Monday, December 27, 2010

Foreclosure-gate Update



L. Randall Wray,
Economics Professor, Univ. of Missouri-K.C.

[excerpt:]

"When we peel back the layers of the real estate 'onion' what we find is layer after layer of fraud. From the mortgage brokers to the appraisers and lenders, from the securitizers to the ratings agencies and accountants, from the trustees to the servicers, and from MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registry System) through to the foreclosures, what we find is a massive criminal conspiracy—probably the worst in human history....

The scale of the problem is huge. Some estimate that as many as $6.4 trillion worth of home mortgages (33 million of them) are frauds, with destroyed or doctored documents....

Every top management official of all the biggest dozen banks, plus everyone at MERS, all officers of every servicer, rater, appraiser, accounting firm, and mortgage broker ought to be investigated for fraud. In the aftermath of the thrift crisis, 1852 bank insiders were prosecuted and 1072 were jailed. So far in this much bigger crisis there have been only 50 criminal probes and 80 civil lawsuits authorized by FDIC. It is time to get serious about the home thieves."


Complete commentary at benzinga.com.

No comments: