As followers of my Blog know, I have long stated that our current market crash was caused by a lending industry taking advantage of a government deregulation intended to make home ownership available to more Americans. In a classic example of the Law of Unintended Consequences, the deregulation allowed lenders to sell virtually any loan they created regardless of whether or not the borrower was qualified for the loan. This house of cards eventually crashed when original teaser rates re-set and millions of borrowers could no longer afford the loans.
In 2008, Congress created a Commission to investigate the cause of the crash and appointed Sacramentan, Phil Angelides, to head it. In a blistering report that followed 18 months of testimony and fact-gathering, Angelides and his Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission blamed a wide cast of characters for the epic meltdown, including executives of insurance giant AIG and Goldman Sachs and government policymakers like Alan Greenspan, Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke. The report said human error created the crisis. The Report blamed mortgage lenders for the flood of risky subprime loans that ignored “a borrower’s ability to pay.” Wall Street investment banks recklessly packaged the loans into toxic securities that exposed the entire financial system to melt down, the report concludes.
The panel held four field hearings, all in communities that were among the hardest hit by the real estate crash: Sacramento, Las Vegas, Bakersfield and Miami. In Sacramento, commissioners heard about the Central Valley’s vulnerability to the housing price bubble. One witness testified that appraisers were pressured by lenders to make inflated appraisals so shaky loans would go through. The final report mentions Sacramento numerous times, noting that housing prices more than doubled in a five-year stretch.
All the while, government watchdogs were asleep. For more than 30 years, lawmakers and presidents bought into the free-market ethic backed by the likes of Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman. “The sentries were not at their posts,” the report said. However, following the release of the report, government officials lost no time in getting to finger-pointing. The crisis commission’s findings were caught up in immediate partisan bickering. While the report was endorsed by the six Democrats on the commission, the four Republicans refused to sign off on its conclusions.
At the press conference introducing the report, Mr. Angelides made no bones about where he stood on this question: This was an avoidable crisis, he said bluntly. As the report puts it, “The crisis was the result of human action and inaction, not of Mother Nature or computer models gone haywire. If only regulators had been willing to regulate; if only Wall Street had done proper due diligence on the mortgages it was securitizing; if only subprime companies had acted more honorably; if only the credit ratings agencies had said no when asked to slap triple-A ratings on subprime junk. If only, if only, if only”.
Now comes the real test of whether our leaders will put back in place the economic regulations necessary to prevent irresponsible lending while not stopping the economic recovery which is just beginning. We need to have a thriving lending system for our nation to continue to grow and prosper. But that lending system owes a duty to us all to act reasonably and responsibly… a duty sadly lacking in causing this market crash.
If you have specific questions about landlord-tenant law in California or about short sales, foreclosure, or any legal issues, feel free to contact us at sjbeede@bpelaw.com We offer a $200 flat fee consultation to evaluate your liabilities and strategize a resolution. This can be done in person or by phone. If interested, please call us at 916-966-2260.
The information presented in this Article is not to be taken as legal advice. Every persons situation is different. If you are upside-down on your loan(s), especially if youre facing a lender lawsuit, get competent legal advise in your State immediately so that you can determine your best options.
