Why is everyone assuming that the conditions which led to the recession were some kind of ACCIDENT? Earlier this week MSNBC featured (see Forbes.com http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/15/paulson-falcone-earners-biz-wall-cz_js_0415wallstreet.html?feed=rss_popstories or LA Times http://articles.latimes.com/2007/apr/25/business/fi-wealth25) 25 or so top Wall Street guys that each made, minimum, half a BILLION dollars in the last year and mentioned John Paulson and Phillip Falcone, in particular, one who had profited specifically from their ANTICIPATION of the sub prime mortgage collapse.
I say: THESE GUYS HAVE, FOR YEARS, BEEN PAYING THEIR LOBBYISTS TO PRESSURE CONGRESS TO DE-REGULATE THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY TO EXACTLY WHERE IT WAS WHEN MORTGAGES COULD BE GIVEN TO ANYONE WITH A PULSE AND THEN BUNDLE (read: BURY) THOSE SUB PRIME (read: WORTHLESS) LOANS INTO "EXTREMELY COMPLICATED" DERIVATIVE DEALS TO WIND UP IN SOME OTHER (anyone else'e but MINE!) SCHMUCK-WITH-LESS-CLUE'S-HEDGE-FUND.
In other word: The tippy-top of Wall Street ENGINEERED this license-to-print-money-as-fast-as-you-possibly-can-cuz-the-music's-gotta-stop-SOMETIME-right?-game-of musical-chairs and that it's gotta be THOSE SAME GUYS WHO MADE THE MOST MONEY ON WALL STREET IN THE LAST YEAR! Ever played HOT POTATO? And they are the Wall Street "Wow! Lookit How Smart THESE Guys Are! Heroes" while Bernie (that
SCUMBAG!) goes to prison for a gazillion years!
What proof do I have? None! BUT...picture the following:
Dateline: somewhere in the rosy past pre-recession like late 2007 or so and
Joe-Blow-front-line- mortgage-lending-officer in San Bernardino, CA has just received new mortgage lending guidelines which no longer require him to verify the annual incomes claimed by applicants. Joe, after his second reading of this new detail because he was sure he must have read it wrong the first time, turns to his boss, the branch manager of the local Countrywide office, to ask, "Hey Boss, does this really mean we don't need to verify ann-" The boss cuts Joe off mid-sentence, "Shut up and WRITE, dummy!" Dummy is right! How many Joe Blow mortgage guys even bothered to question guidelines like those? I think most were too busy writing mortgages to bother.
Many of you, I'm sure, have been too busy writing death threats to anyone ever mentioned in the same breath with AIG to think outside the box and it is my sincere hope my rantings, here, haven't been too much of a distraction.
To the rest of you: Can I get a WITNESS? If so please reply here.
