Wednesday, February 01, 2012

I'd say Bill Black is slightly upset

You can see smoke coming out of his head when you read his latest comment on our leaders' attempts to ignore the reality of the fraud and criminality that was a major factor in the Great Recession. It is titled Holder & Obama’s Propaganda is “Belied by a Troublesome Little Thing Called Facts”. Here are some excerpts:
  • Neither (Bush or Obama) administration has prosecuted any elite CEO for the epidemic of mortgage fraud that drove the ongoing crisis. This contrasts with over 1,000 elite felony convictions arising from the S&L debacle. The ongoing crisis caused losses more than 70 times greater than the S&L debacle and the amount of elite fraud driving this crisis is also vastly greater than during the S&L debacle. 
  • TRAC reports that the number of financial institution fraud prosecutions under Obama is less than one-half the number 20 years ago. Bush (II) was slightly better than Obama in prosecuting non-elite financial institution frauds, but both were pathetically bad. 
  • The New York Times reported on January 23, 2012 that the administration rushed to try to reach a settlement with the five largest banks that engaged in massive foreclosure fraud so that it could take credit for it in the State of the Union (SOTU) address. The headline for the article was “Political Push Moves a Deal on Mortgages Inches Closer.” The administration did not deny the statements made in the article. 
  • While the President was reviewing drafts of a major address to the nation that emphasized that politics should never have a role in government service two of his cabinet officers, Attorney General Holder and HUD Secretary Donovan, were devising a partisan lobbying strategy aimed at getting the state AGs to approve a disgraceful surrender to five of the nation’s largest banks. He either did not notice the contradiction or did not feel any need to end the impropriety. Have we lost our capacity for outrage?

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