Mortgages, Defaults, Refinancing, Bankruptcy, Prison - Meltdown

Hell hath no fury like a politician looking for a scapegoat. Mortgage companies that lie, steal, and encourage others to do the same are just fine until their actions lead to economic instability. Then the FBI is sent after them.

Where was the special FBI task force when all of this lying was being done openly? Why was no one concerned then? This is not a case of sneaky documents being signed in the Cayman Islands. Mortgage companies competed for business by creating "liar loans" that required no income verification.

Now that there is political pressure from someone in Congress, the FBI springs into action. Where were they before? Why is it a crime worthy of their focus at this time, and not when the practice started to happen? And why does it take a crisis for anyone in Congress to decide there's a problem?

The financial interests of the mortgage companies put pressure on Congress such that they didn't want to see an obvious problem. Mortgage companies donate to political campaigns, after all. And they hire constituents who vote for politicians. So Congress was content to turn a blind eye towards a systemic problem.

But wait! The entire system is melting down! I might get thrown out of office! Let's get an investigation going so people associate me with vengeance instead of greed.

And that delivers us to where we are today: hunting down the mortgage lenders and giving the cowardly national leaders a pass.

Food Quality Through Public Executions

So the Chinese have shot the guy in charge of their food quality. Do you feel better now? Given the Chinese government's penchant for shooting people it hardly gives me any comfort, anyway.

Fundamentally, if someone at the top is allowing lousy and dangerous food to be exported, no one in China cares until they get caught. China doesn't even have one consistent set of trade laws. How are they going to enforce "quality" even assuming they agree with us on what that means.

If you want a great example of the failures of deregulation of business, the import of bad foodstuffs into the American diet would be a good place to start. Profit motive fails as a substitute for good policy. Profit motives are short-term and short-sighted. U.S. business has an equal share in the blame for poisoning our food supply.

Imagine: all the dogs that died from bad food from China could have been children. Would we be embracing the free market then?