many weren't followed, people are going to go to jail as a result. Many people who bought into homeownership were naive, and there should be no laws or regulations protecting people from that....

Instead of more regulations, I'd rather see people take responsibility for their stupid choices. Did they read all of those documents they signed? You don't get an aggressive ARM that suddenly becomes explosively expensive to pay for without having signed a document.

One more thing. Unlike lending in the past, in the current situation, there was two transactions taking place. One was making the mortgage to the lender. The other transaction was selling the mortgage to an investor. So, the slimebag originator is screwing two parties. I just don't see the value or use in allowing these kind of people to operate in a Caveat emptor or “let the buyer beware” environment, and whether it's regulation or statutes, this kind of stuff needs to halted in its tracks. I think these slimebags need to go out and get a real job.

Gretchen @ 18:

I'm amazed they're finally getting around to it. Our small-town newspaper has sometimes had three full pages of foreclosure notices in a six page classified section. This has been going on, daily, for 3 years. Foreclosure notices every day.
I am with some posters above in the opinion that the guys at the top of this thing won't serve a day.

foreclosure dot com for some grim statistics 1,8 million going by this,
you can see how bad it is in yours or anybodys area via a map.

three neighbours of Chimpy in Crawford are being foreclosed on.
I wonder if he will notice them as they pack their belongings into cardboard boxes and wave to them as they leave town for the homeless shelter, maybe he might be a good neighbour and let them sleep in one of his barns.

chris [not the troll] @ 56:

Why does the FBI hate capitalism? :(
/sarcasm

You know, the part that really disgusts me is that the same 'business models' keep being used - 'screw the customer for every penny you can, we'll all get stinkin' rich!!'. I have seen firsthand that if you respect your customers, tell them the truth, and even refuse to take their money when you know they won't be satisfied in the work they think they want you to do for them... you will make MORE MONEY. Trying to nickel-and-dime them to death at every opportunity may get you a nickel and a dime today, but they will go somewhere else tomorrow. A loyal, happy customer is priceless. How come none of the 'experts' have discovered this??

Gretchen @ 18:

I'm amazed they're finally getting around to it. Our small-town newspaper has sometimes had three full pages of foreclosure notices in a six page classified section. This has been going on, daily, for 3 years. Foreclosure notices every day.
I am with some posters above in the opinion that the guys at the top of this thing won't serve a day.

foreclosure dot com for some grim statistics 1,8 million going by this,
you can see how bad it is in yours or anybodys area via a map.

three neighbours of Chimpy in Crawford are being foreclosed on.
I wonder if he will notice them as they pack their belongings into cardboard boxes and wave to them as they leave town for the homeless shelter, maybe he might be a good neighbour and let them sleep in one of his barns.

The really successful companies know this, hence they grow and people talk about them in nice terms.
Trouble is that when a company leaves its original owners or something drastic happens in management then bean counters take over, and short termism by board members to keep ignorant petty shareholders dominates and it goes downhill.

It would be interesting if we knew where the various McCain mansions and holiday homes are located to compile some statistics on McGivesaratsarse neighbours being foreclosed on,
If he really cared he would take them in and give his neighbours and their kids a roof over their heads.

foreclosed dot com

same goes for Chimpy and the three families almost out on the street in Crawford Texas.

tr @ 60:

is lehman bros. bankrupt yet?

Republican corporate welfare will save them

any regulation that comes from this will be soooooo watered down that it'll be meaningless and there will more than likely be enough loopholes that the current enron loophole will look like chicken feed. The big boys will get off as for all the $$ these crooks received in bonuses it won't be touched they may spend some time in club med and come home to a nice house and nice cars unlike those they scammed
in a perfect world they'd be on a street corner somewhere selling pencils to try to pay back those they scammed and at night go to a bridge somewhere torest up

nomoreclintonorbush @ 64:

NoBuddy @ 53:

One more thing. Unlike lending in the past, in the current situation, there was two transactions taking place. One was making the mortgage to the lender. The other transaction was selling the mortgage to an investor. So, the slimebag originator is screwing two parties. I just don't see the value or use in allowing these kind of people to operate in a Caveat emptor or “let the buyer beware” environment, and whether it's regulation or statutes, this kind of stuff needs to halted in its tracks. I think these slimebags need to go out and get a real job.

I am trying to differentiate between fraudulent and predatory lending activities, and people who simply were not paying attention. Given the huge volume of real estate transactions, there appears to be a whole lot more of the latter. Being ignorant or clueless in a transaction involving hundreds of thousands of dollars and your signature might be an expensive lesson. I'm not interested in putting in one cent to bail that out.

