This is from last weeks episode of This American Life, it is truly radio journalism at it’s best. I listened to it on my way to work and just couldn’t believe my ears. The Episode is about a hedge fund by the name of Magnetar who created CDO’s with hand picked destined to fail home mortgages and then bet against them using a credit default swap. A group called ProPublica worked with NPR’s team to break the story . Today on their web site there was a great article from the Wall Street Journal identifying 500,000 destined to fail mortgages that were part of one of the CDO deals with Goldman Sachs. Here is an excerpt, please click on the text and read the full story:
There are human beings behind this $1 billion dollars, and that is what makes this so horrible. People who have worked their whole lives to save for their homes. I know that people can be greedy, but I am a true believer that these hand picked mortgages and the people in them were mislead, in the name of profit. Yes it is nice that Obama is getting together with his congress to try to put regulations in place to stop this kind of activity in the future, but what about these people who have lost everything and now have to continue to pay taxes into a system that supports 18 billion in net profit (this quarter) and then 5 billion in bonuses for 3 months work. The people behind this should be ashamed, and I believe put in jail. These people were GROSSLY irresponsible, in a way that has caused an international crisis.
I hope that more of this kind of coverage becomes viral, until Americans become outraged, like they did against the perpetrators in 9.11 we will never see real change. We also need to demand more from the banks to help families keep there homes. This like many other issues will go overlooked I am afraid because those who have suffered most are in the lower Escalon’s of society, and they like all the others who continually get slapped around by capitalism, will probably never have a voice.
Here is the new and improved version of the Producers original song “we can do it” give it a spin, sadly I think this would make a wonderful Broadway Play!
It’s like I told my friends down the street the other day, “We operate on the idea of trust and when trust is betrayed, the world becomes unsafe.” I explained that it was the governments responsibility to regulate these big companies and banks and they didn’t do it. Bush appointed people who would look the other way. So did Reagan. The last two major financial crisies were brought about by the R. The Savings and Loan Crisis under Reagan and the Banking Crisis under Bush. Yet, to listen to them, you’d think they had nothing to do with it. They are all like Pontius Pilate. Trust needs to be restored and the only way that can happen is with the consumer protection agency Obama wants. Of course the R’s don’t want it. Let’s hope that the finance overhaul bill which is before them will be the R’s Waterloo.