12.16.07
Now We Know Why
The San Francisco Chronicle scores again with its revelation of the cause of the whole mortgage mess: misconduct within financial companies.
Over and over, the commentators keep telling us that it is the fault of the buyers, and that the lenders were totally innocent, tricked by those deceitful borrowers. The problem with that is that we know it isn’t true. For nearly a decade, we have been treated to story after story about financial companies’ complicity in misconduct that harms consumers. From the homeowners who got left holding the bag when their insurance companies refused to cover their damages from Hurricane Katrina, to the individual stockholders who lost out when mutual fund managers got preferred access to trading, to the consumer finance agencies that got caught trying to squeeze people after bankruptcy discharged their debts, to the people whose identities have been stolen but their banks do little to protect them, the financial industry as a whole has made a practice of preying upon individuals and families.
In my opinion, a test of how much the next administration’s Attorney General is doing his job is how many CEOs of the top 1,000 publicly-traded companies (plus the top 100 financial companies, public or private) are led past television cameras in shackles and orange jumpsuits the first two years. If it is less than 10%, we have to wonder just how well the person is doing his/her job.