I'm not interested in bailouts either - rather I would opt for having these loans subject to legal defenses for unfair and deceptive practices. But, the regulatory aspect was what I was speaking to. Back when banks were holding the loans that they were originating, ARM or not, they were making sure that the terms were sound. It is a huge, unprecedented shift in home mortgages to now have originators who aren't in the least bit concerned that the terms are sound, because they're selling the loan to an investor. That's where regulation needs to come in, so that these originators are crafting loans that the borrower is likely to pay back. I just don't see the value of a middleman that provides an unsuitable loan to the mortgagee, and then sells the note to an unwitting investor. Of course, the investor fraud was caused by the assignment of an AAA rating to the mortgage backed securities by the rating agencies. I see some shift towards that direction. In the end, something needs to be done to shift the bias of an originator towards making suitable loans.

NoBuddy @ 65:

I'm not interested in bailouts either - rather I would opt for having these loans subject to legal defenses for unfair and deceptive practices. But, the regulatory aspect was what I was speaking to. Back when banks were holding the loans that they were originating, ARM or not, they were making sure that the terms were sound. It is a huge, unprecedented shift in home mortgages to now have originators who aren't in the least bit concerned that the terms are sound, because they're selling the loan to an investor. That's where regulation needs to come in, so that these originators are crafting loans that the borrower is likely to pay back.

Originators selling loans is not that new. It's been going on for at least 20 years as far as I know because I had such a loan. I agree that some of these originators had no interest in making sure the loan was sound BUT THEN the investor or lender who bought those questionable loans must not have done their share of due diligence.

Banks other than Bear Stearns have lost a lot of money on the subprime collapse. That isn't being bailed out at all. Nor should it. They're not going to get that money back. They own houses they don't want to own. So I think that penalty is sufficient for getting their attention. I don't think regulation is going to add any necessary or additional protections in place. What you'll get are a bunch of clowns in a room who know they have to come up with something to appease the Congresscritters and then make more paper pushing jobs.

I just don't see the value of a middleman that provides an unsuitable loan to the mortgagee, and then sells the note to an unwitting investor.

Nor do I but it's not my money. Whoever is the front person for the money should care. If they don't care about making an unsound investment, why should I *as long as I don't have to bail out either party*?

I do not see the value of regulatory middlemen in this instance, other than to ensure the two parties are telling the truth.

Now there might be some justification for straightforward regulation by the SEC regarding the packaging of these debt securities into funds, once they unwind the mess.

Of course, the investor fraud was caused by the assignment of an AAA rating to the mortgage backed securities by the rating agencies. I see some shift towards that direction. In the end, something needs to be done to shift the bias of an originator towards making suitable loans.

I think it had more to do with how these were packaged, repackaged, repackaged again, yet again, and again and again. It's made it hard to track a lot of the meltdown and what went wrong. The arrest of the two guys from Bear Stearns I think is more of a way to fully unravel this and give the public some sense of vengeance than the likelihood those two guys are going to see jail time. But hey, we'll see.

If only justice were swift and heavy-handed enough to make other snake oil salesman think twice before they try to scam others for their own profit. Unfortunately, there are still things going on, because many believe they'll never be caught. Too bad if the ones they bilked end up on the streets eating out of a dumpster. That's the attitude today. Me, Me, Me.

It is time for the Democrats to make things clear to the voters in this country : Republican policies fail us again and again.
Reagan - deregulated the savings and loans. How'd that work out?
dereg'd the airlines. everyone happy with their service since then?
GOP congress (with Clinton's witless approval) dereg'd the banks and the
investment companies : we're paying the price for that now.

How long will these holes be allowed to shout "free market" and get away with it?

nomoreclintonorbush @ 62:

There are plenty of obscenely wealthy Democrats in that same boat. I have no sympathy of either of them.

But clearly you're too ignorant to understand the much greater ramifications across our economy if a dozen major banks were to go belly up. We're talking pensions and retirements funds would be damaged or gone. It would have affected mutual funds. There is no telling how bad it MIGHT, MIGHT have gotten. No one wanted to take that risk, so they went with a bailout. Not cool, but if what do you think of a bunch of people working at GM for 30 years losing their meager nest egg? Even if it were cut in 1/2? That's not fair either, and by then there's no way this government could have leveraged the crisis, had it gone too far. The problem is it is not known if it would have gone too far. Yes maybe just a few rich fucks would have gotten shafted. Fine by me. That's a very risky maybe. And actually many of those rich fucks did get shafted anyway, the bailout helped to avoid a domino effect, it did not directly bail out the collapsed funds. Those guys are still looking to get some of those assets liquidated, and that will involved years of lawsuits which of course are already pending.
-snip-
You need a healthy dose of STFU buddy. I don't see Democrats stopping this bailout from going through. Oh right because the Federal Reserve isn't accountable to Congress at all. Right. I don't see them having a big problem with this in any event. Where are they on FISA? Bailout city. Where are they on Bush's war crimes? Hiding it under the rug for their Republican friends for the next time they're in trouble. Go on, take a nice big spoon full then shut the pie hole.

