Attorney General Brown should be applauded for going after the worst
of the worst offenders who are responsible for the mortgage meltdown. Unfortunately, even the attorney general doesn’t have the resources to
prosecute every bad actor who contributed to the current mess.
For
every Angelo Mozilo and David Sambol there are a thousand guys you’ll
never hear of who are guilty of the exact same deceptions, but on a
smaller scale.
The Attorney General’s suit will expose the
flaws in the current system that allowed people like Mozilo to profit
off of so many homeowners.
Unless the state and federal
government step up and pass new rules to reign in abusive lending
practices, we are just going to see more well dressed businessmen doing
the perp. walk with no assurance that another meltdown can be avoided.
While
the Attorney General has a strong case based on Countrywide’s deceptive
practices, the reality is that the loan products that led to the crisis
were, and still are, perfectly legal. The scale of the mortgage crisis
and its effects beyond the lending industry make mortgage lending
reforms crucial to protecting new home buyers as well as the economy.
