There is a cause (culprit) of this banking boondoggle (swindle) and they should be exposed & charged. Their penalty should be (ideally) a requirement that they make whole their victims, specifically borrowers who were misled into buying into a real estate bubble. Clearly, the victims should not be on the hook for the big fraud.

Well since all of these institutions are still in business the case seems trivial at best. The only way to insure proper justice is served would be for the Government to shut all these criminal institutions down completely and have every single person who played a role in this “SHELL” game arrested and sent to prison. Until this happens, I’m afraid it will simply be business as usual. And that ain’t good………….Pardon the grammar….

I am a Real Estate Broker with over 25 years of experience.

I remember very well when World Savings began promoting very expensive negatively amortizing adjustable rate loans and paying (bribing) their loan officers with obscenely high commissions to sell those loans, rather than other loan products that would have been more suitable for their clients..

I consider those toxic loans that World Savings promoted and sold very aggressively to be examples of the kind of predatory lending that is more commonly associated with loan sharks, not a respectable bank.

I was particularly offended when World Savings loan officers tried to sell those toxic destructive predatory loans to my clients.

Essentially the World Saving loan officers were trying to sell those toxic mortgages to my clients because those loans were most profitable to World savings and the loan officers who sold those loans, not because those loan products were the best for my clients..

Many years ago I had a number of rather heated discussions with loan officers from World Savings and several of their managers because many of their marketing materials were misleading at best and fraudulent at worst.

It got to the point that I not only advised all of my clients to have absolutely nothing to do with World Savings, I also advised as many of my colleagues as I could, of the problems with the World Savings toxic, predatory loans and to have nothing to do with World Savings because World Savings loan officers insisted on selling those toxic, predatory mortgages so aggressively.

As I see it, the rest of the lenders followed World Savings when the rest of the lenders saw how profitable those toxic, predatory loans were for World Savings.

One of those lenders that followed World Savings was Countrywide.

Those toxic, predatory loans have created an enormous amount of the misery and losses to people who were sold those toxic, predatory loans.

Although I do agree that I find it hard to believe that all of those toxic, predatory loans caused the current economic crisis, those toxic, predatory loans did add a great deal of the misery and destruction that we have seen when the downturn in the global economy hit us.

Although I do not see how we could have avoided the downturn in the global economy, we could have avoided much of the destruction and misery that was caused by those toxic mortgages when we were hit by the downturn in the global economy.
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With respect to the Bank of America, most of the toxic, predatory mortgages were sold by Countrywide, not Bank of America.

Although when Bank of America bought Countrywide, Bank of America inherted those toxic, predatory mortgages, and now has the responsibility for those toxic, predatory mortgages. In my opinion we should remember that it was Countrywide, not Bank of America that sold those toxic, predatory mortgages in the first place, and that Countrywide was following the lead of World Savings in very aggressively promoting and selling, those toxic, predatory mortgages in the first place. .

Thank you,
Charles Butterfield, MBA
Real Estate Broker/REALTOR

They were following Fannie/Freddie rules for the mortgages which started giving loans to unqualified borrowers in 2002. Some markets have overswung and went down to 1997 levels but alot are around 2002-03. Better markets are getting to the typical appreciation rate for the last 60 years. We needed a correction!
If anyone is to blame it is congress that set the Guidelines.

Thanks Charles. I believe you have pretty well nailed the turning point from which this country headed south. I remember well unplugging, my land-line and turning off my cell phone until I wanted to use them, to avoid the relentless calling by mortgage brokers promising the world if we would refinance. Of course, anyone who fell for that, especially with Countrywide, soon found that as soon as the loan changed hands and the brokers took their pound of flesh, the rates went through the roof and monthly payments exploded. I agree that more should be done to bring these crooks to justice, and those scammed should be made whole again.