Hey, fuck you too.

Now that that's out of the way, do you mind not being such an asshole?

The Democratic Leadership is obviously under the control of the GOP (and has been since Reagan was installed as Acting President), so obviously the Dems are NOT going to do anything but what the GOP orders them to do. So when I say "the GOP" I mean 95% OF CONGRESS, GOP and their pwned Dems too.

The GOP handed out billions of dollars in welfare to the super-rich without any restrictions. Congress handed over US taxpayers money NOT EVEN HOPING that the super rich would do the right thing and run their businesses beyond the next quarter's posting.

The Bush Administration has carefully engineered a Great Depression over the last 7 years, starting two Illegal Wars of Naked Aggression against the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq (exactly what we hanged the Nazis for), cutting taxes to NOT pay for it, and -like ALL Republicans- driving up the deficit to astronomical proportions by selling out to China (and others).

And now that the GOP and their Democratic sock puppets are succeeding, and the dollar is dropping faster than a wet taco, they are moving to the next phase: hand over billions more, in borrowed debt, as welfare to reward the super-rich for destroying the US economy.

And it sounds like you are saying that if the US taxpayers don't reward these rich bastards for their role in this then they will make it even worse. Sounds like we are negotiating with terrorists: "give me the ransom or I will steal this GM employee's pension!" Well, shit, we'd better give him what he wants, there's no telling what worse damage they could do.

And we can't just go arrest ever single employee that was in on this intentional looting of the Treasury, from the CEOs to the floor traders, because then it would get even worse. And the Dems are NOT about to uphold the Rule of Law in Congress and hold to account the most criminal Executive the USA has ever seen. So where does that leave us?

If the Rule of Law were in effect in the US, every one in the Executive would be imprisoned, right down to the politically connected floor washer, for their egregious crimes against all humanity. 95% of Congress, Dem and GOP alike, would be right there in prison with them, and Scalia, Alito and Roberts would be impeached and imprisoned for their anti-American rulings.

But that'll never happen. So what can we do? Hand over the contents of the Treasury to the CEO of Lehman, et al, and HOPE they do the right thing?

They only showed the White boys from Bear Sterns. Ask yourself why they are not showing the mugs of the other 398 purps? Answer: Because they are from south of the border and Africa.

Jason

What's ridiculous is the idea that Hey! Look- we got the guys who did it! They caused the collapse of the housing market, high oil, high food. -What about the deficit spending, the federal reserve debasing the currency- WHY IS THERE NO INVESTIGATION AND ARRESTS AT THE FEDERAL RESERVE OR CONGRESS? They caused this entire mess- but no one in congress wants to talk about it as if its some holy temple.

Now we see how our much vaunted marketplace handles our problems.

What took so long??

I wish they gave two shits about this same exact stuff being done to college students for years now through companies like Sallie Mae. I understand that the housing market is important, but when you have kids getting in ridiculous debt with horrible interest rates just because they want to learn and help further their career possibilities, you're basically also helping prevent them from helping the economy and buying houses.

It drives me nuts.

Comrade Rutherford @ 73:

If the Rule of Law were in effect in the US, every one in the Executive would be imprisoned

Take heart my friend! Just listen to yesterday's Fresh Air podcast at WHYY 91FM. The guest was Philippe Sands Esq. specialist in international war crimes law.

By the end of the podcast, an evil grin of satisfaction should permeate your whole being. The bottom line is that officials in the Bush administration believe they're above the law. Alas for them, it is NOT so. If any judge, in any country of Europe, Asia or South America request their arrest for war crimes or crimes against humanity while outside the US, the host country has no choice but arrest them for pending extradition. Case in point: Augusto Pinochet in England, was arrested by Scotland Yard, at the request of Judge Baltazar Garzon of Madrid. The High Court of UK confirmed the legality of the arrest and set forth, a precedent that has not been challenged since.

This situation extend also to any lawyer that, while working for the Administration, did participate in rendering legal opinions that condone torture. And that means, David Addington, John Woo and plenty of others bad ass characters that are actually floating in their certitude of being untouchables.

Oh! Did I mention there is no prescription period for this type of offenses? *very evil grin*

Which leaves the next Administration with a rather difficult choice: either they pursue the matter here at home and clear the air once and for all (wash the dirty clothes in family) with all the accusations of "witch hunting" and the likes, or they wish the problem to go away in the name of political expediency, (a rather common behavior nowadays) and leave it to any foreign judicial entity to do the right thing for us, eventually.

I'll leave it to the readers to imagine what a national shame it would be to see Rumsfeld or Cheney arrested in Paris or Frankfurt while the press asking "Why couldn't you (the USA) take care of that?"