Oh this is such a gut shock.... Financial Times: FBI in subprime crackdown
Wait, you mean people stepped from the bad idea, to the stupid, to the unethical and then to the illegal?
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating 14 companies for possible accounting fraud and insider trading offences related to subprime mortgages.
The development, another sign of fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis, comes as light regulation of the industry – in particular mortgage brokers – has been blamed for mis-selling and abuse of mortgage products.
The Securities and Exchange Commission already has about three dozen different investigations into a range of subprime-related issues.
Bill Carter, an FBI spokesman, said the agency had been working “very closely” with the SEC, with some of the latest investigations moving “in parallel”. He declined to name the companies involved.
The number of mortgage fraud cases opened by the FBI jumped to 1,210 in fiscal 2007 from 436 in fiscal 2003, the agency said.
Times 10 at least.
The practices that caused this were the case and not the exception. The entire idea was not just flawed. Those who promulgated such a 'product' among large financial institutions knew damn well that illegal practices would be the end result, but that they personally wouldn't practice them. All THEY had to do was set this product loose, and let greed, and desperation and false (Yes, Barack there is a thing) hope take over.
How many MRAP's will this have cost us?
How much of this will result?
How many times will Iraqi tribal chiefs wonder if we will be more concerned with other problems, instead of theirs?
How will this embolden our killer enemies to strike at economic targets?
How much ownership (stock on the open market, or frank ownership) will sovereign wealth funds buy, or foreign Soros's invade our economic infrastructure to our national peril? When an american is about to be added to the Board of Director's will we find Talal instead, or will they merely feel obliged to check with him before a Mitt Romney or Harold Ford, or Jim Welch, or Steve Forbes type is appointed?
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