On Wednesday, administration spokesmen declined to endorse any dramatic federal action. They declared that they had found no "systemic" threat to the financial system from the foreclosure problems, spoke of "mistakes" and "errors" rather than pervasive fraud and said the banks and servicers now need to "fix" their "processes."
They "cannot even bring themselves to use the 'f' word -- fraud," Black and Wray write. "They substitute euphemisms designed to trivialize elite criminality."
The central problem appears to be that Obama Administration continues to see the mortgage and foreclosure crises primarily through the eyes of the banks -- not through the eyes of the regular people who became their victims, or even the taxpayers who bailed out the very fat-cat bankers who are now back to their tricks.
Black and Wray write:
This nation's most elite bankers originated and packaged fraudulent nonprime loans that destroyed wealth -- and working class families' savings -- at a prodigious rate never seen before in the history of white-collar crime. They created the worst bubble in financial history, echo epidemics of fraud among elite professionals, loan brokers, and loan servicers, and would (if left to their own devices) have caused the Second Great Depression.The two professors call for "[n]othing short of removing all senior officers who directed, committed, or acquiesced in fraud."
For more on William K. Black, read my Oct. 20 story on his blistering critique of the press coverage of the financial crisis: Nine Stories The Press Is Underreporting -- Fraud, Fraud And More Fraud.
If you care about equal rights for Americans under the law, read this article and share it with your friends. Americans need to fight for the return of non-predatory banking practices and for the right to expect our elected officials to look out for us when Big Business takes advantage as it did in the Recession and the recent BP oil spill. Speak out and share information.