If you’ve been a victim of a widespread mortgage scam, you’ll be glad to know that banks are not getting away with it. The federal agency that runs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is getting ready to file suits against a dozen big banks for misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, saying that they failed to perform due diligence and thus ignored evidence that borrowers’ incomes were either inflated or falsified (something that the banks themselves encouraged). The government is asking for BILLIONS of dollars in compensation.
We bailed out the banks, but did they deserve it? Now the government is trying to get some of that money back with lawsuits. The first-ever audit of the US Federal Reserve reveals that the government handed out 16 TRILLION dollars in secret bank bailouts from late 2007 through 2010. The Federal Reserve, like the post office, is a quasi-private agency that doesn’t always reveal what it’s doing.
In the September 1st edition of the New York Times, Nelson D. Schwartz quotes former Fannie Mae executive Tom Rood as saying, "While I believe that FHFA is acting responsibly in its role as conservator, I am afraid that we risk pushing these guys off of a cliff and we’re going to have to bail out the banks again."
On the Interpress News Service, Matthew Cardinale quotes US Senator Bernie Sanders (an Independent from Vermont) as saying, "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."
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