I'm Mad as Hell!

I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!

So spake the protagonist Howard Beale (Peter Finch) in Paddy Chayevsky's "Network". He was mad at the state of the modern media – modern in 1975.

He had a great line, but he was thinking way too small.

We are witnesses to the systematic destruction of the U.S. financial system, all because of the “lowly mortgage” (thank you Chuckie Schumer!). And everyone wants to know who is to blame? I will tell you right here and right now and end the mystery.

Blame it on:

Everyone. That’s right, we are all to blame. All of us. All of us who . . .

. . . Advocated making it easy for any fool to buy a house by telling the federal agencies (HUD among others) and GSE’s (Fannie & Freddie) to push easy lending rules because 1 - “diversity” and “equal opportunity” are important (politicians since at least the Carter Administration), 2 - “it feels good” to help others, and 3 - “Who Cares? I got mine,” combined with “We can just print more money.”

. . . Bought houses (many, many of us) we could not afford with terms and conditions we did not understand (or worse, understood and planned to pay no attention to), because “Wow, we can afford that much?” and “Who cares? We are getting ours now.”

. . . Had several opportunities to fix the problem through legislation (those pesky politicians) after several warnings from knowledgeable people, but failed to rein in anyone (actually, they made the problem worse) at those GSE’s (Fannie & Freddie) and the lenders following F&F’s foolish rules, because 1- they are clueless about this stuff just like everyone else, and 2 – “Who cares? I got mine.”

. . . Originated the loans (loan officers & mortgage brokers) with the lousy terms because it was easy and the money was great, and “Who cares? I got mine.”

. . . Sold those loans (commercial banks and mortgage lenders) to GSE’s (Fannie & Freddie again) and large investors (all of the Wall Street investment banks) because 1 – that got them more money to lend out to more fools and 2 – “Who cares? I got mine.”

. . . Packaged those lousy loans and sold them (Fannie & Freddie – starting to see a pattern?) again as mortgage-backed securities to insurance companies (AIG anyone?) and pension funds, and retirement funds, etc. because 1 - they got great ratings (AAA!) from the government-approved rating agencies, and 2 - “Who cares? I got mine.”

. . . Gave the AAA ratings to sub-prime mortgage bonds (the three government approved ratings agencies) when they didn’t know anything about rating the quality of a mortgage, because 1 – if they didn’t, they would lose all that great rating business and 2 - “Who cares? I got mine.”

. . . Created several types of “derivatives” of the lousy mortgage bonds and sold them for cents on the dollar (leverage anyone?) to each other (All the companies that have now failed or are about to be bailed out) so that when the base mortgages quit paying, the whole shebang would crash and burn because 1- “This thrill ride will never end!” and 2 – “Who cares? I got mine.” (of course, the only ones with theirs are the ones who put it somewhere safe – like buried in the back yard)

. . . Bought off the politicians (Chris Dodd, Kent Conrad just to start the list) and GSE’ executives (Franklin Raines & James Johnson to name two) with campaign cash and waaay below market rates on mortgages while siphoning off hundreds of millions from the company he built (Angelo Mozilo) because 1 – he knew there were lots of crappy loans on the Countrywide books but no one else did yet and 2 – “Who cares? I got mine.”

. . . Are going to bail-out all these multiple layers of stupidity and greed with the hard earned money of the rest of us and our inheritors (politicians once again) because 1- “Why Not? We started it all.” And 2 – “Who cares? I got mine.”

So, that’s about it. Did I miss anyone? Probably. I don’t think the Boy or Girl Scouts had anything to do with it, but I could be wrong, after all . . .

“Who cares? I lost mine.”