Countrywide Said to Be Subject of Federal Criminal Inquiry – New York Times Why isn’t anyone asked the question: What good is Sarbanes-Oxley if this could so easily happen?
The federal authorities have opened a criminal inquiry into Countrywide Financial for suspected securities fraud as part of the continuing fallout over the mortgage crisis, government officials with knowledge of the case said on Saturday.
The Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are looking at whether officials at Countrywide, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, misrepresented its financial condition and the soundness of its loans in security filings, the officials said.
It’s not the law, it’s the conservative Republican philosophy, which simply doesn’t know how to govern.
Get rid of all the Republican criminals and things will get a lot better.
@#19 – I think the Republican argument about a hands off economy is partially negated by the fact that when these terrible, dangerous and short-sighted business practices create a massive financial crisis the government either is required to bail them out or is effectively required to bail them out to avoid a severe chain reaction to the economy.
It pisses me off that insurance companies and banks always need bailouts. Shouldn’t insurance companies work to manage risk and shouldn’t banks work to maintain a certain level of portfolio diversity to avoid these fiascos?
I mean, we’ve even seen the Enron collapse.
I think any company with of sufficient size and risk to impact the national economy should have special laws entangling executive pay and stock benefits to an amortized term that includes performance of said company 5-10 years out.
Right now, these jokers can screw the company, leave/retire and then the company tanks and “we the people” are left paying for it.
#20–HMeyers==yea verily. Who profits and follow the money! The politicians rake in their pay-offs/bribes/contributions in all market conditions. Poor people get elected to Congress–they all leave as millionaires 2/4 years
later.
The Best choices we voters can make remains the least evil of those running. I say vote all encumbents out until they get the message, but as long as people vote their “values” this will not happen. Pork Barrel Politics advantaging a few people at a time to the detriment of all rules the day.
Its all very obvious and observable from day to day. In essence, democracy doesn’t work, but its “the best” system we have? The solution is a leader to bring our society a “culture of civic responsibility” but that is near impossible.
Some basic easy simple laws could actually change alot and form a basis for the needed change==eg==limitations on CEO compensation. STOP THE MONEY AT THE SOURCE!! and a lot of downstream changes would happen without further regulation.
Like I said, won’t happen. And again==it would be somehow more acceptable if it weren’t so obvious!!!!!! And so it goes.
@21 – “Get rid of all the Republican criminals and things will get a lot better.”
You mean like the good Democrats that presided over the Savings and Loans mess, the House Banking scandal and the Keating Five?
Republicans = bad does not make Democrats = good.
Sell crazy somewhere else, as you can see from this blog, we’re all stocked up here
#23 – Poor people get elected to Congress
In what Marvel Comic Universe?
You keep making these guys out to be criminals for lending to poor people. Yeah, misrepresenting their portfolios when they sell the loans to other banks is fraud and criminal, but that’s a rich person’s squabble. I don’t want banks deciding not to lend to the poor.
The majority of subprime loans are not defaulting. According to you guys, those people should be thrown to the streets for trying to live beyond their means.
You can’t legislate morality.
I hate to sound old fashioned, but our lack of honesty in this country has gone beyond the turning point.
This is why I wretch every time some damn fool in DC wants to let “free market forces” or “competition” be the answer to a problem. Those days are G-O-N-E!! We are screwed. I’m only jealous that I sat around and didn’t steal mine while the getting was good.
Of course playing Nero’s fiddle for 7 years hasn’t helped.