Along with its formal report, the commission probing the financial crisis of 2008 has done an online archival dump of internal company documents that some hope, and others fear, will be of great help to litigators — even perhaps a “Wikileaks for the class action bar,” which with its allies was well represented on the commission and staff. [BLT; earlier]
More: David Frum has been doing a series of blog posts on the report’s substance.
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The whole sub-prime crisis sticks to heaven. Class action litigation might be an excellent way to put some light on this multi-billion dollar corruption:
Government mandated worthless mortgage debt created and managed by corrupt politicians running Freddie Mae and Fannie Mae.
These toxic assets bought and packaged by political cronies making billions in profits.
The payoffs, bribes, “political campaign contributions,” and insider trading is all still very much active today.
And, Smart Dude, forced on many of the lenders by courts, certain civil-rights organizations, and the C. R. A. (as amended by … Congress).
Melvin H.: 100% correct!
That certain information may be used by class action lawyers is in no way a basis to oppose transparency.
I watched Mr. Angelides presentation of the conclusion from the inquiry. What a jerk!
He said that Mr. Geithner should have better supervised CitiBank. But Citibank had a $10 million dollar a year guy with a large staff as there risk person. This fellow was well thought of and ran various scenarios to test the banks portfolio, including the possibility of a drop in house prices that matched the great depression.
Alan Greenspan was criticized even though Great Briton and some European nations were caught in the collapse too.
What happened is easy to understand. Chinese people with but one child to rely upon want to save for retirement. The same is true with the rapidly aging Europeans. They invested in American bonds, but will not spend anything for American labor. Thus there is insufficient demand for American labor to provide the income necessary to service debt. This relationship was hidden from Financial people by the fact that there was collateral for the mortgages.
Right now American companies are sitting on tons of cash. The prospects for returns on investments is limited by the lack of growth of markets. Thus the Government should spend on infrastructure and unemployment benefits. But it has to raise taxes according as more debt of any kind is not good.