By Owen Paine on Wednesday March 21, 2007 12:57 PM
Yes, we had a bubble from Hell surge
up under America's house lots,
and yes it involved a veritable
renaissance of sharpie Shylock
practices worthy of a Lousiana
carnival. But all this brouhaha over
"predatory practices" is a sideshow.
Take for instance this gotcha-Bushco
post by my favorite inmate of the house
of solidarity labor and shame,
Nat Neumismatic:
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/mar/19/state_tried_to_stop_subprime_bubble_but_the_feds_shut_them_down ... where he ends optimistically with this:
The new Congress seems more willing to grapple with the predatory lending problem, with Congressman Barney Frank from Massachusetts saying he would introduce legislation to restrict subprime lending.Barney? That ferocious gerbil? We'll see. But even if we do -- even if Barney exposes the whole rotten Bushco scam-a-rama -- still the real story is not the fringe-y, colorful Dickensian mortgage underworld. It's the three-year main frame made by the Fed pump up of lot values, which events now unwinding will show has lowered all our boats by raising all our lot liens.
And the master Shylock here is not some latter day strip-mall tormentor of little Nell, but that inky-haired taxi dancer from Randmania, yes, I mean Alan of green stables.
